Annette Hollowell – A Blues Mover and Shaker
by Frank Matheis 2021
“This music and culture is deep medicine that has been handed directly down for how you survive oppressive systems, how you survive a world that doesn’t see you as valuable, that doesn’t think you have a soul. It’s like the perfect counter to all of these things that have been said and thought about black folks so long.”
Annette Hollowell
There are plenty of musical venues but there are very few places and people that are career catalysts, people who go the extra mile, places where there are higher goals and ideals. One such venue is the Foxfire Ranch in Waterford, Mississippi, and one such catalyst is the visionary proprietor and host Annette Hollowell. She is a remarkable tour-de-force – an attorney, social activist and now the director of the Hill Country Harmonica, the largest blues harmonica gathering and workshop in America. Recently, she was also the host of a significant convergence of eight young African American musicians in an event called Foxfire Blues Assembly.
To explore these activities, the topic of race in America, and specifically in the blues genre, is unavoidable. Most venues nationwide are white owned. One reason why Foxfire Ranch is special is because it is a black-owned farm and event venue in the North Mississippi Hill Country. These 80 acres have been in the Hollowell family for over 100 years. Annette Hollowell explained, “As we envision the next century we are holding Foxfire as a space for rest, retreat, connection, deep learning, and celebration. We are a resource for artists, healers, and lovers of justice. We are committed to the survival of our unique cultural traditions, art, and expressions.”
The blues music industry is still predominately white. Blues is an African-American cultural contribution to the world, a black musical form and an inherent part of the African-American experience. Yet, black musicians can feel a form of estrangement. The blues press, forums, record labels and radio DJs are predominately white (including this writer) – as is the audience. Summer concerts mostly feature white blues rockers as headliners, relegating the true acoustic blues to minor stages, if included at all. The blues academia, the professors of the blues and the book authors are mostly white. No wonder that black blues musicians want to hold on to the fact that they are, indeed, the authentic cultural heirs to the blues. These are legitimate grievances of black musicians.
Recently, things have changed and progress has been made. The blues camps are now being directed by African American blues musicians like Phil Wiggins (August Blues Week, Hill Country Harmonica) Corey Harris and Jerron Paxton (Centrum), and others. Musicians like Corey Harris and Deidra Farr now write for Living Blues magazine. Musicians like Phil Wiggins are telling their own story in books. An encouraging new generation of young artists have emerged over recent years to revitalize the genre: Jerron Paxton, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, Laya McCalla, Cedric Watson, Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah, Marcus “Mookie” Cartwright, Andrew Alli, and many more.
One of the major rising new talents has been the Georgia based blues player Jontavious Willis. Himself a natural leader, just a few years ago he was a talented newcomer, taken under the wings of the seasoned stars Taj Mahal and Keb Mo. By now he has already become a primary mentor and facilitator to a new crop of up-and-coming blues players. During the peak of the 2020 pandemic, he approached the Foxfire Ranch about hosting a week of sanctuary, fellowship, deep learning, storytelling and immersion in the blues. From these conversations the Foxfire Blues Assembly was born, as a vehicle for nurturing, connecting, and supporting the next generation of the blues vanguard. The attendees this year include Jontavious Willis (Georgia), Marquise Knox (Missouri), Stephen Hull (Wisconsin), Jamia “Jayy Hopp” Hopson (Georgia), DK Harrell (Louisiana), Sean “Mack” McDonald (Georgia), and Little Dylan Triplett (Illinois.
thecountryblues interviewed the dynamic Annette Hollowell via phone on November 27, 2020 – the day after Thanksgiving, inviting her to tell her own story:
About her connection to the land and Foxfire
“I’m a daughter first – of Bill and Annie Hollowell and granddaughter of Albert Hollowell and Wilma Gwen Hollowell Faulkner Jones, and of Connie and Mark Nunnally and Albert and Wilma Hollowell.
