I think Panola Countians often forget the amazing talent that is right here in our county with the Blues Trail right smack dab in the middle.

My son, Bailey, 4, and I drove to Como February 3 to check out the Hill Country Blues Celebration. The event marked the donation to the Emily Jones Pointer Library two valuable collections of blues archives: the Alan Lomax Collection of recordings and photographs and the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation photo collection.

The town was already on the map with location of two markers on the Mississippi Blues Trail, honoring Fred McDowell and Otha Turner.

The Hill Country celebration, with a gathering of local blues artists,  began with Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band with R.L. Boyce leading a parade down Main Street.

Sharde is the granddaughter of legendary Otha Turner. who founded the Rising Star Band.

The crowd moved to the library which was packed when we entered.

Folklorist Alan Lomax’s nephew, John Lomax III, a Nashville based journalist, was there on his uncle’s behalf.

“We are here giving back to the source of which it came,” he told the crowd. “In this case it’s several recordings that my uncle made in 1959 and again in 1978 and we are proud to present a booklet of CDs and recordings and DVD of photographs making them  accessible for the people of the community.”

Alan Lomax spent two and a half months touring the south during the 1950s, making his first recordings of original folk music “where it lived and breathed,” his nephew told the full house of musicians and music lovers in the library.

Lomax met Lonnie Young and the Fife and Drum Band, the Pratcher Brothers, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. In North Mississippi he found a unique musical form that he described as “a bluesy ballad in ragtime,” lying chronologically and stylistically “between black square dance music and the first true instrumental blues.”

Performers at the celebration included The Como Mamas who were featured on the Como Now album. They performed gospel songs, bringing everyone together, whether singing along or dancing and saying “amen.”

Glen Faulkner played Amazing Grace with his diddley bow, a simple one-string instrument of African origin. Bailey and the other children in the audience were handed their own diddley bows to take home.

Loaning a collection of photos to the library was the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation, which works to draw attention to the hill country blues music indigenous to the Northern Mississippi region where the renowned blues artist was born. Representing the foundation that day was Olga Wilhemine Munding, herself a blues artist who has shared the stage with Elvis Costello, Chris Isaak, Keb Mo, Robert Randolph, Government Mule and so many more. It was with modesty that she told me later about her experiences with Jessie Mae Hemphill who she said was like a “grandmother” to her.

Olga first heard Jessie Mae’s music in Boulder, Colo. where she was a disc jockey. She wrote to Jessie Mae.

“Jessie Mae wrote me back and said she felt we already knew each other,” Olga remembered.

Olga said she and Jessie Mae later found out they shared the same birthday.

Olga moved to Mississippi  in 2000.

“I had never been to Mississippi,” Olga laughed.

She said when she knocked on Jessie Mae’s door she and Jessie Mae made eye contact and Jessie Mae hugged her saying, “Oh, Lord, I believe Jesus sent you to me.”

Olga said, “That’s how the blues work. It’s just magical.”

Olga lived with Jessie Mae  for a time and they remained friends until Jessie Mae’s passing in the summer of 2006.

Olga said Jessie Mae had called her in 2003 when Otha Turner died and they went to Otha’s funeral together.

That day they both talked about the blues and what would happen to the music when the originals died.
Olga subsequently founded the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation to preserve and archive the indigenous music of this area and to provide assistance for musicians in need, not able to survive on meager publishing royalties.

After leaving the library Bailey and I decided to hang around Como a little longer. We visited the art gallery and met Sharon McConnell Dickerson who is well known for her sculptures of blues artists like Otha Turner, Blind Mississippi Morris, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Bo Diddley, Bobby Blue Bland, and the list goes on.

Dickerson’s eyesight is failing and she has a guide dog named Avatar that Bailey immediately fell in love with.

After visiting the Green Grocer and purchasing some healthy treats, we decided to call it a night.

The next day Olga invited me to come along on a Blues Bus tour of the Como area.

I was about to jump out of my boots.

I met Olga, John Lomax and his wife, Melanie, Como blues aficionado Sherman Cooper, Como librarian Alice Pierotti, photographer Dennis Head, and Como musican and organic farmer Marshall Bartlett. We embarked on a  trip to significant local blues landmarks, traveling on a bus driven by Sherman as Southern blues played over the speakers. We stopped at Sherman’s farm where Jessie Mae Hemphill and Friends’ album “Dare You To Do it Again,” was recorded in 2003.

We visited Mississippi Fred’s burial site where Mr. Lomax left a dime on Fred’s tombstone. Others left guitar picks, guitar slides, and pennies in symbolism of their respect for the late blues man.

We toured on to fife and drum blues artist Napoleon Strickland’s grave site. He passed away in 2001.

We visited Marshall Bartlett’s parent’s farm and in their antebellum-style mansion we sat with house guests and shared conversation about music.

New friendships were formed based on a common interest and love for the blues.

That’s how the blues works, Olga said. It’s magical.