ProPlant Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 http://www.facebook.com/GroundZeroBluesClub#!/pages/Sunflower-River-Blues-Gospel-Festival/135407909852447?sk=wall Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival Robert Plant is headliner at the 25th Annual Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival August 11, 2012. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProPlant Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 http://www.deltabohe...Qf3aiQ0.twitter All That Glitters…Robert Plant to Headline 25th Anniversary Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival 2012 in Clarksdale – heart of the Mississippi Delta By Poor William Email: poorwilliam@deltabohemian.com CLARKSDALE, MS (deltabohemian.com) – Clarksdale might have lost Morgan Freeman’s Madidi Restaurant last Thursday, but hearts and hopes were assuaged this past weekend upon hearing the incredible lineup slated for this year’s Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival: Plant, Musselwhite, and Rush. Kinda sounds like flora and fauna! Most of the known world…okay, folks who love the Mississippi Delta, the blues, Clarksdale, juke joint music, Red’s Lounge, Ground Zero Blues Club and last but not least—cold beer and BBQ—is already aware that Robert Plant, the quintessential, unparalleled, voice of the 70’s rock phenomenon Led Zeppelin will be headlining the 25th annual Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in downtown Clarksdale, Mississippi this August, 2012. Grammy winner Patty Griffin, renowned guitarist Justin Adams and West African musician Juldeh Camara will be joining Plant on stage. Poor William wrote an article for the Clarksdale Press Register over two years recounting a serendipitous encounter with Robert Plant on Magical Madge’s and Poor William’s engagement day go to: CLICK HERE to read ALL THAT GLITTERS article by Poor William on the Clarksdale Press Register website. (viewable by Subscribers Only.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deborah J Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Rock singer Robert Plant to headline Clarksdale's Blues and Gospel Festival Iconic rock singer Robert Plant will headline the 25th anniversary of Clarksdale’s Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in August, festival organizers announced. The Led Zeppelin vocalist, solo virtuoso and multiple Grammy winner will be in Clarksdale Aug. 10-12 with a 10-member entourage. “This is spectacular news,” longtime festival co-chairman Melville Tillis is quoted in a release. “We have been in dialogue with Robert Plant for several months, and are thrilled he will be here.” Plant will perform with fellow Grammy winner Patty Griffin, renowned guitarist/composer Justin Adams, West African virtuoso musician Juldeh Camara, keyboardist John Baggott, guitarist Billy Fuller and drummer Dave Smith. Also booked for the festival are blues harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite and acclaimed Jackson blues entertainer Bobby Rush. The festival is expected to draw thousands beyond last year’s 25,000 attendance. http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20120305/NEWS/120305022/1263/RSS Another article :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators sam_webmaster Posted August 11, 2012 Administrators Share Posted August 11, 2012 Robert Plant ‘Walking Into Clarksdale’ to headline Mississippi music fest 08.11.2012 Former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant is heading to Clarksdale, Miss., this weekend to headline the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in the historic Delta blues town he recorded a song about in 1999. Plant recorded “Walking Into Clarksdale” with former Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page and has visited the town numerous times. The rock star’s return this weekend to headline the Sunflower festival’s 25th anniversary celebration is “one of the single biggest things to happen to Clarksdale,” said resident and Cat Head music store owner Roger Stolle. “Robert Plant can do anything in the world he wants to do but chooses to come here and pay homage to the land of the blues. It really means a lot that he wants to do this, to give back to this community in that way, and I hope he enjoys it,” said Stolle, added Plant was in his store a few months ago and bought CDs by Mississippi bluesmen Slim Harpo and Skip James. Plant is scheduled to perform Saturday with his new roots-music band, the Sensational Space Shifters. He will take the stage with Grammy-winning vocalist Patty Griffin, West African virtuoso musician Juldeh Camara, guitarists Justin Adams and Bill Fuller, keyboardist John Baggott and drummer Dave Smith. The festival, which is free, runs Friday through Sunday. More than 40 acts will perform, including multiple Grammy-nominated bluesman Charlie Musselwhite and blues great Bobby Rush. “People travel from all over the world to the Mississippi Delta to connect to the blues, to the roots of the music,” said Malcolm White, director of the Mississippi Arts Commission and chairman of the Mississippi Blues Commission. “It’s a holy pilgrimage to people who are interested in the Mississippi story we have to tell through