Hoodoo Highway

Arkansas Blues & Heritage

Whoo, we recovered from our weekend at the Arkansas Blues & Heritage Festival in Helena, AR.

We arrived on Thursday evening and set up camp at Johnny's, right on Hwy 49B. We were not expecting anyone except for J. D. on Thursday night. We were settling in and a big ass bus pulled in and parked in front of us. YIKES, our great view of HWY 49 - gone.
It was the Jon Justice Band from Cincinatti. They were great fun and whacky - fueled by much alcohol. We had great fun with them. Michael and I took Jon and his dad, Papa Gino to Michael Burks campsite for dinner that night. Jon was blown away at meeting Michael, eating his food and THE ULTIMATE - getting to see and touch three of Michael's guitars, including his Flying V. Jon kept thanking me over and over, which was so not necessary. We had a lot in common, Patron, Patron, Patron. HA! We enjoyed meeting Derek, Scotty, Nathan, et al.. a great group of guys. We caught their performance on Friday night and they were awesome. If you are ever near where they are playing - go see them. Great cd - Jon gave us several copies.

Friday folks starting arriving. Craig & Trish, Bill, Shirley & Chad, Chris, Brian - we had a good crowd at the camp site. The weather was absolutely perfect!

Friday, Michael and I went down to the festival to see what was happening. We saw some street acts, Mudbone was there, of course. He shows up every year playing his blistering music on the street. Last year they finally put him on stage.


Michael and I moved on and found "The Blues Brothers", okay, they were statues. We popped our bag of home made pork rinds in Belushi's arms and I snapped a quick picture, how totally tourist of us. Yes, that is the cool beer sweater Carolyn made for Michael keeping his beer cool. We ran into Babs from the Hot Springs Blues Society, who tells us she is headed to Australia for 7 weeks to "do whatever the hell I want." Go Babs!

We split up when he wanted to head back to camp and I wanted to hit main stage to find a couple of folks I knew. I located Craig & Trish and sat with them for a bit. We watched Sam Carr & The Delta Jukes, Paul Delay Band and a tiny bit of Pinetop Perkins & Bob Margolin. I needed to head back to camp since I was hosting dinner. I have to bring my Jambalaya to the festival every year (come to think of it, I have to bring it everywhere). I knew we were going to have a bunch of folks at camp waiting to be fed.

posted by Deb @ 5:21 PM