PORTSMOUTH — When Ryan Lee Crosby travels from his Island Park home to Bentonia, Miss., it’s not just a trip — it’s a pilgrimage. Each time, he returns with a fresh sense of clarity, as if the journey delivers him not only back to the heart of the blues but also to himself.

That clarity shapes Crosby’s new album, At the Blue Front , recorded with blues elder Jimmy “Duck” Holmes at the iconic Blue Front Café. The eight-track record, released Aug. 20, captures the hypnotic pulse of Bentonia and Hill Country blues while bearing witness to Crosby’s own search for meaning.

Founded in 1948, the Blue Front Café is the oldest surviving juke joint in Mississippi, a place where music, food, and community have intertwined for generations. Holmes, now 77, grew up there, learning directly from

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