I left Memphis in the afternoon in a filthy storm which threatened to beat in the roof of the car - not to mention the fact that for at least 10 miles I couldn't see anything more than 3 feet away...
I headed to Nashville where I am meeting up with family from Alabama.
Aside from a truck crash, torrential downpours and gas station stops where lots of men were wearing cowboy hats, the road passed by uneventfully. I listened to the blues all the way as some kind of inoculation against being infected by country music...
I arrived at the motel just outside Nashville in the early evening and met with my cousin. His wife wasn't due up from Alabama until the next night, so we set off on a boy's night out in Nashville - except neither of us are boys as I approach middle age and he adds 30 years on top of that.
First stop was a bar & grill called Nero's where we hoovered some great steaks and had the first of what seemed like an ocean of beers...
Then we headed into Nashville proper and Broadway where all the music and beer joints are...
Now after just a few hours in Nashville one soon begins to feel the urge to grow facial hair and acquire a cowboy hat. The next phases include changing your name to Floyd or Earl, sawing off the sleeves on your otherwise perfectly good shirt, getting a tattoo done and acquiring a pick-up truck . . .
Now I am a music fan generally and enjoy country music from time to time - but I generally prefer country with attitude. Townes Van Zandt is a good example of the country music I like. But I don't like the overall saccharine flavour of most country music nor the underlying ideals of country & western music . . . it seems too "sweet"and "easy" . . . and it's just not cool. At all.
Starting off at Tootsie's (one of the most famous and oldest of the music bars on Broadway) we drowned some more beers, admired the ladies (now that is one area where country seems to beat the blues - country seems to have better looking fans . . . ) and listened to the band play a bunch of well known songs from Merle Haggard to Lambchop.
They were pretty good, but it was a bit too "Rowdy Yates" for my overall tastes although I was enjoying the guitar playing quite a bit.
(Guitar nerd aside: If I had a dollar for every Telecaster I have seen so far in Nashville, I could probably afford to retire... there is no doubt about what country music's favourite guitar is. Of course the Telecaster also has a place in the blues (Muddy used a Tele), rock (Springsteen, Keeeffffff Richards) and of course in punk with Joe Strummer of the Clash. But it's fair to say there is a distinct absence of Les Paul's, SGs, 335s and 355s or Strats . . .)
One of my things tomorrow will be a trip to the Gibson retail centre for mandolins, acoustic guitars and Dobros . . . I am going to leave me wallet in the car....
After Tootsie's we headed on down the street and visited several more bars where several more beers were packed away before we called it a night after midnight some time....
A slow drive back to the hotel and lots of great reminiscences from my cousin about his early life in Nashville (this is where he grew up) and plenty of "man talk" about the way of the world, women and wine. . .
When I got back to my room, I read about the blues for about 45 minutes . . . a little therapy for the country assault of the earlier evening...
God knows what I am going to do when I hit the Grand Ole Opry on Friday night! I think I'll have to take my Mojo hand with me for protection . . .
My body is in Nashville, but my heart is still in Clarksdale and the Delta . . .
Friday, August 1, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Day 5 (part 2) - Clarksdale, MS - Memphis, TN (via the blues...)
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...
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...
Day 5(part 1) - Memphis, TN - Helena, AR - Clarksdale, MS - Rosedale, MS
Today was a huge day. Today was a blues day - all senses. Today was probably the best day of the trip so far...
Heading out of Memphis I set off to Helena, AR with John Lee Hooker and Sam Lightnin' Hopkins accompanying me down Highway 61.
Helena was Arkansas's answer to Clarksdale and became a very important blues centre for delta blues.
It is home to WFFA Radio and the "King Biscuit Time" radio show - a blues dedicated radio show - which is broadcast still today from the Delta Cultural Centre in Helena on Cherry St.
Many blues artists in the 30s through to the 60s came in and out of Helena. Robert Johnson lived here for several years and married a local woman whose son - Robert Lockwood - became the only person who Robert Johnson taught how to play the guitar. Lockwood, on account of also being called Robert, became known as Robert Junior Lockwood. Born in 1915 he lived to be 91 and died in November 2006. Dick Waterman described him as one of the most foul mouthed people he has ever met, but a lovely man...
