Winston “Juju” Doxey’s House-Party Kalimba (Video)

A 1990 Field Recording From Holly Springs, Mississippi

And now for something completely different….

In 1990 my friend Bill Ferris, a renowned professor and musicologist, offered me a Visiting Southern Studies Scholarship at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. Guitar Player’s publisher encouraged me to accept this position and granted me a two-month sabbatical. Thanks to Bill, I was given a desk inside the Ole Miss Blues Archive and access to their files, recordings, and a Xerox machine. Much of my research for the Early Blues book and my ongoing “Let It Roll: The Essential Blues Sessions” column in Living Blues magazine was accumulated there.

While in Oxford, I befriended Peter Redvers-Lee, Editor of Living Blues magazine. Peter took me on several journeys around the state, showing me sites associated with Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, and other historic blues artists. Peter also facilitated my making videotaped field recordings of artists including R.L. Burnside and family, Junior Kimbrough, Walter “Wale” Linegar, and others.

On September 27, 1990, Peter, R.L.’s son Duwayne Burnside, and I drove into Holly Springs, Mississippi, and stopped by the home of Winston Lamont “Juju” Doxey. After Juju played us a song on his thumb piano (this instrument is also known as a “kalimba”), I asked if I could film him. Juju graciously agreed and shared two original songs with us. Here they are:

This was the only time I encountered Juju. Little information has surfaced about him online. He was born Winston Lamont Doxey on March 14, 1951, joined the U.S. Marines, and served as a PFC in Viet Nam. In 1988 Doxey, then a member of the Junior Kimbrough and the Soul Blues Boys, played drums on the tracks later released as Kimbrough’s Do the Rump album. He passed away on August 9, 2012, and was buried in Memphis’s West Tennessee State Veterans Cemetery.

Four days before making this field recording, Peter Redvers-Lee and I filmed Junior Kimbrough performing a set in his juke joint and giving an interview in his parking lot. Here are links to these videos: Junior Kimbrough’s Juke Joint Blues and Junior Kimbrough’s Juke Joint Interview.

I hope you enjoy these unique field recordings from Mississippi’s Hill Country.

Thanks to Peter Redvers-Lee and Duwayne Burnside for sharing this adventure all those years ago, and to Nik Hunt for producing the podcasts.

Copyright 2023 by Jas Obrecht. All rights reserved.