Sallie Mae - T-Model Ford

T-Model's credentials are impeccable; if anything he's over qualified. He was born James Lewis Carter Ford in Forrest, a small community in Scott County, Mississippi. T-Model thinks he's seventy-five but isn't sure. He was plowing a field behind a mule on his family's farm by age eleven, and in his early teens he secured a job at a local sawmill. He excelled and was later recruited by a foreman from a bigger lumber company in the Delta, near Greenville, and eventually got promoted to truck driver. During the time he spent driving and working in a log camp, T-Model ran into trouble, and was eventually sentenced to ten years on a chain-gang for murder. He lucked out and was released after serving two. He says, grinning, "I could really stomp some ass back then, stomp it good. I was a-sure-enough dangerous man." When asked how many times he'd been to jail, T-Model responded, "I don't know. How many?" He seemed to think it might be a trick question. Upon realizing it wasn't, he answered to the best of his ability. "Every Saturday night there for awhile." As disheartening as this is, it's also a refreshing reminder of how ridiculous the present image of a bluesman is. Nothing could be more twisted than the romanticized and picturesque standard...an old black man devoid of anger and rage happily strumming an acoustic guitar on the back porch of his shack "in that evening sun". T-Model couldn't be further from this fabricated image. At 3/4 of a century old and with a dislocated hip, hes still cussing, fighting, and outdrinking men a quarter his age. Spam to his friends,Tommy Lee Miles to the authorities, he has been T-Model's A-number-one drummer for the past eight years. T-Model and Spam are the only men still playing on Greenville's Nelson Street. Most of the audience has scattered due to violence from the crack trade, and with the exception of T-Model, the street that once boasted Booba Barnes and others is dead. On a typical night Spam and T-Model will arrive at the club and unpack T-Model's guitar and amp, and the bass drum and snare he allows Spam to use. When T-Model feels there are enough people, they start banging away in their own post-war Peavey-powered hill stomp. It's nothing unusual for T-Model to play eight hours a night. They keep going until no one's left standing. After his equipment's packed up T-Model will coat himself with Off and climb into his van to crash.
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Jumper On the Line - KENNY BROWN

Kenny Brown (born on the Air Force base in Selma, Alabama, July 5, 1953) is a blues slide guitarist from Nesbit, Mississippi. Skilled in the North Mississippi Hill Country blues style popularized by his mentor R. L. Burnside, Brown began his career by apprenticing with Mississippi Joe Callicott, Johnny Woods, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. He has also cited Muddy Waters, Mojo Bufford, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Junior Kimbrough, Johnny Winter, and Johnny Shines as influences. He has recorded one album for the Fat Possum Records label (Stingray), and his most recent double-album "Can't Stay Long" was released in June 2011 on Devil Down Records .

In 1971 Brown began performing with R. L. Burnside, who claimed Brown as his "adopted son." and affectionately called him "white boy on guitar" and "my white son." Both Brown and Burnside have noted the singularity of Brown's being a white musician playing in the previously predominantly African American genre of North Mississippi Hill Country blues.

Brown's guitar work was featured in the 2006 film Black Snake Moan, where he provided backing for star Samuel L. Jackson's vocals.[8] He can also be seen in the film's climax as a guitarist in a blues band, playing alongside Burnside's grandson Cedric.

He has also performed with rock bands Widespread Panic and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

Brown currently lives in Potts Camp, Mississippi, in the North Mississippi Hill Country.

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You See Me Laughin - Part 2

You See Me Laughin' is a personal journey into the lives and music of the last of the hill country bluesmen who've kept their music alive on the back porches and in the tiny juke joints of the Mississippi backwoods.
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You See Me Laughin' - Part 1

You See Me Laughin' is a personal journey into the lives and music of the last of the hill country bluesmen who've kept their music alive on the back porches and in the tiny juke joints of the Mississippi backwoods.
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Sad Days, Lonely Nights - Junior Kimbrough

David "Junior" Kimbrough (July 28, 1930 — January 17, 1998) was an American blues musician from North Mississippi. His best known work included "Keep Your Hands Off Her" and "All Night Long". Music journalist Tony Russell stated "his raw, repetitive style suggests an archaic forebear of John Lee Hooker, a character his music shares with that of fellow North Mississippian R. L. Burnside".
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You See Me Laughin' part 4

You See Me Laughin' is a personal journey into the lives and music of the last of the hill country bluesmen who've kept their music alive on the back porches and in the tiny juke joints of the Mississippi backwoods.
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You see me laughin´ - The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen. Part 3

You See Me Laughin' is a personal journey into the lives and music of the last of the hill country bluesmen who've kept their music alive on the back porches and in the tiny juke joints of the Mississippi backwoods.
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Grandma Got Mad - Cedell Davis

CeDell Davis (born Ellis Davis, 9 June 1927) is a blues guitarist and singer.
Davis is most notable for his distinctive style of guitar playing. Davis plays guitar using a table knife in his fretting hand in a manner similar to slide guitar, resulting in a welter of metal-stress harmonic transients and a singular tonal plasticity. He uses this style out of necessity. When he was 10, he suffered from severe polio which left him little control over his left hand and restricted use of his right. He had been playing guitar prior to his polio and decided to continue in spite of his handicap, and developed his knife method as the only way he could come up with of still playing guitar.

Davis was born in Helena, Arkansas, where his family worked on a local plantation. He enjoyed music from a young age, playing harmonica and guitar with his childhood friends.

