Jay Jennings

About

Jay Jennings is a freelance writer and former senior editor at the Oxford American. His most recent editing project is Charles Portis: Collected Works for the Library of America.

Articles

A Start Is Enough

By Jay Jennings

Going Deep

By Jay Jennings

Cowboy Steve

By Jay Jennings

Issue 115, Winter 2021

The Dollar Done Fell at the Checkerboard Lounge

In 1981, the Rolling Stones, in town for a multi-night arena show, visited the club and jammed with Muddy Waters, Guy, and others.

By Jay Jennings

Issue 127, Winter 2024

Presence and Connection

To me, the word that best describes Baker’s music, whether live or on a recording, is “presence.”

By Jay Jennings

BOLD TALK

A conversation with Katrina Whalen, director of “I Don't Talk Service No More, ” a film from the Charles Portis short story. “My dad used to throw around a quote from the old John Wayne...

By Jay Jennings

HENDERSON THE SWING KING

A conversation with Cynthia Shearer. I got trained as a fiction writer to shamble in like Moms Mabley asking that the house lights be turned back on because we are not done talking about this or...

By Jay Jennings

REMEMBERING THE BLUES SOCIETY

The Memphis Country Blues Festival had a shoestring start in 1966, organized by the Memphis Country Blues Society, an ad hoc group consisting of counterculture figures, musicians, and fans, including...

By Jay Jennings

TEN HIGH WITH MR. PORTIS

All the main characters in “literature” were from London and New York and St. Petersburg, but the book with the character from Little Rock was the funniest book you’d ever read, including your...

By Jay Jennings