Ok....My night in Clarksdale tonight includes:
A girl named "Red" who just got out of Parchman Farm where she'd been put away for drug possession and who was sporting a black eye having beaten up a guy two days before, a bluesman in white crocodile leather shoes by the name of Razorblade, a gospel singing bluesman with a wig by the name of Bilbo, a chain smoking octogenerian queen of fried catfish called Sarah who runs Clarksdale's best Juke Joint, and a drug dealer who goes by the name of "Killer" because - and I quote - "He has wasted three motherf@+kers already. Although us white people is fine cuz he only kills black people as he's black. We whities - we're just business".... And some of the best, most authentic live blues I have ever seen or heard.
I think I'd probably better explain....
So I finish up my pork n beans at Abe's and head on over to the Ground Zero Blues Club at the end of Delta Avenue by the railroad tracks in Clarksdale...
Ground Zero is half owned by the actor Morgan Freeman who lives about forty minutes from Clarksdale and was born and raised in the area. It is in the style of the old juke joints. Juke joints were the small buildings where black people would go to relax at the end of the week. They would typically be small, primitive and the core functions would be listening to live music, dancing, drinking and gambling. As records came in and live music in places like this faded the music was replaced by a "juke box". (More on juke joints at http://wapedia.mobi/en/Juke_joint)
Ground Zero is much larger than a juke joint typically is and while looking very authentic is clearly a slightly sanitised and modernized version of the old style music places.
It is however something of a Mecca for blues people and just the week before Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin had been on the stage at Ground Zero...
Tonight it was Bill "Howl N Madd" Perry from Tula, Mississippi (about 30 mins north of Clarksdale) who was on stage with his band including his son on piano.
Howl N Madd has a great voice - a little like Howlin' Wolf but with some honey on those bass growling hollers... And he plays mean guitar.
I went straight to a seat right by the side of the stage and became transfixed. Like most guitar players when I watch other musicians I fixate on the guitar players. I watch how they finger notes, how they move chord shapes, bend notes, do their vibrato and on the right hand I watch their picking / strumming style. I am useless to talk to at these times as I sit there open mouthed and totally focused. (Bill Perry plays a cherry red strat and uses just his fingers - no picks - with his thumb doing the down strokes and picking single line solos and his fingers doing the up strum. Very typical of delta blues guitarists and the second guitarist used the same style.)
During a break between sets I met and chatted with Bill. He was impressed that a guy from Arabia had made it to Clarksdale and was there listening to the blues. We got a photo taken and I bought a couple of his CDs.
Then in came "Red". I'd met her a couple of days before when I spent my afternoon in the Delta Amusement bar drinking beers and chatting with Gary Williams of Bluessource.com. Red had a black eye which she'd got when some guy tried to rip off her computer. She beat him up, got the computer back, but he landed her with a sucker punch and blacked her eye. I'd mentioned to someone in the bar that day that I was writing a blog and somehow that got translated into me being a journalist... So Red decides she wants to tell me all the stories of Clarksdale where she was born and raised.
She been released from Parchman Farm penitentiary 8 weeks ago where she'd done time for drug possession. She was very proud of this "rite of passage" and continued to tell me how she wanted to buy the bar down the street where we met. I was half listening to her but mainly concentrated on the stage and the blues. After a while Red said she was going out to score some drugs and asked me to watch her drink. As she was a warm hearted type I duly took over drink surveillance as she went to get some weed.
She was back in a little while and told me excitedly about the dealer - who goes by the name of "Killer". I rather naively asked why he had that name and was told in Red's impressive Southern vernacular: "coz he kills people stooopid! He's wasted three motherf@+kers already and he's a scary bastard. Mind you, he don't bother me. He don't like to kill us white people. We're just business. He's black so he only really kills black people."
Well that cleared that up then.
NOTE: Mr. Killer, if you're reading this blog I'd like to make it clear that a) I'm white and therefore not worth killing and b) wasting motherf@+kers and dealing dope is I'm sure a most interesting vocation and far be it for me to cast any aspersions. If you need to speak to me about any of the above, my name is Tony Blair and I live in Islington in London.
I got back into Bill "Howl N Madd" Perry as he and the band launched into renditions of Red House and The Blues is Alright... Then in walked a cat who was cool.
White crocodile leather shoes, brown flared trousers and a brown and white shirt and a black hat. The cat was at least 70. The cat was Josh Stewart - known as Razorblade. Coz he's mighty sharp.... Uh huh.
Razorblade drifted by and said "How y'all doin'" I responded in kind and asked him how he was.
He replied in a cool, slow drawl, "I'm alive..."
