About the new Album: LIVE in CLARKSDALE

…Christopher Wyze & the Tellers jolted onto the global blues scene with "Stuck in the Mud” – their 13-track debut album of all-originals.  

And what a jolt it turned out to be:

• Streaming in 90 countries…
• Thousands of radio spins…
• 1700+ hours of YouTube views for their music video: “Stuck in the Mud”…
• A “One to Watch” songwriter accolade for Wyze from Nashville’s International Songwriter Association (NSAI)…
• Broadcast, print and online press acclaim from around the world – album reviews, cover stories, features, photo spreads and interviews…
• Eight months of blues album charting, globally, and in the U.S., UK, France, Quebec, Belgium and Australia
• And radio-play charting for nine of the album’s song...including a #1 chart position for “Back to Clarksdale” – Root Music Report (RMR) Blues Song, July 2024

And that was just the start…

With LIVE in CLARKSDALE, Christopher Wyze & the Tellers give fans around the world who have devoured their studio work a first look and listen to the band…LIVE. 

It all happened on October 1, 2024, at the Juke Joint Chapel – in front of a live audience. Wyze and the five-piece Tellers put on their finest show to date right there on the surprisingly grand stage.  (Never mind that it was their first show.) History tells us the now-cozy Juke Joint Chapel music hall has been reincarnated. Long ago, the place attracted a much different crowd. And the sounds it emitted? Might different, too. We're talking the whirring , whizzing, straining refrains of different kind "music" – the sound of cotton being ginned.  

Today tells a different story for the old gin – now a lobby, bar and mighty-fine music room, flat-out oozing with the blues. Oh, it still stands on the grounds of yesteryear’s Hopson plantation. But now, they call the spread the Shack Up Inn, thank you very much. You can stay there, have a beverage, and listen to first-rate blues right inside the Juke Joint Chapel, smack dab in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. You really ought to check it out.

Scores of top blues acts have climbed onto the Juke Joint Chapel stage to let it all hang out: from Charlie Musselwhite, Kingfish and John Mayall to Cedric Burnside, North Mississippi All Stars…and now, Christopher Wyze & the Tellers.

LIVE in CLARKSDALE, the soundtrack and video show, features eight of the band's original radio-charting "Stuck in the Mud" album studio singles, including their RMR #1 hit "Back to Clarksdale". Plus, it features two all-time blues standards from the 1920s: "How Long, How Long Blues" and "Nobody Knows you When You're Down and Out" – made famous by early blues recording stars Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell. 

Since then, these two gems have been covered by a "who's-who" of blues royalty: Lead Belly, BB King, Eric Clapton (both songs), Bessie Smith, Sam Cooke, The Spencer Davis Group with Steve Winwood, Tedeschi Trucks Band ("Nobody Knows You...") and Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ray Charles, T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker ("How Long..."). 

Blues-o-philes may know that Carr and Blackwell originally recorded both songs for Vocalion, on “portable” (for the time) recording equipment, inside a cramped hotel room in their hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. The same city in which a re-discovered 56-year-old Blackwell recorded his “Live at 1444 Gallery” album in 1959, just three years before his tragic, untimely death.

Wyze and the Tellers give two of Carr and Blackwell’s best a re-birth. It’s their tribute to the seldom remembered duo and to the rich blues heritage of the duo's hometown: Indianapolis – also home to Christopher Wyze and two of the LIVE in CLARKSDALE Tellers: John Boyle and Gerry Murphy. 

Along with the soundtrack and live show video, the combo CD/DVD set features a 50 minute "all things Clarksdale" documentary filmed in the Delta and hosted and produced by Christopher Wyze. 

The bonus content film, “Wyze in Clarksdale,” takes viewers on a journey through musically historic Clarksdale and surrounds. Featuring the cinematography of Clarksdale film maker Coop Cooper, it includes a look at the fabled Crossroads, where Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil. It takes viewers for a visit to the historic train depot platform in nearby Tutwiler, where W.C. Handy first heard the blues in 1903. Wyze and Cooper pay a visit (and their respects) graveside at the nearby resting place of legendary blues harpist Sonny Boy Williamson II. Next, a walking tour through downtown Clarksdale. Stops along the way include interviews with three of Clarksdale’s most colorful characters: Bubba O'Keefe, Roger Stolle and Deak Harp. Those hankering for a trip to the Delta get an insider’s look into what’s been called “the bluesiest place in the world. And “Wyze in Clarksdale” promises a VIP ticket behind the scenes.

The highly anticipated LIVE in CLARKSDALE soundtrack and video set arrives via worldwide digital and physical distribution by Memphis-based Select-O-Hits on their Big Radio Records label. Music historians will recognize Select-O-Hits as the 1960 creation of Sun Studios impresario Sam Phillips and his brother. And music lovers will appreciate knowing the company remains owned and operated to this day by the Phillips family. LIVE in CLARKSDALE CD/DVD combo sets are available direct from the artist at www.bigradiorecords.com. The soundtrack is available on all popular streaming platforms worldwide, with video appearing on YouTube.