Indianola's blues clubs were an important stop on the now famed
Chitlin Circuit, and enthusiastic blues fans flock here today hoping for an authentic blues experience.
For generations the '
chitlin circuit' meant second-tier performers in raucous nightspots away from big cities.
Within weeks, I'd gone out of the
chitlin circuit to playing at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
It seems as if, in its most recent incarnation, Fences was being inaugurated into the '
Chitlin circuit' which is how Henry Louis Gates and others have described a particular trope of plays produced by and for black audiences depicting contemporary black American life in moralistic, pulpit-style platitudes for the so-called 'lowest common denominator' in popular acceptance.
Here's a sneak peek into the world of this songwriter-musician, who's been playing clubs, festivals and the "
chitlin circuit" for more than 50 years.
When Little Richard had a hit with "Tutti Frutti" and left the
Chitlin Circuit for Los Angeles, the Famous Flames took over Richard's gigs with Brown as "Little Richard" and Byrd assuming the part of Brown.
As much as television soap opera, it evokes the plays performed for primarily African-American audiences on the so-called
chitlin circuit. The audiences for these plays, which typically feature broadly portrayed character types and melodramatic plots that often center on faith and temptation, value their familiarity.
Black comedians have come a long way since the days of vaudeville and the old "
chitlin circuit," which gave birth to legendary comics such as Redd Foxx and Jackie "Moms" Mabley.
Rather, the director of each of The Blues films concentrated on one aspect of the music: Martin Scorsese on African antecedents of the blues; Charles Burnett on blues and its associations with social concepts of sin; Richard Pearce on the
chitlin circuit blues in Memphis and north Mississippi; Wim Wenders on Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, and J.
The authors also denounce the emergence of a "
chitlin circuit" on TV, in which the cable channels go after the black audience while the networks write them off and revert to shows featuring homogenized white casts.
The Negro humorists began their huge rise after the death of vaudeville, on the
chitlin circuit. To a comic, the
chitlin circuit meant the South, out-of-the-way theaters, low paychecks, funky hotel rooms, hot plates, and checks that might bounce.