The official artwork and poster of the 2024 Double Decker Arts Festival was designed by Oxford artist Jules Mikell.
The annual Double Decker Arts Fest continues to bring a balanced variety to suit all tastes and ages.
Double Decker month is underway in Oxford, Mississippi, and the excitement and anticipation throughout town is palpable, as the huge yearly, two-day production continues exploring new heights, brimming with surprises.
The largest festival in North Mississippi, and biggest free festival in the state, is set to celebrate its 27th year, and the city is gearing up again to showcase remarkable, world-class music/visual arts and food culture.
Recently voted “Best Small College Town” in a USA Today poll, Oxford has seldom maintained such positive national attention and allure. For Visit Oxford — the local tourist information and visitor’s center that works in conjunction with numerous sponsors and other parts of the community — this most certainly is cause for great pride for its ongoing efforts.
There can’t possibly be any one weekend of the year that fits perfectly for everyone’s schedule, but the perennially late-April event, which falls this year on the 26th and 27th, is about as dialed in as it’s ever going to be.
Generally a busy but prime time of year for mid-South outdoor events, before too many critters are in the air or portable fans are needed, April is a time of year when University students are still in town and parents are likely to pay a visit.
Because it’s a popular season throughout the region for music and arts festivals, springtime is more feasible for performing artists, and they can anticipate that it will consistently fall around the same weekend. When it comes to routing a tour, many full-time musicians set their schedules as far as a year or two out.
It also doesn’t hurt the local economy to have the financial resources of parental attendees, as opposed to broke college students, which might be the case if it happened another time of year, because after all, over half of the funding goes towards paying the musicians.
“We want to do it when the parents can come visit,” said Visit Oxford Executive Director Kinney Ferris, who has watched the festival grow steadily throughout her tenure with the tourism center — aside from the two years that were canceled due to Covid.
With regards to those who might prefer the festival move to a slower time of year, Ferris said that she is always willing to hear out community members for their reasoning, but that the festival will remain around the same dates for the foreseeable future, “for a lot of reasons.”
Ferris revels in the general mission of putting on the event, which is to provide a little something for everyone, including a consistently diverse music line-up that always provides a little something for all tastes. For instance, the Alumni Association Rebel Road Trip is included in the program this year, which invites Rebel coaches and University leadership to stage as part of an eight-city tour.
Ole Miss Head Football Coach Lane Kiffin is among the coaches in the caravan, as well as Vice-Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics Keith Carter, and Alumni Association CEO Kirk Purdom.
Ferris and other organizers have arrived at the number 150 for what they believe is a suitable amount of booths, considering the overall size of the event.
“We feel like we’ve got the art vendor thing under control. We just know our limits. We are sort of landlocked,” Ferris joked. She feels that adding any more booths would jeopardize the vendors’ premium spots. Although Ferris and fellow-producers make it a goal not to edge out any regional artists, she does admit that it can be quite strenuous and “grueling” to set up a base, then take it down afterwards. In light of this fact, the festival has consistently welcomed new vendors as well as seasoned locals.
“We’ve brought in some new artists, which is fun and exciting. And then there’s some that have done it every single year.”
It’s much about the music
While a handful of the Double Decker musical performers of the past have returned to the line-up — and continue to do so this year — others will be joining the fest for the first time after years of discussion. Headlining this year is talented guitarist/singer-songwriter Brittany Howard, well known as leader of the Athens, Alabama, rock band Alabama Shakes, which formed in 2009 and enjoyed mainstream success.
“We’ve been talking to her for quite some time,” said Ferris.
Also happy about Howard headlining this year’s festival is Scott Caradine, owner of beloved Oxford restaurant and music venue Proud Larry’s.
“I’m thrilled about having Brittany on the lineup,” said Caradine. “I think watching her progress from Alabama Shakes to making her own music and doing things on her own terms has been really exciting.”
Howard’s new album What Now, released earlier this year, has received rave reviews, and continues the upward trajectory of her career.
Howard famously has an intriguing backstory: she grew up in a junkyard, where she also enjoyed the company of various “barn animals,” as she recently shared with the audience of the Kelly Clarkson Show. She also shared that she found herself feeling “blue” after having to cancel the previous album tour due to the global pandemic, as did many other touring musicians. Howard’s remedy was to buckle down and write new music, which she comically did in a children’s bedroom of a rental home, while surrounded by “Asian-inspired furniture and also racing cars.”
Caradine described Howard’s new record as “a wide range of funk, soul, and rock, with some elements of jazz.”
Although perhaps not as catered to local musicians as in the days of yore, this year’s lineup may have more ties to the area than one might assume.
International blues/rock phenomenon Christone “Kingfish” Ingram grew up a little ways down the road, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, cutting his teeth at actor Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club, and the famous Red’s Lounge, which are both visited by many Lafayette County residents for multiple annual events.
