King Biscuit Time
King Biscuit Time is an American radio show broadcast by KFFA in Helena , Arkansas since 1941 . It is one of the oldest radio broadcasts in the USA.
history
The station, founded in November 1941, offered blues musicians a timeline if they allowed a sponsor. That sponsor was the Interstate Grocer Company, which sold King Biscuit Flour. This is how the show got its name. King Biscuit Time went on air for the first time on November 21, 1941 . It was opened with the words: "Pass the biscuits, cause its King Biscuit Time!" The first show was played by Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) and Robert Lockwood junior , who formed the core of the studio band called "King Biscuit Entertainers". Various musicians were grouped around this core. Sonny Boy Williamson left the show in 1947, but returned shortly before his death in 1965. Artists who appeared on the show over time included Little Walter , Jimmy Rogers, and Houston Stackhouse , among others .
King Biscuit Time was broadcast over 15,000 times, outperforming other programs such as the Grand Ole Opry and American Bandstand . The show has been presented by "Sunshine" Sonny Payne since 1951 and the show is still popular with blues musicians to this day. It can be heard at 12.15 p.m. local time every weekday on KFFA. After the broadcast, the programs can be downloaded from the Internet.
influence
The program can be heard across the Mississippi Delta and has inspired great blues musicians such as BB King , Robert Nighthawk , James Cotton and Ike Turner . The show made Helena an important center for blues music. But Afro-American music in general also received an impetus from the show. In 1947 the first black disc jockey was listed in the South and WDIA in Memphis became the first station with a black workforce, including BB King. The radio show has since influenced four generations of blues musicians and three generations of rock musicians from the Delta. Levon Helm , drummer of The Band , described the King Biscuit Time , especially the drummer James Peck Curtis, as the engine for his musical career.
Related projects
An offshoot of the show is the King Biscuit Flower Hour Show , a format for rock 'n' roll music. In 1986 the first King Biscuit Blues Festival took place, which has since been renamed the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival , but today bears its original name again. Donald Wilcock publishes a magazine under this name that features interviews and biographies of important blues artists.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Komara, Edward (2006). Encyclopedia of the Blues. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92699-8 .
- ↑ King Biscuit Time website
- ↑ King Biscuit Time Homepage