07/04/2025
Hooray for neighbors! Look who came to town. Helena's leaders are building bridges here. We're all working together to help the King Biscuit Blues Festival survive -- and hopefully thrive for years to come. Here's a nerdy Delta story for y'all curious about how it's working :
(It's long, so hit that Save button to read at the beach or better yet bedtime. Or next time someone asks, "What's happening with King Biscuit?")
The Biscuit is facing the same challenges you've seen at arts and nonprofit organizations everywhere.
They're also "victims of their own success" in being one of the biggest, oldest, most well-loved blues festivals in the world. What started as a small party on the farm with a group of friends, has become a massive undertaking. It takes a big, complicated operation (and budget!) to run.
All y'all asking about whether we'll continue your favorite traditions -- the signed and numbered posters, the 5k, the camping, the artists you love on the stages you love, even the biscuit platters you get for the billion different levels of sponsors who help pay for it all... You know. It's a lot. In the best of ways.
Because it's grown over time, like the best of things do!
***
For y'all who haven't been to the Biscuit, but know Mississippi: it's like Juke Joint. The Juke Joint Festival (coming April 11, 2026!) is also legendary. It's a different format and feel, which shares the best of the blues with our town -- and the whole world who comes here to experience it.
Literally: people from all over the world, and all across the country, come like partying pilgrims to these tiny towns -- more than doubling our population for a day.
Juke Joint and King Biscuit weekends drive the biggest sales many of our local small businesses see all year.
The restaurants, hotels, even gas stations: they're all packed. It's important work for employees. It's the difference between red and black to some small business owners.
It's tax revenue for our towns.
So when the Biscuit struggles, so do we.
***
King Biscuit is a crown jewel in blues history, Arkansas' tourism, and Helena's economy.
The Biscuit is in Helena, but many fans can tell you: the afterparty is in Clarksdale.
And as the Biscuit struggled this year, some Clarksdale hotels and restaurants ran the numbers and told us: the whole Biscuit week, Wednesday through Friday's traditional "Warm-Up" days... "Ain't what it used to be."
Which is a thing most Delta locals say, and we all sometimes feel.
Music festivals are fun, but their economic impact is serious business.
***
So our phones started ringing off the hook when the Biscuit board voted to cancel this year.
Which happened as we were starting our 4th annual Women in Blues festival (and planning another). Backstage, several of us who run festivals and local businesses said to each other, "If even the Biscuit can't make it, there but for the grace of God..."
***
Our Live From Clarksdale project was born when Shared Experiences USA, headquartered here, couldn't launch in March 2020.
It started organically, after Walt held his head in hands at his last Hopson gig, having lost all his jobs in one day. When Red's closed and Lucious streamed his usual Wednesday gig that night.
And when the Juke Joint Festival cancelled -- but we took the party online.
The Biscuit's cancellation felt a little like that.
Catastrophic for our community. But also a moment we "might could" come together -- to sing the blues, support each other, and even try something new.
***
So in a flurry of cross-river calls, we told the board: don't cancel!! We'll help.
Because once those longtime fans and blues pilgrims cancel those tickets they bought last year, will they come back?
We talked about this as a "bridge year."
If we hosted the first half, and yep all that work, could that help the Biscuit focus on a fabulous Friday-Saturday?
If we hosted music and events to make it worth the trip, would people still come?
The Biscuit board said YES, and we hope you will too.
***
More details coming soon. Please know there's a big team working hard behind the scenes to make it happen -- for the fans and the musicians, the Biscuit, and for our communities.
Pictured here is Patrick Roberson, whose expertise and leadership is bringing everyone together and helping chart this new path forward.
Helen Halbert is the director of Visit Helena, Arkansas and working on ways to welcome people here.
Harvey Williams is the Phillips County Chamber of Commerce board president and founder of Delta Dirt Distillery, which is revitalizing downtown and making it cool to come to Cherry Street again.
Not pictured is the indomitable Munnie Jordan, who was already working the phones. Or Chalk Mitchell, because when your blues society president is also a judge, sometimes he can't make the blues meeting because he's busy running a courtroom. Or the dozen other board members and volunteers -- on both sides of the river! -- coming together to make some beautiful music here.
Oh and yes that's me, Shared Experiences' founder and your trusty narrator: Colleen Buyers, the Yankee in the jacket because Mississippi conference rooms are cold.
***
THANKS to everyone trusting us to build bridges and make this year a different but epic King Biscuit Week.
For all the Delta's challenges, our people are our strength. And our love for this music and our communities is strong.
We'll share more soon about how you can join us here (Munnie and Heidi would want you to know the website donation button's a great start, and obv Visit Clarksdale will help you plan that trip).
Til then: It's vacation time!
Delta Dirt opens at 4pm, and it's our turn to visit our neighbors.
We're ready to relax and raise a glass. To great neighbors, and a great big Delta party ahead! Cheers. 🍻
(Photo credit: Jim Hughes, a force behind Juke Joint and Film Fest, and the best of neighbors.)
