Blues Festival Celebrates Delta Heritage
King Biscuit Time Is Longest Running Blues Radio Show
Sep 14, 2009
The blues and Helena Arkansas are synonymous because of KFFA Radio and the voice of 84 year old Sonny Payne who has hosted the King Biscuit Time radio show live on this AM station since 1951.
King Biscuit Time
In November 1941, blues musicians Robert Jr. Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson started a live program on KFFA Radio in Helena Arkansas that continues today. It was sponsored by the locally-processed King Biscuit Flour, and even though the flour is no longer a regional commodity, the name "King Biscuit" is perpetually associated with the Delta Blues.
For years, the blues music festival in Helena, the largest free blues festival in the United States, was known as the King Biscuit Blues Festival. The words and images are emblazoned on the concrete flood wall that separates downtown Helena from the powerful and muddy waters of the mighty Mississippi River.
The show is known for hosting live musicians in the studio. The King Biscuit Entertainers included Pinetop Perkins and James Peck Curtis. Levon Helms made his professional debut on KFFA Radio. Count Basie and BB King played on the show, as well Little Walter, considered to be the world's best harmonica player ever.
The radio show has been key to bringing people to Helena since its inception. In the 1940s and 1950s, Helena was a place where musicians came to jam, to network, exchange ideas and hear new music. The piano became an important element of what is known as "the Helena sound," which is a 3-chord progressive rhyming pattern. The Helena Sound is considered by many to be the basis of the more contemporary Chicago blues pattern.
Sonny Payne
A bass player from Helena Arkansas, Sonny Payne had performed on King Biscuit Time many times before returning to Helena for good in 1951 to become a permanent host of the show. Each week day at 12:15 p.m. CST, he opens the show with familiar and much loved phrase "pass the biscuits" and then pays tribute to the show's founder with music by Robert Jr. Lockwood.
Blues musicians still perform live in the studio of KFFA Radio as locals and fans look on through the big pane window on Main Street. Homey conversation and commentary from Sonny make the show as personal and meaningful as the heartfelt music itself.
At 12:45 p.m., Sonny signs off. The station is a simple 1,000 watt AM station that drops its signal to a intimate 90 watts at dusk. Blues fans from around the world listen to Sonny's taped program on-line after 5 p.m. each day.
Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival
The King Biscuit Blues Festival became the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival in 2005, but each October draws upwards of 50,000 fans to this tiny community about an hour south of Memphis on the banks of the Mississippi River.
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