Published: October 27, 2009 10:59 am      

Beyond the Delta

Mark McDade and Jenna Hill share the stage in blues showcase

San Marcos — Mark McDade and Jenna Hill will perform at the San Marcos Public Library's monthly concert on Tuesday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m.

Everyone is invited to attend this free concert and enjoy McDade’s musical style, rooted in Mississippi Delta blues, and the Texas style of Leadbelly and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Hill has a voice as gutsy as Melisa Etheridge and as kittenish as Madonna. She learned to sing in her native Oklahoma by listening to gospel and country music.

Mark learned to play harmonica by playing chords that were hammered out on the piano of the blues artist Percy Mayfield. His mother yearned for him to learn a musical instrument, and he had encountered Mayfield, who was going through hard times in the late 60s.

Mayfield agreed to attempt to teach him to play, then discovered his student was hopeless as a pianist. In desperation, he gave the teenager a harmonica and doggedly taught him to play it.

In Memphis, Tenn. in the early 70s, McDade was given a guitar and soon learned the chords to start writing blues songs. He began his professional career by playing in coffeehouses, a venue he still has a fondness for. He soon attracted the attention of local blues artists, and became the harp player for the Fieldstones, a black blues band that played juke joints.

After a move to Austin in 1983, he played harp with a number of artists including Jimmy Dale Gilmore and Charlie Sexton, and recorded his own songs with Darden Smith, Sarah Brown and David Halley. Back in Memphis in the 90s, he became friends with Mason Ruffner and Kenny Brown, who taught him the rudiments of bottleneck guitar.

He played harp in Mississippi casinos in show bands, did solo guitar shows on Beale Street, and formed a band, The Gray Wolves of Memphis, playing festivals and club gigs.

Moving to San Marcos in 2005, he has worked on his solo album, Beyond the Delta, and played at the Gray Horse Grill and Saloon.