Terry “Big T” Williams to headline Black History Month celebration at Black River Technical College
by February 22, 2022 10:38 pm 504 views
Terry “Big T” Williams spent his childhood living on a plantation in Farrell, Miss. It was the 1960s and the Civil Rights movement was afoot across his state and the rest of the country. He spent many nights listening to artists such as Muddy Waters and B.B. King, dreaming of the day when he would become a famed Blues musician himself.
Eventually he got his chance, and now he’s one of the most well-known folk artists from the Mississippi Delta.
Williams will be the headline act at the Black River Technical College’s Black History Month celebration Feb. 24.
“A Conversation with the Blues,” will feature Williams on lead guitar and vocals and Jerry Bone on bass guitar. Mike Doyle, retired KASU manager and ASU instructor, will introduce the featured guests and discuss the roots of the Blues and how the Blues has influenced music.
When he was 12 years old, the Jelly Roll Kings (Big Jack Johnson, Frank Frost and Sam Carr) took Williams under their wing and eventually took him on the road with them. Williams’s dream of fronting his own band soon came true, and over the years he has been a member of several bands, including The Creative Funk, The Stone Gas Band, and Big T & The Family Band. He currently resides in Clarksdale, Miss., where he was born, and plays gigs all over the U.S. with his current band, Big T and his Review Band.
Jerry Bone of Oxford, Ark., is one of this region’s most experienced blues and rock musicians. A bass guitarist who is respected by band members from the Arkansas/Missouri Ozarks to the Mississippi Delta, Bone was a member in the 1990s of The Famous Unknowns, a band selected by B.B. King as the house band for the Memphis, Tenn., nightclub that bears King’s name. Over a decade ago, he became the bassist for Batesville’s Lockhouse Orchestra which has performed tribute concerts to The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Levon Helm, and The Band.
Mike Doyle, who will serve as emcee and moderator for the event, retired from management of KASU in Jonesboro, the NPR public radio station for this region. Doyle was a co-founding producer/host of Arkansas Roots, the station’s noon hour program that focuses on Arkansas’ music heritage and current scene. He still produces segments for Arkansas Roots and the weekly Music from the Isles, a Celtic music hour. He also taught in Arkansas State University’s Department of Journalism and Media for 35 years before retiring in 2018.
The event is free and open to the public in the Randolph County Development Center on the BRTC Pocahontas campus. The event is made possible by the BRTC Foundation and the Eddie Mae Herron Center.