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Published: October 1st 2011
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Well, we’re now halfway through our time in New Orleans and it’s been so full on there’s been little time to write up this blog. But I’m up early today so hope to describe our 3 day road trip from Memphis down through the State of Mississippi and into Louisiana.
Destination 1 was Clarksdale, in the Mississippi Delta. Actually this is a bit of a misnomer as it’s not a Delta (it’s an alluvial plain, but y’all know that!). It’s some of the most fertile land in the USA and we would see lots of cotton, corn and soya growing and being harvested over the next couple of days. With his farm background this was very interesting for John and it’s a good time to come to Mississippi to see lots of farming going on.
.Just outside Memphis is the town of Tunica known for its huge casinos – but better known to us because the nice lady in the Visitors’ Centre gave John a free map of the State so he was a happy boy as he has this thing about following where we go on a map! Apparently it’s a boy thing!
Our first stop today was Clarksdale
which is on the Mississippi Blues Trail. At the edge of town where highways 61 and 49 cross is a guitar shaped marker in the middle of the road – this is where the bluesman Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil in return for being able to play his guitar a bit better. The song ‘Crossroads’ (covered by Cream in the ‘60’s) is his song about this. Not sure if it worked but he’s considered a fine musician although he died quite young, allegedly poisoned by a jealous husband. And he has 3 graves in the area, all claiming to be the genuine one!!
Clarksdale has been a centre for blues culture since the 1920s.Its location as a transportation hub made it an economic boom town. Flush times created audiences with money to spend for entertainment, and the blues flourished in the city. Many now-legendary musical artists were born and raised in and around Clarksdale: Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Son House, Ike Turner, Sam Cooke, among them. Today, that historic blues culture is preserved for visitors while contemporary musicians carry on the great Delta blues tradition.
To celebrate all this there is an excellent
Blues museum whose mission statement reads....
‘The Delta Blues Museum is dedicated to creating a welcoming place where visitors find meaning, value, and perspective by exploring the history and heritage of the unique American musical art form of the blues.’
I certainly found it really interesting and would love to get more into the Blues when I get back to the UK. I need to keep practising playing that harmonica....I gave up after I mastered 3 Blind Mice!!!!
The other claim to fame in Clarksdale is the Ground Zero Blues Club, owned by the actor Morgan Freeman. We had lunch here (no Morgan sadly!) and it’s a replica of an old ‘juke joint’. It’s probably a great place at night when there’s live music but it was very quiet at lunchtime and the food wasn’t the best really. I tried catfish, as it’s a ‘got to do’ experience in Mississippi, but as I don’t really like fish it’s hardly surprising I didn’t enjoy it much!
Next stop was the town of Indianola to visit another museum. If we’d been travelling independently we would have probably missed this out but I’m glad we had no choice as actually it
was great – the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Centre.
The museum, explores B.B. King’s 60-plus year career through the presentation of personal papers, materials, and objects from his life and work, along with multi-media and film.
The museum is designed so that visitors experience chronologically the periods in his life in the larger context of a changing world, using an interactive environment that is full of music. Starting in the Delta in the 30’s, Memphis in the 50’s ( the initials B.B. stand for Beale St Boy) and on into BB King’s years as an iconic figure. Definitely have a B.B. King CD on my Christmas present list!!
Stayed overnight in Greenwood which is on the Tallahatchie River mentioned in the song by Bobbie Gentry ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ about the boy who jumped off the bridge into the river committing suicide. People have tried to guess why (although it’s fiction!!) and the most popular theory is that Billy had realised he was gay which in 60’s rural Mississippi would have made life rather tricky for him!
Well folks, I was going to condense 3 days into one entry but think I’ll leave it here and continue
tomorrow when I have 8 hours on a train as we travel from New Orleans up to Memphis on the City of New Orleans (cue song!)
Hopefully I’ll be able to get up to date although there’s a whole lot of stuff to record about our week in N’awlins!!!!
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