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CAT HEAD UPDATE NEWSLETTER
SANTA PUG'S GIFT-GIVING EDITION
"All the hohoho that's fit to print"
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THANKS TO ALL Y'ALL BLUES FANS AND CLARKSDALE VISITORS, 2024 WAS A BLAST!
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Yeah. No clue. Whatsoever. Where the year went. Oh wait... that's right. "Time flies when you're having fun!"
Hope y'all were here to enjoy some of Clarksdale, Mississippi's 365 live blues shows and dozen-plus festivals. If not, then now is the time to start planning for 2025. Read on below for what's coming up down in the Delta.
All of us in Clarksdale's blues, tourism and business communities really appreciate your visits and support. We're just waiting say hello again and give y'all some recommendations for blues music, Southern food, unique lodging, historic sites, Delta museums and more!
CAT HEAD—Mississippi's blues store in Clarksdale since 2002—is open for business every day (except Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day): Mon-Fri 11am-5pm, Sat 10-5 and Sun 10-3. Our WEB STORE is open 24/7, of course. And we're shipping daily for the holidays.
Here's to hoping your holiday season of parties, performances, family and friends is fun and safe. Cheers, Roger (and Ayler Pug)
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Cap off 2024 and kick off 2025 right! Visit Clarksdale for multiple NEW YEAR'S EVE blues parties!
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Tuesday, 12/31 - NEW YEAR'S EVE
- 3pm - Sean "Bad" Apple's Blues Music & History Show at Bad Apple Blues Club (349 Issaquena Ave.).
6pm - NYE Blues Party w/Keith Johnson & Big Muddy Band (6pm), Super Chikan & Fighting Cocks (8pm), Big A & Allstars (11pm) at Ground Zero Blues Club (0 Blues Alley).
- 8pm - NYE Blues Party w/Hopeless Case Band (Stan Street, Guitar Frenchie, Cricket, etc.) at Hambone Gallery (111 E 2nd St.).
- 9pm - NYE Blues Party w/Duck Hill, MS, blues legend Little Willie Farmer & his band at Red's Juke Joint (395 Sunflower Ave.).
Wednesday, 1/1, 2025 - NEW YEAR'S DAY
- 3pm - Sean "Bad" Apple's Blues Music & History Show at Bad Apple Blues Club (349 Issaquena Ave.).
- 8pm - Live blues in Clarksdale on New Year's Day night (venue/acts TBA)... stay tuned!
PS - CAT HEAD is open both days.
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This week's "SOUNDS AROUND TOWN" snapshot of Clarksdale's amazing 365 live music scene...
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PLAN NOW FOR 2025 FESTIVALS and special events at the Crossroads of Clarksdale, Miss.!
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- 3/29, 2025 - Tater Superbad Blues Festival (details TBA)
- Thurs-Sun, 4/10-13, 2025 - 22nd annual Juke Joint Festival & Related Events w/100 more blues acts; our biggest festival - www.jukejointfestival.com
- Sun, 4/13, 2025 - Cat Head Mini Blues Fest (April) 23rd Anniversary! Post JJF, www.cathead.biz
- Sat, 5/10, 2025 - 18th Clarksdale Caravan Music Fest (Cat Head/Bad Apple Blues Club/Bluesberry) - 10am-8pm - www.clarksdalecaravan.com
- Sat., 5/??, 2025 - Pinetop Boogie & Crawfish Boil at Ground Zero Blues Club benefiting Pinetop Perkins Foundation, 4pm till.
- Fri-Sat, 5/23-24, 2025 - Ground Zero Blues Club anniversary weekend of daytime/nighttime blues! - groundzerobluesclub.com.
- Fri-Sun, 8/8-10, 2025 - Cat Head 23rd Anniversary Weekend, www.cathead.biz.
- Sat, 8/30, 2025 - 7th Red's Old-Timers Blues Fest (MLK Park Stage) - www.redpaden.com.
- Sat, 10/5, 2025 - Hopson Pumpkin Pickin' Festival (10am-4pm) w/music, kids' activities and more - hopsonhospitality.com
- Thurs-Sat, 10/8-11, 2025 - near Clarksdale, MS, in HELENA, AR - King Biscuit Blues Festival & Symposium, kingbiscuitfestival.com
- 10/12, 2025 - Cat Head Mini Blues Fest (October) for Clarksdale Super Blues Sunday - www.cathead.biz.
