On April 8, Louisiana Cultural Vistas celebrated the publication of its Spring 2014 issue with a party at the Louisiana Humanities Center in New Orleans. Discussing his piece on blues legend Memphis Minnie (see Knowla.org entry), contributor Roger Hahn read from this 1942 account by Langston Hughes of the singer’s performance at the 230 Club in Chicago:
“Then, through the smoke and racket of the noisy Chicago bar float Louisiana bayous, muddy old swamps, Mississippi dust and sun, cotton fields, lonesome roads, train whistles in the night, mosquitoes at dawn, and the Rural Free Delivery, that never brings the right letter. All these things cry through the strings on Memphis Minnie’s electric guitar, amplified to machine proportions — a musical version of electric welders plus a rolling mill.”
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A blog from the staff of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities 