LAUREL — Jones County bluesman L.C. Ulmer was recently named the 2009 Blues Artist of the Year by the Mississippi Delta Blues Society of Indianola.

Ulmer received the award earlier this month during the B.B. King Homecoming Festival in Indianola.
Janet Webb, past president of the Mississippi Delta Blues Society of Indianola, said it was an honor to bestow the award on Ulmer.

“He has represented our blues society at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis for the past two years,” Webb said. “He made it to the finals which was really unbelievable.

“We’ve done really well at IBC, and every time we do, I think we’ll never do this good again,” she added. “He really was a crowd favorite.”

According to the Mississippi Folklife and Folk Artist Directory, Ulmer played music for 50 years all over the U.S. before returning home to the Ellisville area in 2001. He plays guitar, keyboards, drums, fiddle, banjo mandolin, kazoo and harmonica, as well as being his own “12 piece” one-man band.

Ulmer was born in 1928 in Stringer, and later moved with his parents Luther and Mattie, six brothers, and seven sisters to a plantation near Moss Hill. Ulmer began playing guitar at nine years old and played with his family and other local musicians on the family’s porch.

The Mississippi Delta Blues Society of Indianola was formed in November 2003 by a group of blues enthusiasts after the decision was made to build the B.B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center in the small Delta town.

“We knew people were working on a B.B. King Museum and the Governor had formed the Mississippi Blues Commission,” Webb said. “We just needed to be represented.”

Webb said the museum bearing King’s name has been a boon for the city since it opened in September 2008.

“It’s been great,” she said. “Our sales tax revenue has gone up about 12 percent while everyone else’s is down.”
Webb noted that Mississippi residents often take their blues heritage for granted while tourists from all over the world flock to the Magnolia State for a taste of that history.

“They’re really self-taught Ph.D.’s on the blues,” she said.

Jay Holifield, who lives in the Tuckers Crossing Community, is one of Ulmer’s many fans in the area. Holifield’s son, Chase, has toured with Ulmer and competed alongside of him at the 2008 and 2009 International Blues Challenge after winning the Mississippi Delta Regional Blues Challenge.

“He’s just a genuinely good person and he’s good for the music industry,” Jay Holifield said. “He teaches at such a cheap rate that I don’t know how he pays for his fuel. He truly does it for the love of the music.”
Jay Holifield said that Ulmer, at the age of 82, still travels by himself to North Mississippi in his 1960s model Plymouth.

“He likes for someone to take him, but he’ll go by himself if somebody calls and wants him to do a show,” he said.
Jay Holifield said he met Ulmer through the elder statesman giving his son music lessons.

“My brother told me about him,” he said. “Chase started playing with him at some of the shows, and I took him back and forth to the different shows. That was before Chase had a driver’s license.”
Jay Holifield said he plays “very little” blues, describing himself as just a fan.

“I listen to the blues, and enjoy going with them and listening to them play,” he said. “As the economy falls, entertainment is one of the first things that people cut out to save money. It’s definitely cut back on some of their opportunities to go out and play.”
Chase Holifield praised Ulmer, who began teaching him the blues at the age of 14. Holifield, now 19, has shared the stage with his mentor nearly everywhere Ulmer goes.

“He taught me everything I know,” Chase Holifield said. “The blues is a dying art, and he’s doing what he can to keep it alive. He’s the last of a dying breed.”

Chase Holifield said it is a unique experience every time he plays with Ulmer, as a song is never played the same way twice.

“That’s the way a lot of the old bluesmen play,” he said. “That’s the reason a lot of people can’t play with him. The only reason I can is because he taught me.”

Attempts to reach L.C. Ulmer for this story were unsuccessful.

David Owens
Laurel Leader-Call