music.” Clarksdale and Coahoma County were the homes of early bluesmen W. C. Handy, Son House, Robert Johnson and Charley Patton. The area also was the stomping grounds of Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Sam Cooke, John Lee Hooker, Ike and Tina Turner, and Big Jack Johnson. The town is home to the Delta Blues Museum, which occupies an old train depot and includes the remains of the cabin from Stovall Farms, where Muddy Waters lived during his days as a sharecropper and tractor driver. It also includes a large collection of musical instruments, recordings, sheet music and photographs from B.B. King, Son Thomas, Jimmy Burns and John Lee Hooker. Plant, who could not be reached for comment, has been a Clarksdale supporter for years. He gave the museum a custom-designed plaque composed of miniature Led Zeppelin album covers and an engraved tribute to Delta blues musicians who influenced the band. He has also made donations to the Mississippi Heritage Blues Trail, a collection of historical markers honoring people, places and events in Delta blues history. On Friday, a marker commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Sunflower blues festival will be dedicated. It joins more than 100 others set up across Mississippi. On Aug. 22, a marker will be dedicated in Kilmichael, Miss., where B.B. King was raised, White said. The first Sunflower festival was held in 1988 on the banks of the Sunflower River. Headliners that year were Otis Rush and Son Thomas. The festival has always been free.Organizers expect more than 20,000 people from across the globe to attend this year’s festival. By The Associated Press Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAS Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 I was there. Awesome show. Definitely worth the 600 mile drive. Maybe if I get a chance later I'll post some pics. I also spent some time in St.Louis and stayed a day in Memphis on the way and saw the Gibson guitar factor, Sun Studios and Graceland among other things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators sam_webmaster Posted August 15, 2012 Administrators Share Posted August 15, 2012 Robert Plant’s New Band Makes U.S. Debut in Mississippi 08.15.2012 Led Zeppelin Icon Brings the Sensational Space Shifters to the Sunflower Blues Festival Storied British frontman Robert Plant has long since proved that his remit extends far beyond the rock lexicon. But with the consummation of his latest meticulously assembled group of co-workers, he seems more intent than ever on articulating fresh connections between the English Midlands and the American South. The Sensational Space Shifters line-up boasts collaborators who’ve been with Plant for other recent field work, as well as some new confederates. Guitarists Justin Adams and Liam “Skin” Tyson are joined by West African instrumentalist-singer Juldeh Camara, Grammy-winning Americana mainstay Patty Griffin, bassist Billy Fuller and drummer Dave Smith, with keyboards and samples by John Baggott. This brilliant aggregation played their first U.K. show in May, and Plant placed their U.S. live debut at the 25th Sunflower Blues Festival, a free event in the Mississippi locale that has been a lifelong spiritual home for him. The town even provided the title of “Walking Into Clarksdale,” his 1998 collaboration with a pal from a former life, Jimmy Page. Friends with the festival organizers, Plant’s decision to accept their longtime invitation to the get-together was founded at least in part on taking his particular blues-rock potion back to the area where he first came up with the prescription. He may have wondered exactly who he was taking it back to, since the crowd for this performance was far from an Afro-American blues majority and bore some resemblance, at stage front anyway, to a young white rock gathering. During early evening performances by James “Super Chikan” Johnson, Charlie Musselwhite and other blues seniors, one spotted at least a couple of rock chicks decked out in Led Zeppelin vests, as if in some ’70s superdome. But such audience dissection is churlish in the context of a stunning performance that combined cutting-edge energy with historical exploration. Plant and the band have almost completed recording their first album together, but eschewed any unheard material in favor of a full-bodied bill of fare, replete with reimaginings from other catalogs as well as his own. Organizers estimated that the Saturday night turnout had hit some 15,000 by the time the headliners elevated the festival’s energy levels beyond recognition. The band started as they meant to continue with Bukka White’s “Fixin’ To Die,” recorded by Plant for “Dreamland” a decade ago and others including Dylan long before. But this, and each of its successors, was no mere faithful reproduction. Fuel-injected with the double threat of Adams and Tyson’s lithe guitar lines and the rich textures of Baggott’s box of tricks, the recorded songs were mere blueprints for more adventurous sonic landscapes. “Tin Pan Valley,” from Plant’s 2005 “Mighty Rearranger” set with the Strange Sensation line-up, spat like oil fat in a fire, its choruses a rocking playground for the exhilarating guitar assault. Plant spoke knowledgeably