We love doing Market Street Festival for our friends at CableOne. It’s a great event that draws huge crowds of very fun people. The bands are always excellent, the food is a delightful slice of the South, and this year even the hotel knocked the ball out of the park.

CableOne put us up in a jacuzzi suite with a widescreen, and it was roomy and sumptuous. Just the place to recover from a ten hour drive.

We did shows at 10, noon and 2 on Saturday the 2nd and the crowds were wonderful. For some reason, the festival had rearranged the locations of several things, much farther away from our stage than any previous year (this was my eighth) but we pulled in enough for all the seats and lots of standing room.

Despite all this, the local paper barely mentioned it even though the festival itself dominated the front page. Apparently there is some kind of unhealthy media rivalry going on between the various agencies in Columbus.  Figures I guess.  Being the most popular festival in the area, there would be a few power plays involved.

Anyway, like I touched on in my post about Market Street last year, even though I have never lived there, Mississippi is in my blood.  My mother was born and raised in Jackson, and we visited often.  My aunt and several cousins live in Wesson.  Most years, that’s where we have Thanksgiving.

I recently learned something from Mom’s past that’s pretty funny.   When she was attending Jackson High, there was a sock hop that her friends were going to, and they asked her along.  The school had hired a garage band from Tupelo High.  Average copy tunes from the era, but a pretty decent band.  Her friends wanted to meet the band during a break, and Mom remembers thinking the lead singer came off a little full of himself.  But she did think that Elvis was a catchy name.