This archived article first appeared in May 2001

It's that time again, music lovers!

Summer's just about here, the outdoor venues are popping open like May flowers, all kinds of music fills the air and you know what that means – time for a Road Trip!

So get a bank loan and gas up your car, slide Marcia Ball's terrific new CD, Presumed Innocent, into the player, click to cut No. 8 and crank up "Thibodaux, Louisiana," – the perfect rajun' Cajun tune (complete with happy squeeze box) to start you rolling down the I-40 towards Memphis. The whole CD is a great Road Trip soundtrack. Maybe you can hear a sample at www.marciaball.com. While you're there, sign up for her highly entertaining "Gator-Grams."

The Orpheum Theater in Memphis is where you want to be May 24 if you care anything about the Blues. That's where bunches of the best blues musicians on the planet will be gathering for the 22nd Annual W.C. Handy Awards – blues music's equivalent of the GRAMMYs.

Between presentations of the Handy Award "Blue Note" statues in 25 categories, including Blues Entertainer of the Year, you will see some tremendous performances, often by two or more musicians who rarely, if ever, perform together. Last year's pairing of Odetta and Henry Butler springs immediately to mind as an example. Butler's soulful piano wizardry and Odetta's amazing voice were a thrilling combination.

Following the awards show, there's a post-awards jam that goes on into the wee, wee hours. And there's no telling who all you'll see joining forces on the jam stage. One year it was Bonnie Raitt and one of her favorite blues artists, John Mooney. The Handy Awards are followed by a two-day festival that offers a wealth of blues by internationally-known artists playing in clubs that line Beale Street.

New Orleans legend Dr. John hosts the show, which is presented by the Memphis-based Blues Foundation. Of the six Entertainer of the Year nominees –  B.B. King, Bobby Rush, Little Milton, Rod Piazza, Shemekia Copeland and Taj Mahal – only Mahal and Copeland have not played Fort Smith. Mahal and Piazza will perform at the Handys.

Other Handy nominees performing will be Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater, Gatemouth Brown, Henry Butler, Corey Harris, Big Jack Johnson, Kim Wilson and Sam Carr. All but Johnson and Butler have played to Fort Smith audiences before, too.

The Handy All-Star Band will feature Bob Margolin, Duke Robillard, Pinetop Perkins, Willie Kent, Kim Wilson and Levon Helm.

"This may be the strongest line-up we've had in years," Blues Foundation Executive Director Howard Stovall said during a recent telephone interview. Stovall said he has been friends with Clarksdale, Mississippi, bluesman Big Jack Johnson for years and he's been looking forward to guitarist Johnson, harp player Wilson and drummer Carr performing an acoustic version of Johnson's Song of the Year nomination, "So Long Frank Frost."

Johnson wrote the song in tribute to Frost after the harmonica ace, who was his longtime friend and former band mate, died in October 1999. Johnson, Carr and Frost started playing together in 1962 in a band they named the Nighthawks. After recording two albums, the trio broke up for a few years before returning as the soon-to-be-legendary Jelly Roll Kings in 1978. Johnson wrote and first performed his touching musical memorial to Frost at his funeral in Helena and was accompanied by a trio, with Carr on drums.

If you can't make it to Memphis for the Handys this year, start planning for next year and watch the live webcast of it May 24 on www.hob.com, web site of sponsor House of Blues. Webcast masters John and Lori Moore and their 305 Spin crew will be livestreaming the show, as they have done so expertly since 1998.

For more information about the Keeping the Blues Alive Award-winning Moores, go to www.305spin.com.

For more on the Handys, including a complete list of the nominees and a schedule for the event, go to www.handyawards.com.

While you're there, look for my name under the archived coverage of the last three shows under Handy Journal (2000) (1999), (1998) to learn more about why I've grown so fond of this annual blues event.

Stovall said this year's show will once again be filmed by Memphis PBS affiliate WKNO for later syndicated broadcast on public television stations. A compilation CD featuring this year's Handy nominees also should be available by the end of May.

Backstage at the Handys last year I got to meet and briefly speak with the excellent actor and blues fan Morgan Freeman, whom we hear enjoys playing a little blues guitar himself. Stovall, who describes himself as "a tiny partner" in the new "Ground Zero" juke joint-style blues club Freeman and another partner will open May 27 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, is looking for Freeman to show up at the awards this year, too.

Last year, Freeman told me he has been trying for seven years to get a script he likes for a movie about deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves, who worked out of Fort Smith for federal Judge Isaac C. Parker. Morgan said he is determined to make a movie about Reeves. If I get to see him this year, maybe I can find out if he has made any progress on that.

Linda Seubold, who can think of more reasons to go to the Handys than anyone we know, has conducted live backstage interviews for the global webcast of the Handy Awards since 1998, when the webcast made is Internet premiere.