Caradine referred to Kingfish as an “ambassador of Mississippi and the blues all over the world,” who hasn’t played locally in a few years “because he’s been out doing it everywhere else.”
Kingfish’s second album 662 earned him a GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues album and has also won each of the ten Blues Music Awards nominations received — on top of eleven Living Blues Awards.
“We love the blues around here,” said Caradine. “I think people will be really excited to come see him.”
The local ties continue with another singer-songwriter/guitarist, and return-performer Charlie Mars, who has spent much of his days residing in Lafayette and Yalobusha Counties, and has appeared on Austin City Limits, the longest running music series in television history.
Ties to the legends of the North Mississippi blues community don’t get any stronger than Kenny Brown, who has recorded and performed shows around Oxford for decades and appears on many of the greatest Mississippi Hill Country Blues albums ever recorded, including with late-greats R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough.
Brown continues to reach higher plateaus year-after-year, having recently played appearances as well as recorded with world-famous rock group The Black Keys, and Hank Williams, Jr., and Robert Finley.
Brown is also cofounder of the annual North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic with wife Sara, which this year falls on June 28–29. Kenny will kick off the Saturday festivities with a 10 am set. The return of the morning slot (as the festival originally was) is an added treat for goers this year.
Another band on the lineup with local ties is Bass Drum of Death, with bandleader John Barrett originally hailing from Oxford, before residing in New York City for some time and then returning.
“I think that it’s pretty special that we’ve got local bands that have enough going on musically, and globally, that they make an impact on our festival here in Oxford,” said Caradine. “I think that the festival’s going to be really cool for that aspect…that we’ve got some local bands on there that have real traction all over the place.”
Other Saturday acts include Billy Allen & The Pollies, who joined up after some time working as occasional studio musicians at the legendary Fame Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama; Jaime Wyatt, who has been described as “one of the most exciting and skillful storytellers working today”; and New Orleans R&B-tinged Neal Francis, who was dubbed by BBC Radio 6 to be the reincarnation of Allen Toussaint,” a little later at 5:30 pm.
Friday night country kickoff
This year also marks the third year for the Friday night country music series, which Caradine is also very pleased about, after having famous Arkansan singer/songwriter, Ashley McBryde perform in ‘23.
Teenage guitar-slinging phenom Grace Bowers, who has been gathering acclaim from a laundry list of famous musicians since wooing a capacity crowd at last year’s Newport Folk Festival, begins the free live music at 6 pm on Friday.
“She’ll be one of those people that five or ten years from now we’re gonna go, ‘wow, remember when she played at Double Decker in that early Friday slot?’” said Caradine of the Gibson guitar-endorsed player. “It’s going to be one of those things…”
She’s followed by another youthful yet seasoned performer, 23-year-old Conner Smith, who has been described as “matching a honeyed vocal to propulsive hints of bluegrass and the warmth of ‘90s Country,” with “an instant-classic sound infused with riveting modern appeal.”
Caradine described Conner Smith as a “young, up and coming country artist with some real traction on the radio, which enables us to keep some of that radio familiarity with country music on the bill, while still doing something different.”
The Friday country series will conclude with Flatland Cavalry, who will surely delight festival goers with their distinctly West Texas Panhandle sound, having started out in the very musically storied town of Lubbock.
Stick around the festival for a surprise
For festival goers who can stick it out for the Saturday night headliner Brittany Howard, Farris said there will be a “new component” that will occur right before Howard begins. “It’s going to be a surprise,” she said.
“Visit Oxford is more of a marketing organization, although we do put on events from time to time it’s not kind of our main gig,” said Ferris.
She called the festival “a lot of fun” to help put together, mainly because of how it’s a vehicle to market the City of Oxford “in a really big public way. To me it just has all the things that we’re promoting year round about Oxford, which is a very community-driven place,” said Ferris.
“This is kind of a big community party, and we bring in the arts aspect — which we thrive in here in the arts — whether it’s musical or visual arts. I think we’re celebrating all the things fun about Oxford. We’re bringing it all together with the community behind it, and the students and the university…in a special place, in the heart of the city. It’s really special and there’s a reason why it’s award-winning. And there’s a reason why when [people] think of Oxford, they think of Double Decker Arts Festival and its great legacy. We’re honored to carry it on here at the tourism office and Visit Oxford. It’s been 27 years, which is amazing. Not a lot of festivals can say that.”
Caradine, whose restaurant/music venue was only in its infancy when the festival started, is also impressed by its almost-three-decade endurance.
“I think that each time we have seen the festival grow…and it’s done that for years,” said Caradine. “And we’ve had more sponsorships and more interest in what seems like really big crowds. We want to try to think outside the box a little bit; we want to do things that are fresh and different but at the same time keep things that people know and love, and connect with in Mississippi.”