Razorblade was cool, cool, cool and I got my photo taken with him and got chatting. He is a Clarksdale resident and was raised here. He's a singer and was looking at doing a couple of numbers with the band on stage. There wasn't a woman who walked by us and who was under 50 that Razorblade didn't try it on with.... When the inevitable hustle came it wasn't of the "buy me a drink" variety, but "buy my CD"... Which I duly did for a highly inflated $20. Razorblade went out to get me a CD and came back saying "this is good shit man. I sing real good and people like this CD. I promise you it's good and if it ain't I'll buy it right back off of you!" With that kind of money back guarantee who can refuse!
I even provided the solution to a mini crisis when a guy from the audience who used to play with Bill Perry wanted to get up and play harmonica with the band. Bill welcomed him up - but the guy didn't have any harps with him. A bit like asking if there was a doctor in the house, Bill asked if anyone had a harmonica... No answer except from me. I had bought a blues harp in the key of C from Helena that morning. I got it from the car and the guy went up an played three songs with storming harp solos. The first notes on my new harmonica played by a pro...cool.
A guy called Jeff - another massive blues fan whom I had met on the Hopson Plantation - came into Ground Zero and said he had been to Sarah's Kitchen - a real old fashioned juke joint around the corner - and said that it was cool. I'd been told about Sarah's so I finished my beer and set off for my next session.
I'd had an amazing time at Ground Zero and had heard some really outstanding, genuine, local Mississippi blues so I was thinking that it would be tough for Sarah's Kitchen to top that.
How wrong I was.
I really can't begin to describe the scene and atmosphere at Sarah's Kitchen. It was amazing. I rolled up to the sound of blue notes whispering through the otherwise quiet night in Clarksdale. I opened up the door and walked into a room about the same size as my dining room and living room at home. There were maybe 25 people in there and 35 would have been capacity full. The band was a three piece - drums, bass and guitar. The other side of the joint was the kitchen - Sarah's Kitchen where fried Okra, fried catfish and fried chicken were all cooked by the proprietor Sarah - an octogenerian black lady who was so laid back she was horizontal. Chain smoking furiously, she welcomed me in, got me a drink and joined me in a photo.
The place was half blacks half whites - all chilling out and having fun together. Most people highly lubricated.
The band was lead by Robert "Bilbo" Walker. Robert didn't have many teeth and judging by his very curious wig (the most obvious wig I ever saw) even less hair. He was born 71 years ago near Clarksdale and was friends with another famous musician from this town - Ike Turner. He did a spell in Chicago as a blues musician before moving to Bakersfield in California where he started a farm growing watermelons. He still plays the blues across California and through to Chicago always stopping off in Clarksdale on his way through. In the 90's he also produced albums for Smokey Robinson and The Miracles and Marvin Gaye.
When I went in, Robert was on the bass while the young man who was his bass player (a local Clarksdale boy) was on his red stratocaster.
This boy was amazing. He sang Sweet Home Chicago and played the hell out of the audience and the guitar. He played it behind his back and behind his head. He played it kneeling and he played it lying down. He had talent. Serious talent - but all his respect was for Robert Walker. His senior, his elder.
Bilbo was cool on bass and while the young man had huge talent, 50 plus years of performing have something too. Bilbo Walker took back the guitar and did three or four numbers including a gospel song which he sang very soulfully - and then finished on his famous version of the Chuck Berry classic "Johnny B Good" (which was actually written for Berry by his longtime piano player Johnny Johnson)
Robert "Bilbo" Walker ended the set with a sermon to the audience:
"I sing the blues to make a living, a few dollars, but every Sunday I'm in a church somewhere singing to God. And that is from my heart. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you can't do none of it if God ain't with you. You may be having fun but if God ain't with you, you ain't gonna make it home."
Amen Brother Robert.
And on that note Sarah's Kitchen was empty within 5 minutes. I need to use the bathroom before I got in the car and headed for Memphis and went out back.
When I came out it was the band and Sarah left. The band sat around a table counting their tip money. I stopped and gave them 20 bucks. They nearly collapsed. Robert put out his hand and shook mine hard and said " That's what I call supporting the music. Thank you man. You're a good man." And then he went back to counting his money...
I got in the car, put the roof down, put Razorblade's CD on the stereo and set off into the night towards Memphis along the old Highway 61 with Blues wailing in the darkness...
These words don't do any justice at all to what I experienced in Clarksdale tonight. My soul was touched, my heart was warmed and my brain engaged as I reconciled this amazing music with its history and roots. My only sadness was the resounding confirmation that the best I can ever hope for or strive for is to be an average blues guitar player... I doubt if I have the talent for any more than that and I know that I will never have the experiences that will make me blue enough to really communicate the blues.
But I can always enjoy others who do and who can.
And so can you.
If you're ever in these parts or if you love the blues then I beg and beseach you to go to Clarksdale on a Wednesday, Thursday. Friday or Saturday and listen to the blues in its home...
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