Inaugural Blues Fest Is Saturday
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A Blues Trail Marker honoring Casey Jones was installed on Main Street in Water Valley in 2012.
WATER VALLEY – Make plans to be in downtown Water Valley this weekend for the inaugural Casey Jones Blues Fest. The weekend will kickoff celebrating all things local on Friday night with the Water Valley Wine Down and a Spring Open House from 5:30-8 p.m.
Saturday will start with the Casey Jones Blues Fest 5K Run/Walk at 8 a.m., followed by a full day with 80-plus vendors and local shopping, fantastic food, festival fun, and an amazing music line!
“It looks like the weather is going to be great,” Water Valley Main Street Director Alyssa Benedict reported. “We invite everyone to come out and experience some Mississippi Blues for free!”
The festival will be in the middle of the city and Main Street will be blocked off from Church Street to Blackmur Drive, with traffic still flowing on those two streets. Benedict reported 80 vendors have registered, filling all available spaces. Vendor booths will be located on Main Street from Church Street to Wood Street and the stage will be farther north on Main near the Panola/Main intersection.
The Water Valley High School band will take the stage first at 11 a.m. Band Director Wes Brown reported band members have been practicing for the performance that will include some familiar songs with an addition – St. Louis Blues.
Libby Rae Watson will follow at noon. The Harrell Brothers take the stage at 1 p.m. and are a dynamic musical act that pays homage to the North Mississippi Hill Country Blues tradition. Local favorite Effie Burt follows at 2 p.m. She is a lifelong vocalist, Burt was born and raised in Oxford and has been performing since she was 13.
Garry Burnside will take the stage at 3:30 p.m. The youngest son of R.L. Burnside and a member of the Junior Kimbrough Band, Burnside has been captivating artists since he was 11 years old. In 2015, he was a Grammy Award Nominee for Best Blues Album for the Cedric Burnside Project.
In 2015, he was a Grammy Award Nominee for Best Blues Album for the Cedric Burnside Project. Grammy winning artist Castro “Mr. Sipp” Coleman comes on at 5 p.m.
The festival will celebrate the city’s rich railroad heritage and Casey Jones, the train engineer who was killed when his Illinois Central train, the “Cannonball,” collided with a stalled freight train in 1900 in Vaughan, Miss.
After the wreck, Wallace Saunders, an African American worker at the Canton roadhouse who knew Jones, composed a ballad that spread widely among railroad laborers and Jones’ fame is largely attributed to the song, according to information on the Blues Trail Marker honoring Jones.
In 1910 a recording by vaudeville singer Billy Murray reputedly sold over a million copies. The first country music version was recorded by Fiddlin’ John Carson in 1923.
The first issued blues recording was Furry Lewis’ two-part “Kassie Jones” from 1928. Mississippi John Hurt recorded “Casey Jones” earlier in 1928 but it was never released; in the 1960s he recorded multiple versions. Bluesmen Jesse James and Bob Howard both recorded “Southern Casey Jones” in the 1930s. Artists who subsequently recorded Casey Jones songs included Johnny Cash, Sidney Bechet, Spike Jones, and the Grateful Dead.
