Music Notes by Chris Herrinton A Helena Good Time When people think of Delta music they invariably and justifiably think of Memphis and of the stretch of rural Mississippi that runs along the river south of the city. This is the home of the blues, the birthplace of rock-and-roll. Memphis and Mississippi have become a land of myth and legend befitting the site of America's greatest cultural explosion, our own national renaissance. But the third part of the Delta music equation, eastern Arkansas, rarely gets its due, despite producing the likes of Charlie Rich, Al Green, Robert Nighthawk, Levon Helm, and others. Arkansas' musical Ground Zero is Helena, which, along with Memphis and Clarksdale form a kind of holy trinity of the blues. In Robert Palmer's seminal Deep Blues he contends that, during the '30s and '40s, Helena was home to as many as 100 saloons and juke joints. It may not be quite that alive anymore, but it's still a great place to hear Delta music, especially in October. This weekend, October 9th through 12th, the 12th annual King Biscuit Blues Festival will be held in Helena. Named after King Biscuit Time, Rice "Sonny Boy Williamson" Miller's famous blues radio show on the local KFFA during the '40s, it is eastern Arkansas's biggest celebration of its contribution to the musical heritage of the Delta and the largest free music festival in the region. This years' festival will feature a litany of blues, R&B, and gospel stars, including Kenny Neal, James Cotton, Pinetop Perkins and the Staple Singers. Playing on Saturday night, from 6:30-7:45 will be area native Robert Lockwood Jr., Miller's original co-host on King Biscuit Time and a Robert Johnson protege. Also, during the same time slot on Friday, don't miss the Holmes Brothers, a New York-based trio whose Rounder Records release from earlier in the year, The Promised Land, is one of the year's best records, proving -- if there was any doubt -- that there are plenty of kicks left to be had on Route 66.

Two Shredheads, a Bluesboy, and the Crimson King What Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and Robert Fripp have in common, sort of. by Stephen Grimstead f you think that knowing how to play the hell out of one's instrument is unarguably uncool, then you should probably stay well clear of the G3 concert at the Mud Island Amphitheatre this weekend. Come Saturday night, three (plus one) of electric guitar's most accomplished practitioners threaten to yank the flannel right out from under such cozy comfort. Steve Vai and Joe Satriani handle their guitars with the sort of ungodly expertise that can cause the inattentive listener to take the spectacle for granted ... almost. It's like watching a precision airshow team such as the Navy's Blue Angels. "How in the world do they pull it off?" can evolve into "Why in the world do they do that?" Often, the tangent ends in a sort of numb indifference. Nevertheless, a fresh appraisal yields fresh appreciation, a renewed sense of awe. As to the "why" of it: I'm sure there are several motivators at work here, but I suspect that the principal reason players like these display such super prowess is simply because they can. They are musical thoroughbreds, truly built for speed. Don't ask them to lethargically strum two chords per minute whilst whining in monotones about a situation that only some privileged American brat could construe as tragic. That's not what they do. At one point during his development, Steve Vai embarked upon a practice regimen the likes of which all but the most dedicated of performers would consider to be impossibly stringent. "If I didn't practice nine hours a day -- at least nine hours a day -- I would get very depressed," he explains. "I mean, I went out with my friends on weekends and all that. I wasn't a completely neurotic hermit. But I was absorbed. And when you're absorbed in something, you don't miss the other things." In print, such a report might look like unbridled swagger. But, as far as I can determine -- his dynamic stage persona aside -- Steve Vai (who once took guitar lessons from Satriani, by the way) is startlingly humble, level-headed, and endlessly generous. From his admiring assessment of Memphis' premier six-string bad-ass Shawn Lane (based, in part, on a brief chance encounter at a trade show some years back), to his unflagging loyalty regarding his supporting musicians, to his stern critical evaluation of his own rich native talents, Vai travels the high road. "Early on, I felt sort of inferior [as a guitarist]," he confesses. "From the time I was a little kid, the guitar was a frightening instrument to me. It was just so ... bold, and enigmatic, and beautiful. But that kept me interested in what other people were doing. It kept me alive. It helped my attitude. If you have this sense of hierarchy, it propels you." Surely, young Kenny Wayne Shepherd can't help but have a pronounced sense of hierarchy. First and foremost, he will, for at least a while longer, have to contend with the general media's lazy tendency to categorize him as yet another Stevie Ray Vaughan clone. Behind and beneath that, there's the massive blues history to assimilate and address. Finally, here and now, he must think in terms of the G3 thing and the relativity entailed within. Yeeowww! What a stress test! From all appearances, though, the phenom from Shreveport, Louisiana is doing mighty fine, thanks. Ledbetter Heights, his 1995 debut release, placed him atop a perch many players have coveted for half of their lives. And his newest, Trouble Is..., will certainly raise his stock by more than a few points. Before all is said and done, there's the masterful joker in the deck to be reckoned with, the fourth of a perfect trio -- Robert Fripp, the grand old man of progressive rock, one of the very few proponents of that much bruised and battered genre left standing stout and legit. Long time Fripp watchers must be wondering what's up with this situation. I mean, do Shepherd and Fripp trade recipes for hot sauce and aspic, respectively? Don't ask me. Fripp doesn't give phone interviews, and by the time he and the 3Gs hit town, this issue of the Flyer will have hit the streets. Oh well, I still rabidly adore him. And I still hold him to the highest of standards. Which is to say I wouldn't be at all surprised if his segment of the evening's proceedings turns out to be the high point of the entire affair. His press people report that he will most likely engage in his famous "Frippertronics" hijinks (minimalist/ambient sonic washes centered on improvised looped figures upon and over which he does ... cool shit). Those same press people warn that Fripp -- who is scheduled to kick things off -- might decide to commence rather early. Whatever that might mean, ultimately.