Sheba the Mississippi Queen and Dr. Jules’ Cool Blues will be performing a free show at the A. Quinn Jones Museum & Cultural Center (1013 NW 7th Ave, Gainesville, FL) from 7-9 on the Patio.
Sheba was born Martha Booker in Sunflower Mississippi to a sharecropper family, whose father was a gospel singer. As a teenager, she and her twin sister came to South Florida in a migrant’s worker bus. The family started working in the tomatoes, bean fields, and lime groves in Homestead, Florida. Sheba formed a singing group that she named the Grove Girls that would sing in all the fields and on the bus on their way to and from work.
She later moved to New York City to form a band The Swingers, which recorded with New York Jazz Big Bands. Later she restarted her career in Miami, playing Jazz in supper clubs, but returned to her Blues Roots with the band Sheba and The Rhythm Kings.
She formed the band Sheba the Mississippi Queen & the Bluesman in 2018, and were International Blues Challenge semifinalists in 2019. Sheba’s influences are Billy Holiday, Etta James, Tina Turner, Aretha, and Big Mama Thornton. Blues Festivals that she has performed in include Springing the Blues, the Coral Gables Blues Festival, and the Long Island Blues Festival. She will, as will as Dr. Jules, also be a part of the inaugural North Central Florida Blues Festival later in September.
Dr Jules spent almost 30 years in academia as a graduate student and faculty member. 20 of those years were spent as a Historical Linguist at the University of Florida. He brings this same interest in history to music, and the result has been his affection for the Blues as well as his desire to preserve and promote the Blues. As a singer-songwriter-musician, his output to date has produced several CDs worth of original material, with a new project to be completed soon. Keith Caton will join Dr. Jules and Sheba on guitar for this special performance.
The A. Quinn Jones Museum & Cultural Center, housed in the former Jones Family home at 1013 NW 7th Avenue in Gainesville, serves as a tribute to one of the most influential educators in the history of Alachua County. The Museum features a permanent exhibit on “Prof” Jones, the people and places of the Fifth Avenue/Pleasant Street neighborhood, and houses a collection of oral histories centering on the African-American experience in Gainesville. The rest of the space houses rotating exhibits.
This event is part of our series featuring local and regional Blues artists. We hope you find it entertaining and informative.
