On air and online: Friday, May 12, Saturday, May 13 and Sunday, May 14
Jukin’ the blues at the 2023 Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, MS!
Guests: Author/filmmaker Robert Mugge with musical acts, James “Super Chikan” Johnson and Rip Lee Pryor.
The show is hosted by Jim Dees and Thacker house band, “The Best Live Radio Band in the Land,” the Yalobushwhackers with vocalist, Mary Frances Massey.
Air times:
Friday, May 12 at 6 am (CT) – WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN
Saturday, May 13 at 3 pm (ET) – WUTC 88.1 FM University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
7 pm (CT) MPB — Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9 pm (CT) APR – Alabama Public Radio
Sunday, May 14 at 3 pm (ET) – WUOT | 91.9 FM, Knoxville
2 pm (MT) KNCE 93.5 | Taos, New Mexico
SAVE THE DATES:
Since 1976, Robert Mugge (pronounced “muggy”) has created three dozen documentaries including memorable films on a diverse array of musical genres including Rev. Al Green, north Mississippi blues, Jamaican reggae, zydeco, jazz musicians Sonny Rollins and Sun Ra, and many more.
In his new memoir, Notes from the Road: A Filmmaker’s Journey through American Music (The Sager Group LLC), Mugge takes the reader behind the scenes (literally) of two dozen of his films and describes all the obstacles, struggles and eventual triumphs.
“Mugge both thrills and exhausts us as he describes the process of making his films. He shifts his camera lens deftly from classical music to bluegrass to jazz to Tex-Mex to gospel to reggae to Hawaiian slack-key guitar. A gifted filmmaker and a fine writer.” – Dr. William R. Ferris, Grammy winner, Voices of Mississippi
“The prevalence of documentaries about musicians is a curse, one rare exception is the work of the director Robert Mugge.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Born James Louis Johnson in Darling, Mississippi, James “Super Chikan” Johnson got his nickname from working with chickens on his family’s farms, moving around the Mississippi Delta until they settled in Clarksdale.
Writing songs during long hauls as a truck driver, he cut his debut album, Blues Come Home to Roost in 1997 for the Rooster Blues label. Other CDs include, Chikan Supe, Sum Mo Chikan, and Chikadelic which was named the Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year in 2010.
Chikan makes his own guitars (“Chiktars”) from auto mufflers, rifle butts, and plumbing parts as well as cigar box guitars.
A past recipient of a Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, Chikan is the subject of the upcoming documentary film, Somebody Shoot That Thing: James ‘Super Chikan’ Johnson – A Life in Blues
Blues harpist Richard “Rip Lee” Pryor is the son of the late Snooky Pryor, but he’s his own man – in fact his own one-man band. He wields a guitar while singing and playing harp and keeping a big beat with his feet.
His releases include the albums, Pitch a Boogie Woogie, and Nobody But Me. Rip Lee’s harmonica style recalls his dad’s as it overflows with warbles, flutters, crisp tongue-stops, and vocal whoops.