Once he sufficiently mastered his variation on slide guitar playing, Davis began playing in various nightclubs across the Mississippi Delta area. He played with Robert Nighthawk for a ten year period from 1953 to 1963. While playing in a club in 1957, a police raid caused the crowd to stampede over Davis. Both of his legs were broken in this incident and he was forced to use a wheelchair since that time. The hardships resulting from his physical handicaps were a major influence in his lyrics and style of blues playing.

Davis moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas in the early sixties and continued his artistic work. In recent times, Davis' music has been released by the Fat Possum Records label to much critical acclaim. His 1994 album, produced by Robert Palmer, Feel Like Doin' Something Wrong, received a 9.0 from Pitchfork Media who called it "timeless."

The Best Of CeDell Davis (1995) was also released, with help from Col. Bruce Hampton and The Aquarium Rescue Unit. The Horror of It All followed in 1998. Davis took time away from recording after these releases, and spent the next four years writing and performing. When he returned to the recording studio, he drafted musicians like R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, R.E.M. sideman Scott McCaughey, The Screaming Trees' Barrett Martin, and soul keyboardist Alex Veley. The final results, When Lightnin' Struck the Pine, was released in 2002.
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Cummins Prison Farm - CeDell Davis

CeDell Davis (born Ellis Davis, 9 June 1927, Helena, Arkansas) is a blues guitarist and singer.

Davis is most notable for his distinctive style of guitar playing. Davis plays guitar using a table knife in his fretting hand in a manner similar to slide guitar, resulting in a welter of metal-stress harmonic transients and a singular tonal plasticity. He uses this style out of necessity. When he was 10, he suffered from severe polio which left him little control over his left hand and restricted use of his right. He had been playing guitar prior to his polio and decided to continue in spite of his handicap, and developed his knife method as the only way he could come up with of still playing guitar.

Davis was born in Helena, where his family worked on a local plantation. He enjoyed music from a young age, playing harmonica and guitar with his childhood friends.

Once he sufficiently mastered his variation on slide guitar playing, Davis began playing in various nightclubs across the Mississippi Delta area. He played with Robert Nighthawk for a ten year period from 1953 to 1963. While playing in a club in 1957, a police raid caused the crowd to stampede over Davis. Both of his legs were broken in this incident and he was forced to use a wheelchair since that time. The hardships resulting from his physical handicaps were a major influence in his lyrics and style of blues playing.

Davis moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas in the early sixties and continued his artistic work. In recent times, Davis' music has been released by the Fat Possum Records label to much critical acclaim. His 1994 album, produced by Robert Palmer, Feel Like Doin' Something Wrong, received a 9.0 from Pitchfork Media who called it "timeless."

The Best Of CeDell Davis (1995) was also released, with help from Col. Bruce Hampton and The Aquarium Rescue Unit. The Horror of It All followed in 1998. Davis took time away from recording after these releases, and spent the next four years writing and performing. When he returned to the recording studio, he drafted musicians like R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, R.E.M. sideman Scott McCaughey, The Screaming Trees' Barrett Martin, and soul keyboardist Alex Veley. The final results, When Lightnin' Struck the Pine, was released in 2002.
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Big Boss Man - Cedell Davis

CeDell Davis (born Ellis Davis, 9 June 1927, Helena, Arkansas) is a blues guitarist and singer.Davis is most notable for his distinctive style of guitar playing. Davis plays guitar using a table knife in his fretting hand in a manner similar to slide guitar, resulting in a welter of metal-stress harmonic transients and a singular tonal plasticity. He uses this style out of necessity. When he was 10, he suffered from severe polio which left him little control over his left hand and restricted use of his right. He had been playing guitar prior to his polio and decided to continue in spite of his handicap, and developed his knife method as the only way he could come up with of still playing guitar.

Davis was born in Helena, where his family worked on a local plantation. He enjoyed music from a young age, playing harmonica and guitar with his childhood friends.

Once he sufficiently mastered his variation on slide guitar playing, Davis began playing in various nightclubs across the Mississippi Delta area. He played with Robert Nighthawk for a ten year period from 1953 to 1963. While playing in a club in 1957, a police raid caused the crowd to stampede over Davis. Both of his legs were broken in this incident and he was forced to use a wheelchair since that time. The hardships resulting from his physical handicaps were a major influence in his lyrics and style of blues playing.

Davis moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas in the early sixties and continued his artistic work. In recent times, Davis' music has been released by the Fat Possum Records label to much critical acclaim. His 1994 album, produced by Robert Palmer, Feel Like Doin' Something Wrong, received a 9.0 from Pitchfork Media who called it "timeless."

The Best Of CeDell Davis (1995) was also released, with help from Col. Bruce Hampton and The Aquarium Rescue Unit. The Horror of It All followed in 1998. Davis took time away from recording after these releases, and spent the next four years writing and performing. When he returned to the recording studio, he drafted musicians like R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, R.E.M. sideman Scott McCaughey, The Screaming Trees' Barrett Martin, and soul keyboardist Alex Veley. The final results, When Lightnin' Struck the Pine, was released in 2002.
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Rollin and Tumblin - R. L. Burnside

R. L. Burnside (November 23, 1926 – September 1, 2005), born Robert Lee Burnside, was a North Mississippi hill country blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist who lived much of his life in and around Holly Springs, Mississippi. He played music for much of his life, but did not receive much attention until the early 1990s. In the latter half of the 1990s, Burnside repeatedly recorded with Jon Spencer, garnering crossover appeal and introducing his music to a new fanbase within the underground garage rock scene.
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