Today started out slow again and I spent half the morning online - researching the Delta Bluesmen and local history. I spent the other half trying to persuade my lousy GPS to take me to Starbucks. I'd have a better chance of meeting the leader of the Klingons than getting a decent cup of coffee based on this piece of equipment. Jenny the GPS also let me down on finding a Radio Shack (I'm looking for a cable to connect my iPod directly to the car sound system rather than relying on the radio frequency transmitter I've been using so far.) So I eventually spent most of the morning driving around the less charming suburbs of Jackson.
(FYI - Jackson never had much charm in the first place, much less in the suburbs of the city...)
Eventually I resigned myself to a quick stop at a roadside McDonalds where I brunched on an impersonation of a salad and once again observed some of the fattest human beings known to exist serving behind the counter. These incredibly levels of obesity on the one hand gave me a false sense of salvation and well being - as I seem positively anorexic in comparison - and on the other hand gave me a sense of major sadness and disappointment that the wholesome American work and life ethic of the 50s has ended up in food stamps, MTV, gangster rap, welfare cheques and a diet of trans fats and fast food....
After a brief sociological/anthropological reflection it was time to haul ass and hit the road. Destination Clarksdale and one of the most important places on the Blues Trail.
I took Highway 49 out of Jackson and headed North. A quick stop for gas and I noticed a Radio Shack next to the gas station - praise the Lord! It goes to show that God'll get you where Jenny the GPS won't!
Newly equipped with a more superior linkage to connect iPod with car, I decided to listen to a whole bunch of people who had been influenced by the Bluesmen of the Delta as opposed to the Delta men themselves. It was kind of a "back to the roots" through music....
So it went Cream (who covered both Robert Johnson - Crossroads Blues - and Skip James - I'm So Glad) then a quick dash to Hendrix (Red House etc) and then on to Clapton's great blues retrospective "From The Cradle".
A note on Eric... I have seen him live twice and am a huge fan and well read on his life. He is certainly one of the greatest guitarists of all time and technically a magician. He is also an extremely well informed blues player - having studied the likes of Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy and other "originals" through to the modern bluesmen of the 60s. Eric deeply understands the musical language of the blues and his instrument. BUT, he's never going to be a black crop picker. He can't be Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters. He can't be BB King - nor Albert or Freddie King. He is EC. A great white electric and rock blues guitarist and vocalist. On this album it's like listening to a guy who wants to be muddier than Muddy, bigger than Big Bill, and howl more than Howlin' Wolf. And he can't. Plus he has a tendency to "Overplay" on solos. His skill is world class and outstanding, but perhaps he should take a leaf out of the Mark Knopfler school of guitar and play less notes and not more. He has the skill, feeling and sensitivity to do it, but perhaps is still - even after 45 years of playing the blues - a little insecure....
That said - he is a God of Guitar and if I had the talent he has in one finger I'd be a happy man.
From Eric and the old blues to Stevie Ray - another great guitarist and vocalist who brought such passion and energy to the Texas electric blues sound. Sadly another victim of misfortune who died young like Rory Gallagher who like Stevie Ray and Eric was in the holy trinity of white blues guitarists.
A highlight of the road today was a very brief stop at Parchman Farm - known more often as "The Farm". This is the Mississippi State Penitentiary in the town of Parchman - about 10 / 15 miles south of Clarksdale. Immortalised in the song Parchman Farm (originally by Mose Allison but covered by many many people), this was "home" to several bluesmen including Son House who was from around these parts and Bukka White whom Alan Lomax recorded at Parchman Penitentiary in 1939..
The biggest prison in the US, Parchman Farm contains all the death row prisoners of the state of Mississippi and pioneered the use of the electric chair as a replacement for hanging. The first electric chair at Parchman was in fact a "portable" model which was taken from prison to prison on the back of a truck.
Parchman Farm covers a very wide area and the road through has signs forbidding stopping the car for 2 miles around the Prison main gates. I didn't travel half way around the planet not to stop and take a couple of pictures though, so stopped right outside the main gate and started snapping.
Immediately a car pulled up alongside me. The guy was a prison inspector and asked me what I was doing. I said I was taking photographs and asked him if it was ok. I think he misheard me, but he said yes. So I carried on.
Then one of the guards at the main gate went nuts and started shouting at me and drew a gun. She asked me my name and I said "Dave". She said "Mr. Dave - What are you doing and where are you from?"
"You can't stop here and you can't take no photographs here!"
With her gun drawn she came over to the car and I explained I was on a blues mission and couldn't just drive by a place as influential as Parchman Farm without taking a photograph. I didn't think this was the time to tell her I had come from Arabia!
I then told her the other guy had said I could take photos, so she wandered over to the inspectors car and I gently rolled away - listening to the classic John Mayall and The Bluesbreaker's version of "Parchman Farm" (from the "Beano Album" which Eric Clapton played on) at full volume.
The full and original Mose Allison lyrics are below. John Mayall's version is much shorter with the first and second verses only and then a reprise of the first verse (in between howling blues harp played full volume!)
"I'm sitting over here on Parchman farm.
I'm sitting over here on Parchman farm.
I'm sitting over here on Parchman farm,
Ain't never done no man no harm.
Well, I'm putting that cotton in an eleven foot sack.
Well, I'm putting that cotton in an eleven foot sack.
Well, I'm putting that cotton in an eleven foot sack,
A twelve-gauge shotgun at my back
Well I'm sitting over here on Number Nine
Well I'm sitting over here on Number Nine
Well I'm sitting over here on Number Nine
And all I did is drink my wine.
I'm sitting over here on Parchman farm.
I'm sitting over here on Parchman farm.
I'm sitting over here on Parchman farm,
Ain't never done no man no harm"
Following my Parchman Farm excitement there was a quick dip into Keb' Mo' - The Door - to round out a modern day blues as I hit Ruleville and then on to Clarksdale....
More in part 2 of Day 3....
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