Down Highway 61 into the Mississippi delta (May 2017)

From Memphis to Mississippi - where the blues was born...

We'll leave Memphis early in the morning - cause to see all these sites, well, it's gonna be a long day. While our time in Mississippi will be curtailed to the delta region, as your knowledge of the blues might suggest, the number of musicians from this area is staggering. Simply put, we will not be stopping at every location discussed in this travelogue. Simply because time will not allow, in the majority of cases, we will drive-by the approximate location. If you want to stop for a photograph, you will want to notify us. Here is an interactive map which provides detailed information about the areas where we will be visiting.









Driving south out of Tennessee we'll quickly enter the delta area of northwestern Mississippi. Our first drive-by will be the Robinsonville area where the Rev. Son House lived and made his first and last recording in Mississippi.











We'll continue down Highway 61 towards Clarksdale and the crossroads made famous in Robert Johnson's song, 'Crossroads Blues.' Covered in the 1960's by rock's first supergroup Cream - which featured Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce.








The Crossroads are immortalized by Robert Johnson but Bob Dylan also sang of Highway 61. Watch a youthful Johnny Winter tear-up a cover Dylan's song from 1977.








Before we reach Clarksdale and the Delta Blues Museum, we'll pass through the Clayton/Tunica area where "Superharp" James Cotton was born and lived before moving north to Chicago where he eventually replaced Little Walter in Muddy Waters band.








About 90 minutes after leaving Memphis we'll arrive in Clarksdale, Mississippi and the home of the Delta Blues Museum. This will be our first stop. In addition to being the home of Ike Turner (Tina is from just outside of Memphis), Clarksdale is the home of Sam Cooke. Cooke's song, 'A Change is Gonna Come' was written after Cooke heard Bob Dylan's, 'Blowing in the Wind.' The singer felt he needed to contribute to the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Watch it here.




While in Clarksdale, in addition to spending time in the Delta Blues Museum, where we can see the original cabin that Muddy Waters a/k/a McKinely Morganfield was born in, we will pay a roadside visit to the Riverside Hotel where one of the blues' first superstars, Bessie Smith (who heavily influenced Billie Holiday) died.

Other blues luminaries from the Clarksdale area include: Elmore James, Fenton Robinson, Luther 'Guitar Jr. Johnson and Hound Dog Taylor. When Bruce Iglauer started the Chicago based Alligator Records in 1971, the first artist on his recording label was Hound Dog Taylor. Iglauer tells the tale of selling Taylor's 45 rpm records from out of the back of the trunk of his car.



Which is somewhat poetic considering the great Alan Lomax's field recordings were captured for the Smithsonian Institute's archieves by a very large and tape recorder which was so cumbersome that it had to be carried in the trunk in Lomax's car. In other words, the blues recording industry began by going into the trunk and proliferated by coming out of the trunk.

Just outside of Clarksdale is the Hopson Planting Company where, during World War II, Pinetop Perkins would be employed as a tractor driver in support of the war effort. Like so many African-Americans of the era, eventually Perkins would find himself in Chicago and playing piano in Muddy Waters now famous band, The Headhunters.

Well outside of Clarksdale, along the Mississippi River, is the city Rosedale - which Robert Johnson references in his song, 'Traveling Riverside Blues.'Watch Led Zeppelin cover Johnson's song here. Zeppelin would also use Johnson's lyrics in the track, 'The Lemon Song' from their second album.

Traveling Riverside Blues
   by Robert Johnson
Recording of 5th of 5 sessions, June 20 1937, Dallas, Texas

If your man get personal, want you to have your fun
If your man get personal, want you to have your fun
Best come on back to Friars Point1, mama, and barrelhouse all night long

I got women's in Vicksburg, clean on into Tennessee
I got women's in Vicksburg, clean on into Tennessee
But my Friars Point1 rider, now, hops all over me

I ain't gon' to state no color but her, front teeth crowned with gold
I ain't gon' to state no color but her, front teeth is crowned with gold
She got a mortgage on my body, now, and a lien2 on my soul

Lord, I'm goin' to Rosedale3, gon' take my rider by my side
Lord, I'm goin' to Rosedale3, gon' take my rider by my side
can still barrelhouse baby, on the riverside

Now you can squeeze my lemon 'til the juice run down my leg... 
    (spoken: 'til the juice rune down my leg, baby, you know what I'm talkin' about)
You can squeeze my lemon 'til the juice run down my leg
    (spoken: That's what I'm talkin' 'bout, now)
But I'm goin' back to Friars Point1, if I be rockin' to my head
__________
Note 1: Friars Town is a small town in a bend of the Levee river, Mississippi
Note 2: a lien is a charge upon real or personal property for the satisfaction of some debt
Note 3: Rosedale is further south, some twenty miles west of Cleveland, Mississippi


More on Robert Johnson here. Cleveland (lunch) Shaw Holly Ridge Dunleith Indianola Greenwood Minter City/ Glendora Ruleville Dockery Drew Parchman Farms - prison Tutweiler Vance Lambert Batesville Memphis


Parchman Farm