Delta Cultural Center has interpreted the region’s history through exhibits, educational programs, annual events, and tours for more than two decades from its vantage point in downtown Helena-West Helena. And King Biscuit Time, a local radio show with an amazing history of its own, plays an important role in the museum’s efforts to highlight blues music in Delta cultural heritage.

The DCC began presenting Helena radio station KFFA’s King Biscuit Time from the Depot at 95 Missouri St. in 1992; when the Visitors Center opened in 2000, King Biscuit Time began broadcasting from a custom studio established in the new Delta Sounds Gallery each weekday at 12:15 p.m. with legendary host “Sunshine” Sonny Payne.

King Biscuit Time first aired on KFFA-AM radio station on November 21, 1941, the immediate hit creation of Station Manager Sam Anderson, Delta blues harmonica man, singer, and songwriter Sonny Boy Williamson, young blues guitarist Robert Lockwood Jr, and Max Moore, head of the show’s longtime sponsor, Interstate Grocer Company, distributor of King Biscuit Flour. Sonny Boy and Robert Junior would drift in and out of the early history of King Biscuit Time and other musicians would also play key roles in the show’s development, including Houston Stackhouse, Pinetop Perkins, Dudlow Taylor, Peck Curtis, and Cedell Davis.