My favorite weekend of the year is Juke Joint Festival weekend…where my bestest buds and I can get our dance on to real, live blues music legends ALL day & night long in venues ranging from a theatre with a canopy of real stars to an old Delta commissary full of memorabilia and farm equipment to famous long-time Juke Joints owned by Delta natives with Blues Music pedigrees.
I also get to gamble with friends on baby pig races (they love oreos and will race around a track to get one… but then again, who wouldn’t?) watch Monkeys riding Dogs herding Sheep (true story) and generally sample all the best food and drink the Delta has to offer.
The winning baby pig at the aforementioned Pig Races
My friend Griffin wins a Blue Ribbon from the Pig Races
For the past eleven years or so, I’ve only missed 3 or four Juke Joint weekends, and only those for VERY important reasons… I mean, I didn’t even miss the year I had a baby that was a month and half old. I pumped in bathroom stalls and sitting out on a picnic table with a scarf wrapped around me when there WERE no stalls, and called home every hour to check on him… Talk about commitment.
Anyway, this year, since we’ve moved farther south we missed it. All weekend I pouted over my Instagram and Facebook feeds as people posted photos of great bands or delicious food. But rather than JUST pout, I decided to pretend like I was there by putting some great Delta Blues on the record player and mixing up a batch of the unofficial Cocktail of Clarksdale Blues travelers and sponsor of the wildest nights in the world, The Walk Me Down. Click below to read more about this delicious (and dangerous cocktail and find out how to make them yourself).
…
