Thursday, May 2 – Sunday, May 5 – Tune in for a small town murder mystery where the whole town is a suspect, plus down-home blues and soul! We’ll take a moment to celebrate Mississippi bluesman, R.L. Boyce, who performed on this show (recorded Feb. 2023) and who passed away on Nov. 9, 2023.
Author: Jamila Minnicks – Moonrise Over New Jessup – “…compelling characters and a heart-pounding plot.” – Barbara Klingsolver
Music: Blues musician R.L. Boyce and songwriter/guitarist Ally Durr
Hosts: Jim Dees and house band, the Yalobushwhackers
Air times:
Thursday, May 2 – 6 pm WUMS 92.1 FM – University of Mississippi
Friday, May 3 – 6 am WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN.
Saturday, May 4 –3 pm (ET) University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
7pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio
Sunday, May 5 – 3 pm (ET) WUOT | 91.9 FM, Knoxville
2 pm (MT) KNCE 93.5 | Taos, New Mexico
Archived here: Spotify, SoundCloud, Google Podcast, iHeart Radio
Jamila Minnicks is the author of Moonrise Over New Jessup (Algonquin Books), which won the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.
The novel takes place in 1957 as Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama. The residents there have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.”
Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, an organizer whose activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion—or worse.
“…compelling characters and a heart-pounding plot.” – Barbara Klingsolver
Minnicks’ essay, Politics of Distraction, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, the Howard University School of Law, and Georgetown University, Minnicks has family roots in Alabama and currently lives in Washington, DC.
R.L. Boyce, whose 2018 album, “Roll and Tumble” was nominated for a Grammy award, as Best Traditional Blues Album, passed away on Nov. 9, 2023, at the age of 68.
At the time of his death, he had also released the EP, True Man.
In 2023 Boyce was the recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States government’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Boyce’s recordings and performances perfectly captured the juke-joint, moonshine-fueled, picnic party life of the north Mississippi blues.
Boyce was from Como, Mississippi, home to Mississippi Fred McDowell. He started out as a drummer and driver for the Rising Star Fife and Drum band with cane fife master, Otha Turner.
As a solo act, Boyce’s releases include the EP Sometimes I Worry, and the albums Rattlesnake Boogie and Ain’t Gonna Play Too Long.
R. L. could boogie with the best of them while retaining his gentle nature.
He ends this Feb. 2023 appearance on our show, mere months before his death, by saying, “See y’all next time.”
He will be deeply missed.
Ally Durr is a singer songwriter from Jackson, MS. Her latest releases include the singles What You Livin’ For and Keep Fighting, which is included on the soundtrack of the film, I’m From You.
