May 26, 2023
None of us had ever been to Arkansas, so we decided to take a drive across the Mississippi to nearby Helena. We thought that we would find it hard to find a town more down on its luck than Clarksdale, but we were wrong. Many of Helena’s buildings were shuttered and dilapidated. There were only a handful of restaurants and stores left. Oddly enough, one of the stores still open was a high end furnishings store. We couldn’t imagine how it managed to survive.
We dropped by the Delta Cultural Center. Like Clarksdale, Helena is steeped in the Blues. In fact, it is the home of King Biscuit Time, not only the longest-running blues radio program in the United States, but also the longest-running daily radio broadcast, period. Its first broadcast was on November 21, 1941 and featured blues legend, Sonny Boy Williams. Today, it is broadcast each weekday from KFFA and its studio is in the Cultural Center. We had a chat with the DJ and then sat back to enjoy some of the show.
Mal and Lauren 