Written by Grayson Haver Currin

On Sunflower Avenue in Clarksdale, Miss., halfway between Red’s legendary juke joint and the town’s veterinary hospital, there’s a monument to Anthony “Big A” Sherrod. His portrait hangs from a utility pole as he stares out at the street, caught in a half-smile while his hands flicker toward his guitar’s high notes.

Clarksdale is a city of living ghosts, where the players who shaped the entire continuum of American music still linger in the air. But if you’re in the right Clarksdale haunt, whether it’s Red’s or Ground Zero or maybe after-hours at Clarksdale Reels, on the right night, you can see Big A in the flesh, perpetuating the plainspoken blues of his hometown.

“Clarksdale is the birthplace of the Blues. Most people who travel here are looking for something—maybe the presence of the fellas who started it all,” he once explained. “You can play it, and you can write it. But you have to feel it to be successful.”

The son of gospel singer E. J. Johnson and the godson of Big Jack Johnson, Big A has felt the blues in Clarksdale since he was five. His cousin played drums with a crew at the Delta Blues Museum. When Mississippi guitar mainstay Johnnie Billington heard that a then-little Big A might be willing to play bass, he taught him with the help of a few B.B. King cassettes, telling him he might be able to squirrel away some childhood cash.

But Big A stuck with it, playing in Billington’s J.B. and the Midnighters until his mentor’s death in 2013. Under the aegis of Billington, he even gigged with King at one of his famous Indianola homecomings. A multi-instrumentalist, Big A now teaches the blues himself, keeping up the tradition that made him. “I have carried on the teachings of my mentors to my students,” he said, “so that they will never forget where it started.”

"Clarksdale is the birthplace of the Blues... You can play it, and you can write it. But you have to feel it to be successful."

For the past decade, Big A has also been advocating for the Clarksdale blues on record. His 2016 debut with his The Cornlickers earned honors from Living Blues before being reissued by Nola Blue in 2022. And he’s now stepped into the Music Maker roster with the help of producer Jimbo Mathus. In February 2025, Mathus set up two microphones inside Clarksdale Reels, an old storefront where the bricks are covered in plaster, just like Mathus likes. In a single two-hour session, buoyed by bassist Heather Crosse and drummer Lee Wiliams, they cut the five songs of the aptly named Torchbearer of the Clarksdale Sound. “I wanted to get Big A in his natural environment, this live setting,” says Mathus. “He had it together.”

Big A is not only the torchbearer of the Clarksdale sound but also an emissary. He remains an essential partner to the Delta Blues Museum, explaining his connections to his Delta predecessors in a series of online tours of the place, and a mainstay of the region’s clubs. “Whether I am in a good mood or bad mood, the blues always fix whatever ails me,” he has said. “The blues means the creative journey of life.” He’s now sharing that life and that mission more than ever before.

Anthony “Big A” Sherrod was born on June 9, 1984 in Clarksdale, MS.
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