about

The COVID-19 Influenza Pandemic of 2020 changed a lot of things—including writer Denise Pazur's career. It was then that she had some down time and was drawn to write this blog. 

An admitted late comer to Mississippi, Denise first visited the Magnolia State in 2006. She had discovered a love of the blues decades earlier through her husband Bud Pazur. In 1967 as an undergrad at Penn State, Bud happened upon a campus performance by the recently "rediscovered" Son House. The experience changed his life.

When Denise first met Bud in 1979, he passed along his passion for this authentic music, most of it born out of the rural Mississippi Delta. The couple saw lots of legends live including Albert King, Johnny Winter, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, Albert Collins, Bobbie "Blue" Bland, BB King and Robert Junior Lockwood. 

It's one thing to appreciate the blues from a distance. It's quite another to retrace the steps of the great blues musicians in the actual places that gave birth to them. So in 2006 Denise and Bud road tripped to the Delta where they discovered a place steeped in Mississippi music, history, culture and people. If you've been to the Delta, you know. When their five-day stay was up, neither Denise or Bud wanted to return to Wisconsin. They felt like they were already were home. 

Today Denise lives in Clarksdale, Mississippi where she unearths stories about the river and the Mississippi Delta, its people, music, culture, history and heritage. Her blog posts feature interviews with people both known and obscure, but each with a story to tell.

Thanks for joining Denise and coming along with her into the Mississippi Delta and beyond.

Since he was a child, Jay Kirgis has had an insatiable interest in art and music. He was inspired by his mother's record collection, and taught himself to play harmonica when he was just twelve years old. 

Jay earned an undergraduate art degree in California, then moved to Mississippi in the mid-1990s and obtained a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Mississippi. 

His multimedia art, some of its forms drawn from the symbolism and imagery indigenous to the Mississippi Delta and its blues culture, can be found across the U.S. and overseas. Jay has earned Best-of-Show at a number of regional art shows and festivals. He was one of several artists commissioned to produce large murals of legendary Delta blues musicians, painted on the walls of downtown buildings of cities along Highway 61.

Among those owning Jay's works are Hollywood actor Bridget Fonda; actor, producer and film director Eric Stoltz; and Susan Tedeschi, the multiple Grammy Award nominee and singer/guitarist in the Tedeschi Trucks band with her husband Derek Trucks. 

In addition to his artwork, Jay is a singer, songwriter and blues musician. He currently works out of his home studio in northern Louisiana.