King Biscuit, where having the blues is a fun time

HELENA —I lost my King Biscuit Blues Festival virginity last weekend as I made my way from the hills down to the land of the Delta blues.

Reba Russell, one of my favorite blues ladies, & Robert Nighthawk.

King Biscuit is a Mecca for blues fans who make the trek each Columbus Day Weekend to this Mississippi River town. Normally a quiet city about the size of Mountain Home, population-wise, Helena’s historic riverside downtown springs to life for three days as Cherry Street fills with people, vendors and musicians. From five different stages, a uniquely American sound fills the air as performers sing songs of hard life, celebration, love and lust, infidelity and good times and bad times.

This was the 28th year for King Biscuit, although for a few years it was the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival when someone in Memphis tried to lay claim to the King Biscuit name.

While I’m a fan of all kinds of music, from classical to country to rock, I have a special feeling for the blues. If you’re a fan, you know it touches you in a way that’s hard to describe. It makes you feel good, ready to jump up and boogie. Or, a blues love song can touch a spot in your heart only you and your soul mate know. And tunes about love and life gone wrong can tap into the place where you store your sympathy and empathy; even if you’ve never had the experience, you immediately know how it feels.

Joyce Henderson & Blind Mississippi Morris playing on Cherry Street.

So, finally getting the opportunity to catch a couple of dozen acts singing the blues was something I’d waited on for years. Even if you’re not into the true blues, there’s bound to be something you’ll like —even gospel, which is one of the roots for the blues —and most of it’s free. There’s a charge to see the main stage acts, but a ticket covers all three days, so you could sit in one spot and catch more acts than you could in a year. And there’s still four other stages with even more acts where you can enjoy the music for free.

King Biscuit is one of the most unique festivals I’ve ever attended. The length of Cherry Street is lined with all kinds of vendors. You can find African arts and crafts at booths, manned by genuine Africans, featuring unique handcrafted items such as wooden statues and carvings, jewelry, tapestries and clothing. Senegalese fishing hats proved popular among some festival goers.

Across from it there’s a booth for the local Humane Society, and nearby is a vendor selling stogie-box guitars, handmade guitars using old cigar boxes. The stogie-box guitar produces a unique sound, not quite a guitar but not a ukelele, either. Down the street are people selling T-shirts, paintings, more crafts, even a portable, climate-controlled cigar trailer, something I’ve noticed is popular at other blues events. Even women fire up the hand-rolled stogies.

All along the street are booths where beer is available (but lots of security is incentive to not over imbibe), and next to them booths where you can trade dollars for Blues Bucks, King Biscuit’s official currency. The Blues Bucks help vendors since they don’t have to make change, and it helps festival organizers know just how much money the event produces.

Then, there are the food vendors, which is another column, but I will say you can get everything from roast corn to tamales to turkey legs, barbecued bologna sandwiches to alligator on a stick.

But, the real draw is the music, and it can be found in the streets as well as on the stages. Individuals and groups set up their instruments and portable sound systems and play away with buckets out front for tips. You can see old bluesmen who still have what it takes, young performers looking for followers and a chance at someday getting a stage set. I saw one street act featuring a family —dad and pre-teen son on guitars and the son singing, mom on bass and daughter on drum (just one). They did an interesting version of “Foxy Lady.”

Liz Mandeville & her stogie-box guitar.

Another group featured a young man with a slight resemblance to Johnny Depp (at least I thought so) playing harmonica and vocals. I even saw a red-headed woman in a bright flowery dress playing a stogie-box guitar and making up the lyrics as she went along. Even an old blues hand like Blind Mississippi Morris —who was one of the stage acts —took to the street with his band to play for tips. He drew quite a crowd, including two little girls —one black, the other white —who stood down front, dancing along with every number and even mouthing some of the lyrics. You can’t be too young to start liking the blues.

A unique act, and one I’m sure will be going someplace, was a young man called Kingfish. Christone Ingram is his real name, and he plays guitar. He plays guitar like performers far older than his 14 years. He plays guitar like Jimi Hendrix, like Eric Clapton, like Stevie Ray Vaughn. He played on the stage in a park at the end of Cherry Street, and the crowd watched and listened in amazement. What a talent he has, more like a gift.

And people, there were all kinds of people at King Biscuit, including a group of German blues fans who had traveled from Europe to attend. There were folks who obviously were well off, and people who obviously weren’t, sharing the streets and sitting and standing side by side to hear the blues. They were happy people, speaking freely with one another and sharing the fun. Whether they were there to hear and learn more about the blues, or knock back a few brews and dance to the music, they all were there to experience one big good time on the river.

Many of the people I talked with had been going to King Biscuit year after year since it started in 1986. There even was a group who camped together in the “Tent City” each October for the festival. “Biscuithead” was the nickname tossed about for these festival regulars. It wouldn’t be hard for me to join the Biscuithead ranks, and maybe if I’m lucky I can, because like a certain potato chip, you can’t go to just one King Biscuit.