about his personal debt to the Delta and how it got under his “epidermis” as a teenager who was lucky to see Sleepy John Estes, Big Joe Williams and other heroes, during the British blues upsurge of the ’60s. “44 Blues,” most inspired by the Howlin’ Wolf version, led into another classic popularized by the Wolf, Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful,” and so the old and new continued to coalesce in the very heartland of this hallowed music. To the backbone of Adams, Tyson, Fuller and Baggott, and Smith’s redoubtable drumming, Plant was able to field yet two more stars in Griffin and Camara. His creative and romantic pairing with Griffin has revitalized her entire stage persona, which glowed during her own “No Bad News” and the gospel-infused “Standing.” Camara embellished Plant’s own love of African rhythms with instruments that looked as wonderful as they sounded, illuminating Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” and even a retooled “Whole Lotta Love” in a mash-up with “Who Do You Love.” There were further trips to Zep territory for “Friends” and “Bron-Yr-Aur,” and one wondered if the rock giants could ever have had as much fun as this looked. There was still time to big up a British blues champion, John Mayall, with a delightful take on his “I’m Your Witchdoctor,” and a finale of “Gallows Pole,” as Plant received an award for his services to the music of Clarksdale. The recognition felt entirely mutual, as summed up by his final words of the night, when he thanked the audience for their appreciation of “the living blues.” http://www.billboard...007833152.story Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProPlant Posted August 15, 2012 Author Share Posted August 15, 2012 How many albums is he working on if he has one that is supposed to come out next year with Band of Joy and then is almost done with an album of the Sensational Space Shifters as well? I'm not complaining, just wondering what will exactly be on tour next year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deborah J Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 ^^ He does keep you wondering :-) Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters @2012 Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperDave Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 How many albums is he working on if he has one that is supposed to come out next year with Band of Joy and then is almost done with an album of the Sensational Space Shifters as well? I'm not complaining, just wondering what will exactly be on tour next year? I think this is it with the SSS and then off with the BOJ, but you never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bayougal65 Posted August 16, 2012 Share Posted August 16, 2012 I think this is it with the SSS and then off with the BOJ, but you never know. I agree, SuperDave. That is the way I understood it to be, R.P. & the SSS has one more appearance Nov. 24th in the Balearic's off the coast of Spain. And he has already made a R.P. & the SSS download available off of the HMV appearance (which I have listened to over and over and love every track) I would love to see this RP incarnation continue just to see what would come next, the SSS brew is driving, powerful, heavy, and spooky... in all the right places! But it sounds to me like the BOJ album will be the next major project for him. And Patty begins her solo tour of small venues very soon. But like you said, you never know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAS Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 I'd prefer to see the Space Shifters continue. I like Band Of Joy but the Space Shifters feel more like a cross of the Strange Sensation and Band Of Joy so you get a two for one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bayougal65 Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 I'd prefer to see the Space Shifters continue. I like Band Of Joy but the Space Shifters feel more like a cross of the Strange Sensation and Band Of Joy so you get a two for one. I feel with SSS, they are exploring a harder, psychedelic, rockn' blues brew that I don't think they could do with BOJ! Even Patty's "Standing" reeks of this dark, bluesy, spooky vibe that I love! I guess we will just have to wait and see what is next, but I am so glad he did this project! To me this proves all the naysayers wrong, his voice is in absolutely, awesome shape and he can still sing kick-ass rock and roll; wailing it out like the master he is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deborah J Posted August 28, 2012 Share Posted August 28, 2012 Robert Plant "A Night In Clarksdale" The Movie (thanks CarrollGazette) Enjoy, I wished I could have been there, and happy for those that did attend:-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deborah J Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 BUMP:-) Sunflower Blues Festival | Mississippi Roads | MPB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bayougal65 Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 BUMP:-) Sunflower Blues Festival | Mississippi Roads | MPB Very nice, Ms. Deb! Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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