Civil Rights Museum Summer Series Features Blues

" Kicking off the series will be Lonnie Pitchford and James 'Super Chikan' Johnson. "

By Norm Shaw

The blues is the focus of the first Culture in the Courtyard event at the National Civil Rights Museum, and special music follows throughout the summer.

The Thursday night series, which kicks off June 6 with Up from the Delta: Field Hollers, Work Songs and the Blues, complements the exhibition Of Earth and Cotton. The exhibit, on view from June 9 to Aug. 18, is made up of historical photographs of rural cotton workers from the 1930s and '40s. There's also a site-specific installation documenting the living and working conditions of local residents in the southern Cotton Belt. Using music and drama, the 1996 Culture in the Courtyard series showcases traditional African-American and Southern working-class music.

Kicking off the series will be Lonnie Pitchford and James "Super Chikan" Johnson at 7 p.m. June 6. Pitchford is an award-winning artist known best for his versions of country blues classics. He also is known for constructing a one-string "diddley bow" on stage and dazzling crowds with the sounds he gets. Johnson is considered one of the region's most original songwriters. Pitchford and Johnson will be performing work songs, and there will be a demonstration of "field hollering."

The other events in the series include:

Country Roots Celebration: Fifes, Drums and Drama, June 20, features a collaborative performance featuring Othar Turner and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band and the Nubian Theatre Company.

In the Spirit: An Evening of African-American Church Music, July 11, which offers down-home sacred music from the Orange Mound Community Choir and Bishop Dwight "Gatemouth" Moore and the International Saints featuring the Rev. Melvin Rogers.

Homegrown Deluxe Jamboree: Ole Man River, Beale Street and Memphis Blues, July 25, which is a triple bill of blues featuring Lane Wilkins & Company, Kenneth Jackson and Mr. Roubaix's Blues Band.

The Message is in the Music: An Evening of Freedom and Labor Songs and other Folk Music, Aug. 8, which will include a sing-a-long re-enactment of a civil rights era mass meeting concert, featuring the Civil Rights Freedom Singers and folk singer Sid Selvidge.

The Aug. 22 show is yet to be determined.

All the Culture in the Courtyard shows start at 7 p.m. and are free and open to the public. The National Civil Rights Museum is located at 450 Mulberry. For more information, call the museum at 521-9699.