Living Blues: The Magazine of the African-American Blues Tradition, #184, May-June 2006. Cover photo: Eddie C. Campbell. Articles on Eddie C. Campbell, John Lee Hooker Jr., Roosevelt Sykes, sacred steel master Calvin Cooke, Bentonia, Mississippi’s Jimmy ‘Duck’ Holmes, a fascinating historical look at the once-thriving African-American blues & jazz scene of Des Moines, Iowa’s Center Street. In the early years of the 20th century, Black-owned businesses began opening along Center, between 12th and 17th Streets,
The neighborhood was one of the main Black business and residential areas until the highway I295 was built, cutting right through Center Street and demolishing the Black center. It had been the location for clubs featuring Iowa’s best jazz and blues musicians. People referred to Center Street as “a city within a city.” But, as many in Black communities throughout America in the ’60s said,“Urban renewal means Negro removal.”
Jimmy ‘The Midnite Cowboy’ Pryor, Artist to Artist: Honeyboy Edwards, and obits on Willie Kent, Paul Wine Jones, King Karl, Lester ‘Wizard’ King, Ricky Allen, Uncle Johnny Williams, Rev. Charlie Jackson, Willie “Vamp” Samuels Jr., Juggy Murray and Long John Baldry, plus news (Ponderosa Stomp in Memphis, Robert Johnson Test Pressings, Malaco Southern Soul Radio), ads, radio charts, letters and more than 50 CD reviews. 104 pages.
Living Blues magazine, America’s first blues publication, was founded in Chicago in 1970 by Jim O’Neal and Amy van Singel. From its inception, the magazine has aimed to document and preserve the African American blues tradition. Living Blues was acquired by the University of Mississippi in 1983 and is published bimonthly by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.
For more on Center Street, Des Moines, see the link above. https://littlevillagemag.com/des-moines-center-street-history/
- Living Blues
- South Oxford Center
- Box 1848
- University, MS 38677