{"id":111711,"date":"2021-06-09T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T04:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=111711"},"modified":"2021-06-23T15:24:47","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T20:24:47","slug":"north-mississippi-hill-country-picnic-brings-the-heat-june-25-26-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/north-mississippi-hill-country-picnic-brings-the-heat-june-25-26-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic Brings the Heat June 25\u201326, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

June has only just begun, and the temperature is rising! The pinnacle of the summer around these parts comes at the end of the month with the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic<\/a><\/strong>. If it\u2019s not hot enough for you yet, just wait\u2014the Picnic will set you on fire in the best way possible. Don\u2019t sleep on this, get your tickets online by June 15 at NMSHillCountryPicnic.com<\/a> for only $25 per day. Tickets at the gate will be cash only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking place Friday and Saturday, June 25\u201326, 2021, in Waterford, Mississippi<\/strong>, the Hill Country Picnic is a festival like no other. Often described as a big blues family reunion, the Picnic brings together multiple generations of Hill Country blues artists on one stage in Marshall County<\/strong>, about 15 miles north of Oxford at the corner of Highways 7 and 310. On-site camping is available for $15, and for a small $10 fee, you can bring your own cooler. You can expect a variety of cool art and merchandise vendors, as well as food and beverages sold on-site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After a year and some change of quarantine, masks, social distancing, and lots of cancelled events (including the 2020 Picnic), fans and artists are chomping at the bit to get back to the business of shakin\u2019 \u2018em on down, so this should be an especially wild weekend of music, family, and all-around Mississippi culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Picnic, which started in 2006, is a nonprofit organization whose goal \u201cis to enhance appreciation and educate the general public about the native art form of North Mississippi Hill Country Blues music through performance, preservation, and interpretation.\u201d This one-of-a-kind event is made possible by generous sponsorships by Cathead Distillery, The Black Keys Delta Kream, Visit Mississippi, The Mississippi Arts Council<\/strong>, and Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance<\/strong>, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View from the stage at the 2019 North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic. Photograph by Jean Frank Photography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 2021 Picnic lineup features some of the biggest names in Hill Country blues, including two-time Grammy-nominated Cedric Burnside<\/strong>, who will play a solo set Saturday evening as well as closing out the event Saturday night with Luther Dickinson<\/strong> and Sharde Thomas<\/strong>. Need more Burnsides? Catch Duwayne, Garry<\/strong>, and Kent <\/strong>throughout the weekend. Jimbo Mathus, Cary Hudson, Rocket 88<\/strong>, and Kudzu Kings<\/strong> will bring some more local flavor to the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We rounded up some musicians for a Q&A session, which you\u2019re going to love. Read on for Picnic stories, blues tales, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PICNIC ARTIST Q&A featuring Cedric Burnside<\/a>, Luther Dickinson<\/a>, Libby Rae Watson<\/a>, and Alvin Youngblood Hart<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is your favorite thing about the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cedric Burnside:<\/strong> By far my favorite thing about the Hill Country Picnic is getting to see a great majority of Hill Country blues from Hill Country artists that I hardly ever get to see, because I\u2019m traveling. That\u2019s really my favorite thing about it is getting together with friends and family that I grew up playing with, and actually getting to play with them again. It\u2019s like a family reunion.
Libby Rae Watson:<\/strong> Aside from the music, my favorite thing about this festival is the sense of family! Every June, those in the know start making their plans for the Picnic. The excitement begins to build as soon as the schedule is released! It\u2019s like a big reunion of the family you get to pick!
Alvin Youngblood Hart: <\/strong>The artists, performers, and the audience are all there for the common goal of representing the music and the predecessors who inspired the whole thing. Everybody\u2019s there as one. That\u2019s the big thing and you really feel it, too, when you\u2019re out there. It\u2019s not hard to become a part of the Picnic crowd. Us, as performers, we\u2019re not just there playing a gig and then leaving, you know. We\u2019re out there running around with the crowd and stuff too. We kind of refer to it as a big family and that\u2019s how it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes the Picnic stand out compared to other music festivals?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cedric:<\/strong> One thing is that I never get to play [for] my family. Like my daughters and my sister. So I think that\u2019s what is so special to me. I get to hang out with family that I normally wouldn\u2019t get to hang out with if I was traveling. And they hardly ever get to see me play. It\u2019s one big happy family there.
