Christopher Wyze & the Tellers - Live In Clarksdale

Artiest/Band: Christopher Wyze & the Tellers

Album: Live In Clarksdale
Single: How Long How long Blues
Release: 18 April 2025
Label: Big Radio Records
Format: CD/DVD
Genre: Blues,Roots

Big Radio Records, a label of Memphis music mainstay Select-O-Hits, announces the April 18 release of Live In Clarksdale. The CD+DVD set from Christopher Wyze & the Tellers captures the raw blues energy of their October 1, 2024, performance in Clarksdale, MS. Two video features accompany the 10-song soundtrack: the live show, plus a 50-minute documentary, WYZE in CLARKSDALE. In the film, Christopher Wyze hosts an unforgettable journey into the places, people and stories of the birthplace and home of the blues.

“It’s hard to find a blues-ier place to play our music, make an album and shoot film,” says frontman Christopher Wyze. He cites Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Charlie Musselwhite, and North Mississippi All Stars as blues artists who have played the album’s venue: the Juke Joint Chapel music hall at Clarksdale’s iconic Shack Up Inn.

The soundtrack unleashes eight Roots Music Report (RMR) charting blues songs from the band’s July 2024 debut album, Stuck in the Mud. Two 1920s blues standards from Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell fill out the show: How Long, How Long Blues and Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” “Carr and Blackwell recorded them for Vocalion Records, in a hotel room in Indianapolis, Indiana,” says Wyze. “That’s also where the two made their homes and are buried. And it’s where they both met tragic ends,” he adds. “They surely had good reason to play the blues.” Wyze explains that their stories hold special meaning to the band. “Indianapolis is home to me and two of the Tellers. It just felt right to record two of Leroy and Scrapper’s best. I got a little choked up on stage.”

Live In Clarksdale marks the band’s sophomore release on Big Radio Records in just nine months. Although comprised of veteran blues musicians, the band appears to have shot out of nowhere. Their July 2024 debut album, Stuck in the Mud, produced a #1 RMR blues single: Back to Clarksdale. The album ended the year at #38 on RMR’s “Top 200 Blues Album Chart for 2024,” based on worldwide radio play. And with that feat, Wyze & the Tellers became just one of three newcomer acts to crack into the top 50.

Johnny Phillips, Select-O-Hits co-owner who heads Big Radio Records, reflects on the band’s rapid and improbable rise in the blues world. “Christopher Wyze & the Tellers set out to do something unheard of today – build streams, radio play, album sales, album reviews, press coverage and a fan base without making that happen first as a live act. But they did it,” he adds. “Their music took off here in the U.S. and around the world.

“I can’t wait for people to see and hear this band perform live. The sights, the sounds and the Juke Joint Chapel venue for this release are amazing,” says Johnny Phillips. And as the nephew of Select-O-Hits founder Sam Phillips of Sun Studios and Sun Records fame, he ought to know. “Our family’s been in this music game a long time. It’s great when you get to introduce unique and original music from a band like Wyze & The Tellers. I say to everybody who loves the blues, ‘Check out this new album and video.’”