NEW ALBUM! Torchbearer of the Clarksdale Sound

Music Maker Foundation is excited to announce a new album by Clarksdale, MS bluesman Anthony “Big A” Sherrod. Torchbearer of the Clarksdale Sound releases on the Music Maker label on July 11, 2025.

The son of gospel singer E.J. Johnson and the godson of “Big Jack” Johnson, Anthony “Big A” Sherrod is a devoted champion of his hometown’s blues legacy. He began playing bass guitar at age 5 under the tutelage of Mississippi guitar legend Johnnie Billington at the Delta Blues Museum. Big A stuck with it, playing in Billington’s band until his mentor’s death in 2013 and becoming a mainstay of the Clarksdale blues scene in his own right.

Music Maker connected with Big A in 2024 through Bubba O’Keefe, the Coahoma County Tourism Director and a co-founder of Clarksdale’s famed Juke Joint Festival.

“When I got on the phone with Big A, he really won me over,” says Tim Duffy, co-founder and Executive Director of Music Maker Foundation. “He was a young man on a mission to keep this music alive and thriving.”

The album came together quickly after that. Working closely with producer Jimbo Mathus (Squirrel Nut Zippers), Music Maker arranged a recording session for Big A at Clarksdale Reels in February 2025 with bassist Heather Crosse and drummer Lee Williams. The five tracks of Torchbearer of the Clarksdale Sound were recorded in just two hours.

“I wanted to get Big A in his natural environment, this live setting,” says Mathus. “He had it together.”

Torchbearer of the Clarksdale Sound captures the soul of the Clarksdale blues, touched by love, loss, and a little psychedelia. “Torchbearer has a timeless quality, much like my favorite recordings made in Jamaica in the 1960s,” says Duffy. “Honest and pure, no overdubs, straight from the heart down to two-track reel-to-reel analogue tape.”