Luther Dickinson:<\/strong> It\u2019s like a family reunion. It\u2019s the only time, for me, when I get to see the whole Hill Country community, because we\u2019ve been on tour forever. I always make it a point to come and be a part of the Picnic and recharge my batteries with that Hill Country funk. The music is really unique. Hill Country music has its own thing, you know, it\u2019s widely influential. But if you want the real deal, [come to the Picnic] to see the musical family still carrying on. It\u2019s such a beautiful community.
Libby:<\/strong> Again, the music, which is specific for that region of Mississippi, and the people who love and live that music. It creates a wonderful combination that\u2019s like nothing else! It\u2019s a collective heartbeat to those rhythms of the Hills!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What can picnic attendees expect from your set this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cedric:<\/strong> Well, my set is going to be most of my music. Hopefully it\u2019s going to be a hot set! I\u2019m looking to see people dance and shake their tail feather a li\u2019l bit after so long at home. With me and Luther, I don\u2019t know. Luther is full of surprises. I\u2019m looking forward to jamming with him, because we hardly ever get to play together.
Luther: Ooh, that\u2019s going to be fun! We\u2019ll do some of the tunes that we all know together and we\u2019ll do some we don\u2019t know together\u2026 we\u2019ll take turns backing each other up. We\u2019ll have double drums set up and Sharde will play some fife as well. It\u2019s gonna be fun.
Libby:<\/strong> I\u2019ll be performing with Bill Steber, as I always do at the Picnic. Both of us have a varied repertoire, but I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be heavy on Hill Country music. We both write and will include some of our own songs. We perform as a duo, and with other friends as The Stoop Down Rounders.
Bill performs with his group, The Jake Leg Stompers. Also Bill teams up with Sammy Baker in their group, The Hoodoo Men.
Alvin:<\/strong> Hopefully some fun songs. We always try to pay some tribute to our Mississippi roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Would you share a favorite memory from picnics past?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cedric:<\/strong> Oh I can share an excellent memory. One of my favorite memories is my uncle Joseph and my dad playing at the picnic after hitting that moonshine pretty hard. They was arguing just a little bit before that show started, as they always do, irritating each other. But then when the show got ready to start, aw they was all lovey dovey, they was brothers again. And they did a really rockin\u2019 show, so I\u2019ll always remember that.
Luther:<\/strong> There was one rainy year that some of the audience was just sliding and wallowing in the mud, you know, like real Missi-freakin\u2019-hippies\u2014Missihippies! That was really wild. There was a great after party [one] year that Alvin Youngblood Hart played at Foxfire Ranch.
I have to say my favorite memory is doing the guitar clinics. It\u2019s not easy, but it\u2019s really fun. I learned a lot doing it. It\u2019s amazing to have this huge group of musicians who know the Hill Country repertoire, from all over the world; they come to Mississippi and they can already play the North Mississippi music. It really makes me happy. Cause that\u2019s what ties the Hill Country community together is the shared repertoire. Each musical family has its own style, and each family member has their own style branched out within the families. But there are certain songs that everybody does from time to time. That\u2019s what ties the community together.
Libby: <\/strong>My favorite memory may be the first time I played in 2015. That first one was pretty memorable for me because I was just expecting to be a spectator, and didn\u2019t even have a guitar. Bill Steber was on the festival as Bill & Friends. When I walked up he looked at me and said, \u201cYou got a guitar?!\u201d I didn\u2019t, but Luther Dickinson was there and had just played, or was about to. He handed me his guitar, and then he joined in with us. I played a song I had recently written about Big Joe Williams. Luther and Bill joined in. It was a song about the very first day I met Big Joe, and Bill had never heard it before. And he said, \u201cWhen did you write that? Man, I almost cried!\u201d And I was like, \u201cOh OK\u2014keeper!\u201d And it was just fun to have Luther join in. When I first met Luther, he was a little, like three or four years old. So that was a thrill, to see the legacy continue. I\u2019ve also got other stories I can\u2019t tell! There\u2019s a lot of those!
