Celebrating books, ‘Promiscuously!’

Love of the reading life, plus cool blues with "Muleman" Massey and world grooves with Afrissippi!

Thursday, June 1 – Sunday, June 4  – Author: Heather Cass WhiteBooks Promiscuously Read: Reading as a Way of Life

Music: Bluesman Mark “Muleman” Massey with former Amazing Rhythm Aces keyboardist Billy Earheart plus world boogie with Afrissippi!

Hosts: Jim Dees and our house band, the Yalobushwhacker Big Band with Mary Frances Massey!

(Original air: 9-9-21)

Air times:

Thursday, June 1 – 6 pm (CT) WUMS – University of Mississippi

Friday, June 2 – 6 am (CT) WYXR Memphis Community Radio

Saturday, June 3 – 3 pm (ET) WUTC  University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

7pm (CT) Mississippi Public Broadcasting

9pm (CT) Alabama Public Radio

Sunday, June 4 at 3 pm (ET) – WUOT | 91.9 FM, Knoxville

2 pm (MT) KNCE 93.5 | Taos, New Mexico

 

Featuring

Author

Heather Cass White

Heather Cass White is the author of Books Promiscuously Read: Reading As A Way of Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), a book about the pleasures of reading and its power in shaping our internal lives.

Through three sections—Play, Transgression, and Insight—which focus on three ways of thinking about reading, Books Promiscuously Read considers many poems, novels, stories, and works of nonfiction.

“This is a book that tells you that your guilty pleasure is actually not guilty.” —Tess Taylor, NPR

Music

Mark "Muleman" Massey

Mark “Muleman” Massey is originally from Clarksdale, MS. Massey credits a stint in Mississippi’s Parchman penitentiary for turning his life to music. His albums inlcude Mississippi Lockdown and One Step Ahead of the Blues.

For his Thacker appearance, Massey will be accompanied by former Amazing Rhythm Aces keyboardist, Billy Earheart.

Afrissippi

Afrissippi’s debut album, Fulani Journey, tells the story of Guelel Kumba, a singer-songwriter from the delta of Senegal, West Africa. Kumba moved to Oxford, Mississippi in 2002 after years spent studying sociology in Paris, France. He was awakened to the vibrant Western African music scene in Paris, studied and transcribed traditional Fulani music, and began to interact with popular Senegalese musicians like Salif Keita and Baaba Maal.

In Oxford, he jammed with Eric Deaton, a young apprentice to the late North Mississippi bluesman, Junior Kimbrough. The two discovered the similarities between the hill country blues of North Mississippi and Kumba’s nomadic melodies from the Senegalese savannas, and Afrissippi was born. The group’s second album is Alliance.

Deaton can be heard – along with Kenny Brown – on Delta Kream, the latest release from the Black Keys.

Afrissippi’s drummer, Kinney Kimbrough (son of Junior Kimbrough) brings Afrissippi’s other-worldly grooves full circle.