Audiences know multi-instrumentalist Will Kimbrough from his solo work and from his accompanying such acts as Jimmy Buffett, Rodney Crowell and Todd Snider. Recently he has performed as a member of Gulf Coast “super group,” Willie Sugarcapps. Kimbrough’s latest solo CD is Sideshow Love. Willie Sugarcapps’s latest CD is Paradise Right Here. In March, Kimbrough and singer-songwriter Brigitte DeMeyer will tour the Netherlands and the UK in support of their new CD, Mockingbird Soul. Kimbrough lives in Nashville.

Guelel Kumba is a singer/songwriter from the Futa Toro region in the Senegal River Valley in northern Senegal, West Africa. He moved to Oxford in 2003 where he jammed with Eric Deaton, apprentice to the late R.L. Burnside. The two discovered the similarities between the hill country blues of North Mississippi and Kumba’s traditional Senegalese melodies, and the nucleus of their band, Afrissippi, was born. The revolving group, at times with Kent Kimbrough, son of the late Junior Kimbrough, on drums, has released two CDs on Hill Country Records, including Fulani Journey and Alliance, which was produced by Jimbo Mathus.

Kumba is also known for his cooking which combines, African, French and American South influences. His dishes include chicken yassa, mafé (Senegalese peanut stew), pastels (meat-filled pastries served with habanero sauce), banh mi, tortas, chicken tchou, and lamb kebabs.

Author Holly Tucker’s latest book is City of Light, City of Poison – Murder, Magic and the First Police Chief of Paris (Norton), a riveting true crime narrative from the 1600s detailing the network of witches, poisoners and priests in the secret underground of Paris.  Tucker is a professor in the Department of French and Italian and in the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution, which was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. She lives in Nashville and in Aix-en-Provence, France.