Alvin: <\/strong>We have people come in from all over. People from Europe, from the upper Midwest and all that stuff. I know for a fact that some of us have recruited people from Louisiana to come up and join the Picnic family, which was kind of a big deal. One of the more popular radio stations, WWOZ in New Orleans, decided to broadcast the Picnic, and that was a big thing. And obviously they\u2019re streaming all over the world\u2014BOOM! the picnic goes worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Do you have any upcoming projects or shows? How can fans learn more about you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cedric:<\/strong> They can always see me on my Facebook, and you can also find out about all my shows and everything through my website, CedricBurnside.net, and also SingleLock.com, which is my record company.
I\u2019ve been doing a few shows here the last couple of months, which has been great. It\u2019s about time! And then in the next couple months I have a few short tours coming up, you know, four or five days. But, you gotta start somewhere right?
Luther:<\/strong> Yeah, the Allstars are back to work. We\u2019ve been touring a lot already. And it feels so, so good to get back to work. We have a new Allstars record that will be coming out early next year, and we are super excited about that. And I\u2019m always working with Sharde. Besides Cody, she\u2019s my greatest collaborator. We just recorded a really cool record with G Love. G Love came to Mississippi to make a collaborative Mississippi record. We had so many guests roll through, and everyone just did fantastic. G Love was ecstatic. We\u2019re finishing that record, so that will be coming out next year, as well. He came to the Zebra Ranch and Sharde came, and RL Boyce came, and Cam Kimbrough came, And Kingfish came, it was fantastic.
Libby:<\/strong> I\u2019ve always got various projects. I\u2019m trying to set up some home recording gear. The Fall seems to be when everyone is having festivals again. I\u2019ve been booked for several of those.
For fans, I have a website, www.libbyrae.com. The \u2018Gigs and What\u2019s Happening\u2019 page will tell you the upcoming shows. Then there\u2019s my Facebook music page, Libby Rae Watson\/Musician.
Alvin:<\/strong> I was talking about trying to make a new record, in the early part of 2020. But that kind of got shut down, so hopefully we\u2019ll be ready to pick that idea up and run with it again soon. We\u2019ve been trying to get our heads right after a lost year. It\u2019s almost like, did that really happen?
The website is AYHmusic.com, and all the social media channels. The Instagrams and the Facebooks, and all that stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are your current favorite jams?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luther: <\/strong>Last year, it was Prince, Tame Impala, and James Brown. This year it\u2019s James Brown, and a lot of film scores, Hans Zimmer and Wolfgang. I\u2019m working on a film score, so I\u2019ve been really enjoying studying film scores and studying a whole new side of music. But there\u2019s always that James Brown, that\u2019s the one.
Libby:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been working up some Jessie Mae Hemphill songs and writing some in that style.
Lately I\u2019ve been listening to Black Pumas, the Black Keys new CD, Little Joe Ayers, and some Jessie Mae.
Alvin: <\/strong>There was a friend of mine that had a saying: \u201cAlvin hasn\u2019t heard a record since 1972.\u201d Pretty much that. I still listen to a lot of old music, John Lee Hooker, and stuff like that. All the old classics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read the full interviews:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Libby Rae Watson<\/strong><\/a>
Cedric Burnside<\/a><\/strong>
Luther Dickinson<\/a><\/strong>
Alvin Youngblood Hart<\/strong> (coming soon)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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June has only just begun, and the temperature is rising! The pinnacle of the summer around these parts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[18748,18746,3531,18747,6690,5,3818,397,436],"class_list":["post-111711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-localfestivals","tag-alvin-youngblook-hart","tag-berry-davis-ponderosa","tag-cedric-burnside","tag-libby-raw-watson","tag-luther-dickinson","tag-mississippi","tag-north-mississippi","tag-north-mississippi-hill-country-picnic","tag-waterford"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/TLV-373-NMHCP-Half-page.jpg?fit=750%2C450&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}