Why we honor a "Blues Country Harvest"

Clarksdale Press-Register, October 16, 2025

Celebrating harvest

October is a month of harvest festivals across the country.  It seems we celebrate the harvest everywhere except here -- where we're busy harvesting.

As we planned this first, small "Harvest Party" some locals scoffed at the timing.  Farmers are too busy on their combines and cotton pickers to come, they said!

Yet farm families need something to do, while their breadwinners work long days in the field.  They partake in Sabbath to recharge the soul... or at least for a few hours when it rains.

Harvest festivals aren't usually for farmers.  They're good fun for the public, who know little about the horticulture of the corn mazes they navigate or the pumpkins they pick.

They're a great opportunity to teach.  Coahoma County doesn't grow pumpkins, but we do grow the corn that feeds the chickens that feed you.

Farmers deserve to be celebrated.  They feed us, and drive our economy.  Agriculture is the #1 industry in Coahoma County and across Mississippi.

Why now, here

One of the most beloved traditions of the Deep Blues Festival was its music on Sunday afternoons.  Travelers and locals alike looked forward to relaxing and being inspired by the spirit and song of Reverend Wilkins.

While he and the festival are no longer here, we're throwing our first Harvest Party in that spirit.  After a wonderful week celebrating Tennessee Williams, it'll be an "afterparty" with good #SundayVibes.

It's timed to start at lunch after church, so our whole community can come.

It's at Hopson Hospitality, where we've been holding "Blues on the Farm" panels exploring the complicated history of sharecropping here -- and creating change as music brings our community together.

The Parchman Band is reviving, too.  This is among their first public performances since the band reestablished, and they're singing songs of regret, redemption, and hope.  At lunchtime, they’ll share behind-the-scenes stories about their experiences on “The Farm.”

The Carnegie Public Library is also bringing its Blues on the Farm exhibit to the farm.

Famed chef, author, and entrepreneur Stafford Shurden is bringing gumbo from Drew, as neighbors down the road so often do.

Arena Chambers will teach even newcomers how to line dance, so we can finish the afternoon dancing on the farm together.

"Blues Country"

The title "Blues Country" is intentional word play.  This, here in the heart of the Delta, is "Blues Country."  It is also a home of blues AND country music, past and present.

We sometimes experience a divide between blues tourism and the local community.  "Kids these days" crank up the country, or love Southern soul.  When event producers create yet another blues event in Clarksdale, it can feel like it's for tourists, not us.

We produce blues events because it's something we're known for and do well -- but also because it's part of Coahoma County's tourism strategy driving our economy.

Small businesses and small, new events can struggle in a small town.  We hope that locals will come, if we create the kind of event they ask for (more country parties please?!).  But financially, we often need to create events that draw blues tourists, to draw a crowd to break even.

Musicians share this dynamic.  They'd love to play other music here, but fear drawing a crowd too small to fill the tip jar.  Musicians are multifaceted, like most people: they enjoy many genres.  They write songs that defy neat labels.

So we're creating "Blues Country" as a wink to these genres, and the complexity of people and our music.

This IS Blues Country, and we’re proud of it.  It is a birthplace of the blues, and a legacy of this land and all those who still sing the blues.

We harvest the blues here, in sometimes complicated ways.  Harvesting our crops this year feels complicated, too.  Yet the harvest still holds great beauty.

This is a space where we can come together, talk about it, dance through it, and celebrate it all:

This blues, this country, and our harvest -- together.

Colleen Buyers is an agriculture strategist and founder of Shared Experiences USA.