Sunflower County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,971. Its largest city and county seat is Indianola.
Belzoni is a city in Humphreys County, Mississippi, United States, in the Mississippi Delta region, on the Yazoo River. The population was 2,235 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Humphreys County. It was named for the 19th-century Italian archaeologist/explorer Giovanni Battista Belzoni.
Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverport of Memphis, Tennessee. It was a center of cotton planter culture in the 19th century.
Indianola is a city in and the county seat of Sunflower County, Mississippi, United States, in the Mississippi Delta. The population was 10,683 at the 2010 census.
Riley B. King, known professionally as B. B. King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato, and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players. AllMusic recognized King as "the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century".
Mississippi is best known as the home of the blues which developed among the freed African Americans in the latter half of the 19th century and beginning 20th century. The Delta blues is the style most closely associated with the state, and includes performers like Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, Ishmon Bracey, Bo Carter, Sam Chatmon, Mississippi John Hurt, Furry Lewis, Son House, Skip James, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Pinetop Perkins, Albert King and B.B. King.
Charlie Patton, more often spelled Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American music and inspired most Delta blues musicians. The musicologist Robert Palmer considered him one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century.
Booker T. Washington "Bukka" White was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. His first full-length biography, The Life and Music of Booker "Bukka" White: Recalling the Blues (2024), has been published by the University Press of Mississippi.
Albert Nelson, known by his stage name Albert King, was an American guitarist and singer who is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential blues guitarists of all time. He is perhaps best known for his popular and influential album Born Under a Bad Sign (1967) and its title track. He, B. B. King, and Freddie King, all unrelated, were known as the "Three Kings of the Blues". The left-handed Albert King was known for his "deep, dramatic sound that was widely imitated by both blues and rock guitarists".
The Chitlin' Circuit was a collection of performance venues found throughout the eastern, southern, and upper Midwest areas of the United States. They provided commercial and cultural acceptance for African-American musicians, comedians, and other entertainers following the era of venues run by the "white-owned-and-operated Theatre Owners Booking Association (TOBA)...formed in 1921." The Chitlin Circuit sustained black musicians and dancers during the era of racial segregation in the United States from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Holly Ridge is an unincorporated community in Sunflower County, Mississippi. It is located in the Mississippi Delta, approximately five miles west of Indianola.
Dockery Plantation was a 25,600-acre (104 km2) cotton plantation and sawmill in Dockery, Mississippi, on the Sunflower River between Ruleville and Cleveland, Mississippi. It is widely regarded as the place where Delta blues music was born. Blues musicians resident at Dockery included Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
Trumpet Records was an American record company founded by Lillian McMurry in Jackson, Mississippi in 1951. Although it existed for only four years, it was influential.
Indianola Mississippi Seeds is B. B. King's eighteenth studio album. It was released in October 1970 on ABC Records on LP and May 1989 on MCA Records on CD. On this album B. B. King mixed elements of blues and rock music. Producer Bill Szymczyk decided to follow up on the success of the hit "The Thrill Is Gone" by matching King with a musical all-star cast. The result was one of King's most critically acclaimed albums and one of the most highly regarded blues crossover albums of all time.
The Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame, headquartered in Clinton, Mississippi, honors Mississippi's famous musicians. It is a "Who's Who" of the blues, rock and roll, and jazz from their beginnings to present day. The organization's museum is located in the Jackson–Evers International Airport in Jackson, Mississippi.
The Blue Front Café is a historic old juke joint made of cinder block in Bentonia, Mississippi on Highway 49, approximately 30 miles northwest of Jackson, which played an important role in the development of the blues in Mississippi. The café has been given a marker and officially placed on the Mississippi Blues Trail. It is owned by blues musician Jimmy "Duck" Holmes.
William Alfred Dockery was an American landowner who built from scratch the Dockery Plantation, the famous home of such original Delta blues musicians as Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, and Pops Staples.
The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center is a museum in Indianola, Mississippi dedicated to the Delta blues and music legend B.B. King.
The Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival is an annual music festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi. It is held the second weekend in August, lasting three days. Created as the Sunflower Riverbank Blues Festival in 1988, the festival features veteran and homegrown performers, attracting blues enthusiast from all over the world. Headliners have included Otis Rush, Ike Turner, Little Milton, Bobby Bland, Bobby Rush, Koko Taylor, Denise LaSalle, Super Chikan, and Robert Plant.
