Charlie Musselwhite’s latest album is Look Out Highway (Forty Below Records).

“At 81, Mr. Musselwhite sounds like a man whose batteries are charged & his experience is fully activated. There’s not a single misstep here.” — Americana Highway

Also highly recommended is Charlie’s previous release, the Grammy nominated Mississippi Son (Alligator), which features his famous harmonica as well as his rarely heard guitar.

Musselwhite has been featured on recordings by Tom Waits, Eddie Vedder, Ben Harper, John Lee Hooker, Bonnie Raitt, The Blind Boys of Alabama, INXS, Cyndi Lauper, and his 2020 collaboration with touring partner, Elvin Bishop, 100 Years of Blues.

He is an inductee into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame (2010) and a Grammy winner (Best Blues Album) for his 2014 collaboration with Ben Harper, Get Up!

Musselwhite performed a memorable set with Bishop (and cracker-jack back-up by Bob Welsh) at the 2025 North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic.

North Mississippi blues guitarist Kenny Brown shared the stage with harmonica master, Charlie Musselwhite and our house band, the Yalobushwhackers, for his Thacker appearance at the 2025 Juke Joint Festival.

Brown recorded, toured and developed a close relationship with the late blues great, R. L. Burnside.

In the early 1970s they began performing as a duo and continued for 30 years, sometimes joined by the late Calvin Jackson on drums.

Cedric Burnside joined their tours in the mid-90s as R.L.’s reputation surged throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

Brown has recorded with dozens of blues acts including R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, but he and his soulful slide guitar have also collaborated with Hank Williams, Jr. The Black Keys, Dale Hawkins, and even Cyndi Lauper.

Kenny, along with his wife Sara, are the key founders of one of the South’s best (and funkiest) blues festivals, the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic.

Brown continues to perform locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally and currently lives in the North Mississippi Hill Country.

Photo: Deke Rivers

In his latest thriller, Don’t Let the Devil Ride, New York Times bestselling author Ace Atkins makes the city of Memphis – its bars, music, BBQ and sweaty soulfulness – a character in the story.

A Memphis woman hires a P.I., Porter Hayes, (a clever nod to Stax songwriters David Porter and Issac Hayes) to find her missing husband.

Readers are quickly plunged into a page-turning story of suspense, action and even – international intrigue!

The book leaves us with a reminder of a fundamental truth: “One monkey don’t stop no show.”

Also available is a new 25^th anniversary edition of Crossroad Blues, Atkins’s debut novel, now back in print.

A modern, Southern re-invention of The Maltese Falcon, Crossroad Blues is a noir ride down Highway 61. We meet Nick Travers, an ex-New Orleans Saint turned Tulane University blues historian. Nick searches for the lost recordings of 1930s bluesman Robert Johnson—and a missing colleague—and finds trouble at every turn.

Ace Atkins has written 30 books.

His accolades include the 2025 Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award (Past winners: Eudora Welty, Willie Morris, Shelby Foote, Richard Ford, Barry Hannah, Natasha Trethewey and John Grisham, among others).

On March 7, Ace was inducted into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame (past inductees: Harper Lee, Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Ralph Ellison, Winston Groom, Brad Watson, among others).

Also recently announced, Ace Atkins will receive the 2026 Harper Lee Award from the Monroeville Literary Festival. The elite club of previous winners includes E.O. Wilson, Winston Groom, Rick Bragg and Fannie Flagg.

That honor will be bestowed in February.

Ace lives outside Oxford, MS with his wife and family.