Crosstown Arts presents Mississippi Blues Night with Willie Farmer and Ryan Lee Crosby at The Green Room

Memphis is rolling out 100 Days of Blues for B.B. King’s centennial, and we’re sliding right into the groove. Spend a summer night soaking in raw, rootsy guitar work from Delta standout Willie Farmer and North‑Mississippi‑style shredder Ryan Lee Crosby—two storytellers keeping the blues flame lit for the next 100 years.

Though the Mississippi Delta's Willie Farmer and Rhode Island's Ryan Lee Crosby come from different backgrounds, they are each dedicated to performing Mississippi blues music. Farmer -- a Big Legal Mess and Music Maker Foundation artist from Duck Hill, MS -- focuses on Delta- and Memphis-style blues while Crosby performs the stomping North Mississippi and the haunting Bentonia, MS blues. (Skip James is from Bentonia, MS.) The Memphis Flyer terms Farmer's last recording a "great album." Though Crosby is a yankee, he has spent considerable time in Memphis and Mississippi and is mentored by GRAMMY Award nominee and juke joint proprietor Jimmy "Duck" Holmes.