King — better known as B.B. King — was born on a cotton plantation outside tiny Itta Bena, destined to reign as the ...

As the flood waters rose, many blues artists were inspired to write songs about the disaster and describe the experience of being in a flood. The Mississippi Delta is famous for more than floods; it's ...

Jimmy “Duck” Holmes plays his guitar in front of the Blue Front Café in Bentonia, Miss. JACKSON, Miss. — Blues is inspired by place — the railroads, fields and slaughterhouses where the musicians once ...

The blues recordings that came out of the Mississippi Delta from the late 1920s through the late '30s have had an enormous impact on American music, influencing everyone from The Rolling Stones to ...

As the National Museum of African American Music opens its doors, journalists from the USA TODAY Network explore the stories, places and people who helped make music what it is today in our expansive ...