The 17th annual Juke Joint Festival, originally scheduled for Thursday through Sunday, may have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 epidemic, but that is not stopping blues musicians originally scheduled to attend from playing.
Roger Stolle, co-founder and organizer of JJF, announced a Virtual Juke Joint Festival celebration will be taking place from noon to 10 p.m. Saturday. JJF is traditionally held in downtown Clarksdale with blues musicians playing at different venues.
“We had to cancel the actual Juke Joint festival due to the health crisis,” Stolle said. “Our event will be a nine-hour live streamed celebration with over two dozen musical performances running this Saturday from 12 noon to 9 p.m.”
The music can be found at www.livefromclarksdale.org, and will be followed by the world premiere of Ted Reed’s new Juke Joint Festival Revisited documentary film.
Reed’s film will be from 9 to 10 p.m. There will be 27 different acts playing for 20-minute sets. The schedule will be announced later in the week.
The Music
“We will have musicians performing from all over who would have been part of the regular Juke Joint Festival this year,” Stolle explained.
Musicians include Rev. Peyton from Brown County, Ind.; Johnny Rawls, who is originally from Hattiesburg and lived up north; Jimbo Mathis from Corinth and current Taylor resident; Lucious Spiller from Clarksdale; Grace Askew from Nashville, Tenn.; and Clarksdale resident Watermelon Slim.
JJF partnered with Shared Experiences USA and had the support of Visit Mississippi and others to make the Virtual Juke Joint Festival possible.
“Our goal is to provide at least some of the musicians from Juke Joint Festival the opportunity to reach their fans as well as provide a thank you for all of our fans and supporters,” Stolle said. “By having this event over the course of the day and into the evening, it allows us to hit a lot of different time zones. We hope this will give our festival fans the opportunity to enjoy at least part of the celebration online throughout the course of the virtual event.”
Many of the musicians will direct viewers as to how to provide virtual tips during their performance.
The next JJF is scheduled for April 15 to 18, 2021. The main events and greatest number of activities will be on Saturday, April 17, 2021.
Stolle was not sure if there will be any virtual performances next year.
“It’s probably too early to really say, but one of the thoughts would be not to stream the entire festival next year, but to pick a special event,” Stolle said.
He said a virtual performance may kickoff the event, but before making any decisions, he wants to see how Saturday’s Virtual JJF goes. He said 98 percent of the lineup for the 2021 JJF has been determined.
More information about next year’s festival can be found at jukejointfestival.com