What that means for me is that my family is deeply rooted to Waterford. My father’s family is from Holly Springs. This land has been in my family now for about 102 years. That has meant for me is that this process over the years of surrendering to what’s needed in order to be a good steward of the land. My parents grew up farming and picking cotton. My mother’s family sharecropped, my father’s family owned this land and owned their farm. There is an aspect to the stewardship that is intact and well. The relationship to the land is maintained. We’re growing food and keeping things beautiful and feeding the animals; and, creating space for people to be here.
I’m tasked with thinking about how we sustain this for the next 100 years. That’s what I’ve been called to do and that’s what I’ve been working towards. A lot of it is thinking about the systems to put in place, how to translate that so that other people can plug into the system, support it and help manage it. How to run the farm so that it’s not wholly dependent on my parents and my family and myself.
Her mission
My focus is featuring black and brown folks and having space for people to come for a retreat healing connection, deep learning in celebration. I say that particularly just because I think that space has always been needed, and that relates to this blues culture, Hill Country culture. Our culture has been preserved so long because black folks had places they could go that were autonomous, where they were able to be free, able to be creative, able to jam.
I’m a space holder of land that works on you as soon as you come on it. For myself and my family, we’ve opened up our land, our home, because we know that people need that connection to nature. They need that invitation to rest and to retreating until your phone signal is not working, no internet and all of that. There is medicine in wide open blue skies, and oak trees, and pine trees, and stars that you can see fully at night, and to have good food and good music. We’re gathering together around our culture, that it’s restorative for folks. It is my commitment to holding those kinds of spaces for people. Things are so heavy. People are carrying a lot. Things can be so serious, and I do believe in the necessity for us to celebrate and to have space for joy, and I can’t think of anything that feels more natural and easier to do than provide for folks in that. We know how to make people feel cared for, and we know how to have a good time. I’m excited about building relationships with musicians and community and just everybody – and for folks who love and appreciate them.
Her background
I was working with a civil rights nonprofit law firm called the Mississippi Center for Justice. My work for the last couple years has been in the realm of community organizing around racial reconciliation in Mississippi. I practiced law in Mississippi after Katrina. I’ve done a lot of work with non-profit organizations across the Gulf Coast, mostly consulting. That included facilitating processes, planning or coordinating programs and providing the support and the woman-power to help advance these organization along, especially in a post-Katrina non-profit landscape. For me, it’s been a process of looking at all these different experiences and relationships over the last 20 years. I see it all coming to a head while thinking about what does it means to be land steward. How do you support the movement? A lot of the work in organizations are the people that are working on the front lines. I practiced law and that’s probably about as front line as I got. I’m clear that’s important. It’s always going to be needed, but it’s not necessarily the best and highest use of my gifts and talents. I’m good at having people feel welcome, having people feel at home, anticipating their needs, creating conditions for them to meet people that they fall in love with. I am holding space for people to have some place to go when they need to recharge, need to take a break, when they need to strategize. That’s a huge contribution. So I find myself holding that down.
About Black Land Liberation activism
As recently as the last couple of weeks I started a new position – I haven’t worked for any organization or anybody else except myself for almost 10 years now. I joined the staff of the organization Blackout Collective which is part of an organizing hub along with the Center for Third World Organizing, the Ruckus Society, and Black Land Liberation – a network of folks that are working on a lot of different levels. My work will allow me to focus on Foxfire and a couple of additional black stewarded land sites. I think about what the needs are, about sustainability, how we plan for that, identify the legal needs, the business needs, the programming and visioning needs and identifying resources for that. Also, for holding space for folks to have a collective body. People need to get the technical assistance that’s needed. Then to see what we can replicate for other black land sites, other black farmers and indigenous farmers and folks that are trying to figure out a way forward. The position is Black Land Liberation Weaver.
