Back long before Helena, Arkansas was the crime ridden town of today. I was surprised how big of a blues town it was. It has currently the longest running daily American radio broadcast in history.

It was named after a brand of flour the King Biscuit Flour. KFFA was the only station that would play music for black folks and it reached an audience throughout the Mississippi Delta region. It inspired blues musicians including B.B King, Robert Nighthawk, James Cotton and Ike Turner.

The popularity of the program made Helena a major blues center. Helena became a stopping place for blues musicians on their way from the Delta region to the Chicago blues nightclubs and was also convenient to Memphis. Several blues musicians came to Helena and made it their home such Little Walker Jacobs and Jimmy Rogers.

King Biscuit Time was also a major breakthrough for black folk music in general. The popularity of the program and its reach into the untapped black demographic gained notice and spawned a host of imitators. By 1947 the first black disc jockey in the south, Early Wright which he signed on at WROX across the river. WDIA in Memphis soon became the first radio station in the south with an all black staff including deejay B.B King and the music format based on the success of King Biscuit Time.

In the middle 1930s Helena was the blues capital of the Delta. Among the musicians who regularly visited and performed in the area were Robert Johnson, Johnny Shines, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Robert Nighthawk, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Memphis Slim and Roosevelt Sykes.