- 10/12, 2025 - Super Blues Sunday: Tentatively including... Cat Head Mini Blues Fest (9am), Bluesberry Cafe Blues Breakfast (10am), Delta Blues Museum special hours (noon), Ground Zero Blues Club blues brunch (11am), Hopson Commissary/Shack Up Inn's Pinetop Perkins Celebration (3pm)... plus music at Levon's, Hooker Grocer, Red's Lounge, Bad Apple Blues Club and more!
- 10/17-18, 2025 - Special blues event TBA... stay tuned, y'all!
- 12/31, 2025 - Celebrate New Year's at the Crossroads - multiple shows around town!
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CAT HEAD'S 2024 "Wow! It's from Clarksdale?!" Gotta Get Gift Guide — in-store and at www.cathead.biz
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After 22 years in downtown Clarksdale, Santa's disorganized little helper at North Pole South has curated a heckuva CAT HEAD collection of cool stuff for everyone on your gift list. Shop our expanded CAT HEAD STORE website at www.cathead.biz for a bunch of it. Or visit us in-person (open every day but Christmas Day) at 252 Delta Avenue for the rest of it. Questions about sizes or colors or titles or whatever? Please email roger@cathead.biz, or call during business hours (Mon-Fri 11am-5pm, Sat 10-5, Sun 10-3). Really and truly, THANK YOU for your support!
          
       
        
   
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QUICK RECAP OF OCTOBER FESTIVALS in the Mississippi & Arkansa Delta. (Plan now for 2025.)
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- King Biscuit Blues Festival (Helena, AR) - Founded way back in 1986, the Biscuit is still one of the Delta's premiere blues happenings. Downtown Helena's Cherry Street features a permanent stage that faces the Mississippi River levee, creating a natural amphitheater for the main stage. Typically, there will be another small stage or two down the street as well. Since Helena is conveniently located across the Mississippi from Coahoma County (Lula, Moon Lake and Clarksdale), Mississippi, and doesn't have much in the way of overnight accommodations, many festival-goers book lodging in Clarksdale. The Biscuit is world-famous and so attracts fans and media from most U.S. states and at least a dozen other countries. This year, the hundreds of attendees I spoke with at my Cat Head store over the course of the weekend once again talked about their love of the classic event. 2024 highlights included performances from Bobby Rush, Anson Funderburgh, Curtis Salgado, Duwayne Burnside, Fillmore Slim, Harrell "Young Rell" Davenport, Larry McCray, Vasti Jackson, Lucious Spiller, Terry "Big T" Williams and others. As always, I hosted a KBBF Blues Symposium blues panel discussion on the Saturday of the festival, interviewing musicians like Johnny Rawls and Zakiya Hooker on stage at the historic Malco theater. More fest info at kingbiscuitfestival.com.
- Clarksdale Super Blues Sunday, featuring Cat Head Mini Blues Fest II (Clarksdale, MS) - I've taken over the street out front of my Cat Head blues store on the Sunday after King Biscuit is over for 22 years now. Maybe a decade back, as other people and places started to jump on board with Sunday events, I coined our current "Clarksdale Super Blues Sunday" name for this amazing, ad hoc collection of post-Biscuit blues performances—incorporating Cat Head Mini Blues Fest, Bluesberry Cafe's backyard October Fest, Ground Zero Blues Club's Blues Brunch, Hopson Commissary/Shack Up Inn's Pinetop Perkins (memorial) Homecoming, Red's Blues Jam and more. I forgot to mention that for Biscuit the weather was perfect, and it held for Sunday as well. Acts around town included Anthony "Big A" Sherrod, Robert Kimbrough Sr., Bob Corritore, Bob Stroger, Anson Funderburgh and many many more. Great stuff. Info via my Music Calendar page at www.cathead.biz.
- Deep Blues Festival (Clarksdale, Mississippi) - Founded in 2007 by mega-music fan (and BBQ chef) Chris Johnson, the original editions were held in... wait for it... Minnesota (which definitely ain't Mississippi!), Johnson brought the event to Clarksdale in 2014. After organizing the first year, he handed off the festival to New Roxy entrepreneur Robin Colonas and friends. DBF is a mesmerizing mix of gritty rock, rootsy folk and (yes) deep blues music that this year featured highlights such as Duck Hill, Mississippi's Little Willie Farmer and Memphis-area transplant Alvin "Youngblood" Hart. It featured a handful of Clarksdale's coolest music venues, including the roofless-by-design New Roxy theater, the award-winning Auberge Hostel (a.k.a. Old Madidi Bar) and uber-rustic Shack Up Inn. More info at deepbluesfest.com. By the way, this event traditionally coincides with the Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival here in town (since the young playwright once lived here), so some folks dip into both. It makes for a very special weekend of arts and entertainment.