Hill Country Harmonica
Hill Country Harmonica 2019 was my first year in coordinating everything – taking over the reins from Adam Gussow and Jeff Silverman. Phil Wiggins was my harmonica partner. I spoke to Phil about who the instructors should be and he was most excited about Andrew Alli. I knew him from previous years when he had come out here for Hill Country Harmonica. I hadn’t seen him since about 2012. But, I continued to watch him on social media and saw he was continuing to thrive and do his thing. I called Andrew and told him that Phil was excited about him and asked if he’d be down to being an instructor, and he of course was. I asked him for recommendations around house bands that can play along with the instructors during their sessions. Each of the instructors has a night where they headline, and then all of the participants have an opportunity to jam with the full band behind them. It’s a particular type of magic. For that, you need folks that are good players and that are able to play different styles that lend themselves to harmonica playing. Andrew immediately recommended Jontavious Willis. I called Jontavious and it was like we had already known each other. He was just automatically down to support, was super excited, was super helpful, and very forthcoming with his own experiences with different music clinics that he worked and organizes for. He helped gather players and instructors and talent. He said, “Yes, I’m down – what do you need me to do?” As soon has he got off the phone he called me right back, “Oh, shoot, I have a tour – I thought the dates were different and I can’t make it work. I’m really sorry. I want to do this. Anything I can do to help, just let me know, and maybe I can do it the next time, and stay in touch. Okay, cool.”
The Foxfire Blues Assembly
.…I hadn’t talked to Jontavious since then, until he called me out of the blue – it would have been in June 2020. I had been thinking about Christone “Kingfish” Ingram to try to catch up with him after a long time and not having much luck. I bet Jontavious could get a hold of Kingfish for me. I didn’t have to do anything. Jontavious called me and said that he was wanting to assemble seven or eight young black bluesmen who he thinks are the best at what they do. They needed space to get out of the city, get out of their homes in this Covid environment and to be together. A lot of them hadn’t met in person. They found each other online and Facebook and had been calling each other and jamming over the phone. A couple of them knew each other like Jayy Hopp and Jontavious and Sean and Marquise. But they needed space to come together to learn and teach and to deepen their own practice. So as soon as he told me that, I was completely on board, aligned with the vision I see for our family’s land and for the work I want to be engaged in. We started the process of planning, trying to organize resources, set up the GoFundMe, connecting with other blues musicians here – loosely structuring the seven days the guys were going to be here so there’s lots of room for play and ease and rest, but also some intentional conversations and exchanges. Within about two or three weeks we pulled off what we call the Foxfire Blues Assembly. We had Cameron Kimbrough and Damion Pearson playing – their band is called Memphisippi Sound. That felt like an appropriate welcome for all of these young bluesmen. Stephen Hull was the first one to get here with his dad. He picked out his bed first and had his guitar on the bed. Then, when Jontavious and Jayy Hopp and Sean made it, I showed them the cabin. Sean walks in and sees the guitar and he’s like – “May I?” – picked it up and they just launched into it. That’s what the whole week was –joyful playing, free-styling, making up songs and rhythms, digging down deep and playing different styles, channeling all these deep ancestral styles. It was just a joy to witness and experience that, day after day, to start the morning off, and to end the late-late nights like that, to see that this music in good hands. All of them have different areas of focus and skill sets – some of them more than others. They’re playing some old blues – some old styles. When people talk about the blues being dead or they worry about the blues disappearing, it was brilliant being able to witness their genius and how diligently they studied. You can’t bring up something or throw out some factoid or some little bit without them being all over it and knowing. You can’t name a song without them telling you – “Oh, actually there were five versions of that.” They know and understand the originators of these sounds, the business aspects of it, their experiences with the music industry and the labels at the time. They have all of this knowledge and history and they’re sharing it with each other so freely, and they’re using it to sharpen what they do and their passion. I’m not a blues historian, I’m not a musicologist – I am not one of those people. I’m someone who loves music, feels it in my soul and whose family has a relationship to a place that is identified with a particular genre of the [North Mississippi Hill Country Blues], a particular American experience. For me the importance of being able to hold space for folks who fill it and channel it in that way is different than studying it, dissecting it, breaking it down, being an authority on it. There’s an authentic way that this music belongs to them and belongs to us, and it was probably one of the best things we’ve done out here in the past 12 years that we’ve been operating.
