The moonlight shining through the trees
Honeysuckle on a southern breeze
I miss the moonshine
And the old times, sitting in with the house band
And the bootleggers of the bottomland
-Luther Dickinson “Moonshine”
from Electric Blue Watermelon (2005)

When the North Mississippi Allstars released their most recent record, 2005’s Electric Blue Watermelon, they said that they’d sought to memorialize their experiences growing up in the shadow of Hill Country Blues legends Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside, elevating them to mythological stature. They also cast Kenny Brown in this role in their song “Teasin’ Brown” from the same record. Cody Dickinson compared Brown to a folk tale hero like KC Jones or Stagger Lee. If these guys were the Gods of this mythology, Potts Camp, Mississippi was Mount Olympus when a couple of thousand people convened there for the 2nd Annual Hill Country Blues Picnic. Brown played the host, and the progeny of the departed Kimbrough and Burnside peppered the lineup, along with legends in their own right like T-Model Ford and Bobby Rush.

For fans of Hill Country Blues, it was if we’d stepped into our own Shangri-la. With folks tossing horseshoes, the boy scouts giving away free watermelon and the smell of barbecue and fried catfish in the air, “picnic” was an apt description of the atmosphere. The adjacent creek provided some relief from the searing heat, as did a few brief but welcome rain showers, and there just might have been some of that old ‘shine floating around. I heard “Snake Drive” no fewer than five times and I still could’ve heard it again. It was all good music, good food and good times, with no notable incidents other than the guy who thought it was a great idea to blast “Dust In The Wind” from his boombox to the camping area at 7 am on Saturday.

It all felt kind of like magic, but of course a lot of hard work went on behind the scenes to make it seem so natural. Though Kenny Brown was the host (and not just in name only, he was out there swinging a hammer like everybody else Thursday afternoon when I went to check in on the site progress), the lady behind the curtain was Sara Davis who somehow was able to corral a maelstrom of musicians to make it look like magic.

For the second year, it was an idyllic way to pass a hot summer day. As the all-star jam came to its conclusion, Brown shouted from the mountaintop: “Hope y’all had fun! We’re gon’ try to do this again next year!”

It’s important to wax nostalgic for formative times. But equally important to know when these are the good old days.

Local Pick: The Cooters, Oxford’s longest-running and loudest rock band, at Two Stick on Friday July 14.

Touring Pick: None. July’s a slow season for folks touring these parts it seems. Good thing we’re blessed with lots and lots of great local music.