As part of Jersey Shore Jazz & Blues Foundation’s growing Mississippi Delta/Jersey Shore alliance, a group of us recently took a road trip. Actually, we flew, drove and, on occasion, walked, having made the town of Clarksdale our home base for the better part of a week.
Tourism Director extraordinaire Bubba O’Keefe graciously paved the way, making sure we were warmly welcomed at every stop. Imagine walking into a club, strangers in town, the door swings open and as we’re adjusting our eyes to the low light, we hear, hey, NJ’s in the house! This became a regular occurrence.
With a population of ~14,000, Clarksdale boasts 365 nights of live music. But it’s not only nights! We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at Bluesberry Café, entertained by world-renowned Watermelon Slim – a real treat! Just a few blocks away, Sean “Bad” Apple’s Blues Club opens its doors from 3-6pm. Sean, a superb musician and one-man show, sings, plays, shares stories and more; he has lots of experience to draw on, having spent decades honing his craft while totally immersed in Mississippi music and culture. As we exit, we realize it’s well past 6 o’clock. Nobody, including Sean, seemed to notice or care. Yes, the roof sometimes leaks (he can’t open his club if it’s a hard rain) and the amp often gives out, prompting Sean to ask if someone can grab the duct tape. Someone did, sound restored. It’s one of those “you really need to experience it to understand” places.
Down the road a bit we visited the Mississippi GRAMMY Museum. We’re greeted at the door by the acting director who exclaims, Hey, are you the Jersey group? Hey, we’re starting to get used to this! Why a GRAMMY Museum in Mississippi some may ask? Besides the Delta’s early influence on American music, the state boasts more GRAMMY winners per capita than any other in the United States. Jersey Shore’s own Bob Santelli was the founding executive director of the museum, and also the founder – along with Eileen Chapman – of our own JSJBF. The two now serve at the helm of the Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music.
We walked the grounds of Dockery Farms, formerly a 25,000+ acre plantation established by Will Dockery in 1895, home to Charley Patton and frequented by countless blues musicians from its very inception. Dockery Farms not only is remembered as a working farm but also a gathering place for famous bluesmen. B.B. King once proclaimed, you can say it all started right here. According to their website: African Americans who came to Dockery Farms to cultivate cotton created a culture through their work in the fields that inspired the music we know as the blues.
But our trip was not just about the music. The MS Delta – the land where the blues began – is not just blues history, or music history. It offers a deep dive into American history. Though the cotton was not yet in bloom, evidence of the region’s past remains palpable as one drives down Highway 61, with endless farms on either side of the road and crop-dusters swooping a mere few feet above the car.
While at Delta State University with Dr. Rolando Herts, director of the Delta Center for Culture & Learning, and executive director of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, we viewed a short film on the diversity of the Delta and experienced an amazing “cast of blues” exhibit. Graciously greeted in the small town of Sumner by Patrick Weems, Executive Director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, we made our way through an exhibit chronicling the kidnapping and brutal murder of young Till in 1955. We continued across the street to the courthouse where the hurried trial, culminating in acquittal of the two men accused, took place. Despite the difficult conversation that followed, all agreed that what we learned was integral to our larger understanding of time & place. The courthouse and several other sites associated with Emmett Till recently have been designated as National Park Monuments by the federal government.
Driving back to Clarksdale we detoured to the town of Tutwiler, barely over a square mile, current population less than 2,500. Standing on the spot commemorated as yet another “birthplace of the blues,” the nearby MS Blues Trail Marker describes the 1903 scene in which bandleader W.C. Handy awoke in the middle of the night to the sounds of a stranger sitting next to him on the bench, who “pressed the knife on the strings of a guitar” and sang “Goin’ where the Southern cross the Dog.” The “Southern” and “Dog,” the marker explains, refers to two former rail lines that intersected miles south of where Handy and the stranger were sitting. Despite claiming this to be “the weirdest music he ever heard,” Handy incorporated those sounds into his compositions and is credited with sparking America’s first blues craze. The marker and a larger-than-life mural also document the considerable contributions of Sonny Boy Williamson and several others.
The musicians among us got to jam at Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club, take the stage (well a sort-of-makeshift stage) at Sean “Bad” Apples’ club and perform in front of Cat Head – Roger Stolle’s unlike-any-other-you’ve-seen store in the center of town, the shopping destination for all things blues related, as well as an invaluable resource for locals and visitors alike. Another “can’t miss” while in Clarksdale – the Delta Blues Museum! Included in its exhibits: the remains of the cabin occupied by Muddy Waters, who lived just up the road on what was then known as Stovall Plantation.
Our Jersey Shore Jazz & Blues Foundation logo demonstrates our commitment to Music – Art – Culture – Community. I’m certain we checked each of these boxes and perhaps a few more on our inaugural trip to the Mississippi Delta. Stay tuned for plans already underway to visit again next year!