This has been a time of a lot of political unrest, and assaults on black lives. All of this is context for why it was important for us to gather and for these guys to be able to come together. There was a lot of joy and a lot of sharing, and it’s done in the context of what black folks are experiencing in this country. Over the course of the week, it was great to be able to sit in on all these sessions and listen and talk and share stories and laugh. I haven’t laughed this much in years. There were special times of engaging in the music, and to have these conversations, and there were special encounters with elders like Bobby Rush, Jimmy Duck Holmes, Little Joe Ayers and Robert Kimbrough – folks who came out and showed a lot of love.
After months of isolation it’s been a depressing year for a lot of reasons, for a lot of folks. So being able to witness and experience this was further evidence of it and further confirmation of it – it’s what we know. It’s been there, and it continues to be there.
About social justice
The political moment in particular, and the movement for black lives, and a lot of the energy that we see around the country and around the world, is that we know that this violence doesn’t target only black women or black men or black children. Everybody is at risk from it. This is something that I’ve been wrestling with and talking about with colleagues and comrades. When you look at these movements and the leadership of these movements and who’s out front, you don’t often see a lot of black men. We know that black women and folks have always held things down. If you look at the civil rights movement, we know that you had these charismatic leaders, but it’s always been the women on the ground that are organizing, that are keeping things moving forward that are holding an important space. I’ve observed that in so much of my social justice work we find ourselves centering on black women, LGBTQ communities, trans communities – all that has been pushed to the forefront in this moment when we’re talking about the movement for black lives. I get it and it’s appropriate – but there is something about having space for black men that is needed and necessary. In doing this work and thinking about movement work or however you want to talk about it – all of our communities, how we make a better world for everybody – I don’t want to do that in isolation from black men. It’s not okay to not having them be actively engaged and present, and that’s something you see in social justice spaces. Where are the black men? There’s maybe one. But it’s always a lot of women, a lot of other folks.
There is something that is significant about black men being able to come together around these ancestral traditions and go all the way in. I look forward to being able to hold that space for black blues women and then getting everybody together and doing that too. I felt really honored to be their host and to be their guide in some ways through that process.
Blues as a black birthright
This is the part that really calls to me and I think is really special about what I see as an opportunity with Jontavious and the rest of the crew: Reconnecting this music to a black audience. That’s the most important thing for me. There’s some disconnect there and there’s something that’s undeniably powerful, something that’s deep reaching, something that gets down into your guts and roots and soul. You can lose yourself in these rhythms, sounds or stories. The fact is that younger black and brown audiences don’t have the same level of affinity for this music and that these musicians have to go outside of the country to get the recognition that they deserve… it is a shame. How do we continue to expand the network of musicians and artists that are being featured and that are being able to collaborate together and come together and have that fellowship? I do believe in blues power. I do believe it’s medicine, and I want as many people to have that medicine as possible, especially black and brown folks because it’s our birthright. It’s borne of our ancestors’ experience in this country. I appreciate how music unifies, and I think that’s something that has made Foxfire special. It is a space for everyone to come – anyone is welcome here, as long as you’re respecting other people, you ain’t doing anything to hurt anybody.
Loving blues, but opposing Back Lives Matter
There is a difference between loving black people and loving black culture – right? Love the culture, don’t love the people. I firmly believe that it’s holding the space for the storytelling, for that exchange to happen, there is room for some kind of transformation, some kind of moment, some softening of the heart, some opening of the mind. That’s not like something that’s exclusive to the blues. It’s something that I think is very rooted in storytelling. I think that the way that blues pulls together some folks that otherwise might not have a reason to have a conversation. I think about how I am intentional about programming that. What’s the focus? What’s the intentionality around bringing these particular artists together during a particular time with the messages that they’re sharing and delivering? And then how does that change the people that it reaches? And who needs to be in that audience? Who is it for?”
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