[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 108 (Thursday, August 1, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7886-S7887]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           KING BISCUIT TIME

 Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, ever since it hit the airwaves 
one lunchtime fifty-six years ago this November, ``King Biscuit Time'' 
has profoundly influenced the development and popularity of the blues. 
As the oldest and longest-running blues program on the radio, it helped 
promote the careers of bluesmen who pioneered this musical style and 
later brought it from street corners and juke joints in the South to an 
international audience. And today,

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KFFA and Helena are even ``must see'' stops for Japanese and European 
tourists who want to learn about the cultural roots of the blues.
  ``First things first,'' recalls Sonny ``Sunshine'' Payne, the 
program's host for over eleven thousand broadcasts; King Biscuit Time 
started when guitarist Robert Junior Lockwood and harmonica player 
Sonny Boy Williamson were told they would have to get a sponsor to get 
on the air.'' That was 1941, when Payne was a teenager cleaning 78 
rpm's and running errands at KFFA. ``They came to the station one day 
and I showed them in to station manager Sam Anderson . . . he sent them 
over to the Interstate Grocery Company and its owner Max Moore who had 
a flour called ``King Biscuit Flour . . .''
  Lockwood and Williamson became the show's original King Biscuit 
Entertainers who advertised flour and corn meal in Helena and the 
surrounding Delta region; and after a lucky break, Sonny Payne took 
over as program host when the announcer lost his script while on the 
air. The program was a smash hit, thanks mostly to the playing and on-
air presence of harp player Williamson. He became so popular that the 
sponsor named its product ``Sonny Boy Corn Meal'' and he was, and still 
is, pictured, smiling and with his harmonica, on a burlap sack of his 
own brand of meal.
  Williamson was a musical pioneer in his own right. He was one of the 
first to make the harmonica the centerpiece in a blues band. His unique 
phrasings, compared by many to the human voice, influenced countless 
harp players.
  His partner, Robert Junior Lockwood, stepson of the legendary Robert 
Johnson, also influenced the blues style. A fan of big band jazz, he 
incorporated jazzier elements into the blues, often playing the guitar 
with his fingers.
  As years passed, the duo expanded into a full band, including piano 
player ``Pine Top'' Perkins, Houston Stackhouse and ``Peck'' Curtis, 
and musicians who played on the show also advertised local appearances 
that gave them more work.
  With the success of ``King Biscuit Time,'' Helena soon became a 
center for the blues. It was a key stopping off point for black 
musicians on the trip north to the barrooms and clubs of Chicago's 
South and West sides. Already, in the thirties, the town had seen the 
likes of pianist Memphis Slim and Helena native Roosevelt Sykes, as 
well as guitarists Howlin' Wolf, Honeyboy Edwards, and Elmore James. 
And when the program went on the air, it helped shape the early careers 
of many an aspiring musician. ``Little Walter'' Jacobs and Jimmy 
Rogers, who later played with Muddy Waters, came to live and learn in 
Helena in the mid-1940's. Muddy Waters also brought his band to Helena 
to play on KFFA and in bars in the area. Teenager Ike Turner first 
heard the blues on KFFA around that time, and King Biscuit pianist 
``Pine Top'' Perkins gave him lessons in his trademark boogie woogie 
style.
  The program also influenced other stations to put the blues on the 
radio. Its initial popularity convinced advertisers that the blues had 
commercial potential. ``It was a major breakthrough,'' explains 
folklorist Bill Ferris, director of the Center for the Study of 
Southern Culture at Ole Miss; ``King Biscuit Time was a discovery of an 
audience and a market . . . that hitherto radio had not really 
understood.'' Across the Mississippi River from Helena, radio station 
WROX put the South's first black deejay, Early Wright, on the air 
spinning blues and gospel records in 1947. Upriver in Memphis, station 
WDIA the next year became the first southern station with an all-black 
staff, including a young musician named Riley ``B. B.'' King, who got 
an early break as a deejay. And, in Nashville in the late forties, 
station WLAC reached nearly half the country with its late-night blues 
and R&B shows. All of these programs and stations owe an enormous debt 
to ``King Biscuit Time.''
  And today, the legacy of the show continues, with blues programs 
heard on radio stations across the U.S., the recordings of the many 
``King Biscuit Entertainers,'' and the yearly King Biscuit festival in 
Helena celebrating the city's cultural heritage and significant role in 
developing and promoting the blues.

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