- Hambone Festival (Clarksdale, Mississippi) - Founded in 2007 by artist/music (and Hambone Gallery owner) Stan Street, Hambone Festival is half birthday party weekend for Street and half blues festival for a hundred or so folks in the know. Small-but-mighty, this year's blues roster included Johnny Rawls, Heavy Suga & SweeTones, Reverend Robert, Street's own Hopeless Case Band and more. Info at stanstreet.com. Like DBF above, Hambone weekend is further nourished by a secondary event the same days—the Cruzn the Crossroads Car Show, which featured some amazing vehicles (from the 1930s to this year) and (of course) a bit of music.   
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Recent Delta blues weekend was a bit like a Moonshine & Mojo Hands episode with no cameras!
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Had a blues blast of a weekend recently with my buddy—and co-creator of our film projects like M for Mississippi, We Juke Up in Here and Moonshine & Mojo Hands—Jeff Konkel of Broke & Hungry Records. He's a teacher and family man up in St. Louis, so he just doesn't make it down to see his blues friends as much as he used to. So... we spent two quick days making up for it.
Saturdays in Clarksdale now feature live blues performances pretty much from 10am to midnight at various venues, so we hit shows at Bluesberry Cafe, my own Cat Head store, Hambone Gallery, Bad Apple Blues Club and Red's Lounge. Then, on Sunday, we paid home visits to legendary Little Willie Farmer in Duck Hill and juke joint icon Jimmy "Duck" Holmes in Bentonia. Fantastic. We closed it all out with Sunday evening blues at Auberge Hostel (aka Old Madidi Bar).
Thanks for the visit, Jeff. And thanks Clarksdale and vicinity for all the non-stop blues music! It was almost like an episode of http://moonshineandmojohands.com/episodes.html (Btw, the great Big A pic out front of Red's is Jeff's.)
     
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Visit Clarksdale the last weekend of January for our 2025 CLARKSDALE FILM & MUSIC FESTIVAL...
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Join us for our 15th annual CLARKSDALE FILM & MUSIC FESTIVAL. Once again, our screenings will be held at our pop-up theater inside Stone Pony's Tack Room, downtown. We're still working on this year's lineup, but stay tuned at www.clarksdalefilmfestival.com
Got a Blues-related or Mississippi-connected film or video you'd like us to consider screening at this year's event? Email me at roger@cathead.biz, and I'll send you an application ASAP.
Just to get y'all fired up... below are pics from LAST January's event...
   
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Visiting this month? Then, hohoho! Enjoy the CLARKSDALE CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL festivities...
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And finally... We say goodbye to quite possibly Clarksdale's biggest fan: JOHN HENSHALL
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The Clarksdale community lost a true friend and tenacious supporter in October—a man who forged close personal ties to both the people and the place we love. Australia's John Henshall.
Over two decades he visited Clarksdale some two dozen times, bringing over 300 friends, relatives and students in tow. He also hosted several of us on musical pilgrimages to Australia. And he knew a thing or three about Clarksdale's on-going downtown revitalization efforts based on blues and cultural tourism.
In fact, he wrote the book, a textbook entitled: Downtown Revitalisation & Delta Blues in Clarksdale, Mississippi: Lessons for Small Cities and Towns.
In May 2019, John invited me Down Under to help him launch his book where he lived in the Fitzroy area of Melbourne, Australia. He and his wife Bonnie were wonderful hosts, and I thoroughly enjoyed delivering a speech at John's book launch event as well as a presentation at a video conference about Clarksdale revitalization efforts. In-between, John and Bonnie (as well as Tony Woods and his wife) showed me the local sights and sounds. Plus, I was able to venture out to a couple dozen of Melbourne's 64 record stores.
In case you don't know, John was a retired economist, city planner and author. He founded a successful company called (fittingly) Essential Economics. He dearly loved Clarksdale. And everyone who knew him here loved John—from musicians and club owners to city leaders and tourism officials, from retailers and restaurateurs to visiting tourists and his favorite hoteliers (at Uptown Inn). We all thank you for your friendship and support, John. Really and truly. RIP.
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