From Dick's book - "Between Midnight & Day":
"Let's say that everyone on earth is allocated a certain number of curse words to use in their lifetime. Now take a couple of thousand nuns and remove their curse words because they won't ever use them. Take those curse words and give them to a hot-tempered old man with bad attitude and a short fuse. Welcome to the world of Robert Lockwood.
To put it quite simply, Robert has no tact, no civility, no sense of decorum, and a total inability not to give you the blunt truth right to your face. And I love him madly."
Helena is home to the Delta Cultural Center - a museum featuring excellent exhibits on the blues and its development as well as an overview of the artists which were either native to Helena like Robert Jr Lockwood and Robert Nighthawk or adopted like Robert Johnson and Alec "Rice" Miller - who was better known as Sonny Boy Williamson II.
This is a great museum and well worth the visit as it is genuinely instructional and informative.
The town of Helena is also worth driving around. It's small but expands massively every year to host the King Biscuit Time Blues Festival. On most corners and down the streets you can find juke joints and food places selling fried catfish, chicken and bbq and many still have their original facades - now slightly faded.
I headed back to Clarksdale crossing the Mississippi once again with Alvin Youngblood Hart's "Big Mama's Door" playing sweetly in my ears. Alvin Youngblood is a contemporary bluesman who sounds like he's from the 1930s. Playing acoustic and slide he has a beautiful playing style and a powerful voice. Gary Williams of the Bluessource.com had told me that he was a very belligerent, aggressive and foul mouthed man who is forgiven all of the above because of his enormous talent. I thoroughly recommend him.
This time I was determined to visit the Delta Blues Museum. I pulled up with about 40 mins of Museum opening time left. Unlike the Delta Cultural Center in Helena which is free - here there is a 7$ entrance fee, although they discounted mine to 5$ as there wasn't much opening time left.
This museum is very different from the Delta Cultural Center. It displays wonderful collections of vintage guitars and other instruments, performance costumes, photographs and so on - as well as a whole corner devoted to Muddy Waters - but it lacks the information and instruction that its counterpart in Helena has. I would certainly recommend seeing both.
As the museum closed at 5pm I went for a cup of coffee and to find out what time the music was going to start in the evening...
With a couple of hours or so to kill before the blues started I decided to head on down to Rosedale - another place which is believed to be the location of "the Crossroads" of Robert Johnson fame. Indeed, many people believe that it was here that Johnson met the devil - where Highway 8 and Highway 1 meet...
The road to Rosedale was lovely - with the last light of the day just before it fades to dusk. Swamp and marsh either side of the road as I headed towards the Mississippi with Muddy Water's classic tracks playing a cool rhythmic accompaniment to the tires of the car clacking on the seems of the highway...
Rosedale is small and quite pretty in parts with some lovely houses and their immaculate lawns. Downtown is a little run-down like many places around these parts.
After a quick moment of reflection at the Crossroads of Highway's 8 and 1, I headed off back to Clarksdale in the direction of Abe's BBQ to go get me a fill of pork BBQ, beans and slaw...
I put on Eric for my journey back to Clarksdale - this time an album simply called "Blues". Having been a bit savage about Eric in an earlier posting on this blog, I am now going to have to take most of what I said back. He really loves the Blues and as much as a white boy from Kingston Upon Thames can have the blues, he has had the blues and it shows in his music. And he is an amazing guitarist. When he sings as Eric -rather than trying to imitate or emulate - he sounds a lot better to my mind.
So Eric delivers me at Abe's and I chow down in impressive fashion before part 2 of my day begins...
Heading out of Memphis I set off to Helena, AR with John Lee Hooker and Sam Lightnin' Hopkins accompanying me down Highway 61.
Helena was Arkansas's answer to Clarksdale and became a very important blues centre for delta blues.
It is home to WFFA Radio and the "King Biscuit Time" radio show - a blues dedicated radio show - which is broadcast still today from the Delta Cultural Centre in Helena on Cherry St.
Many blues artists in the 30s through to the 60s came in and out of Helena. Robert Johnson lived here for several years and married a local woman whose son - Robert Lockwood - became the only person who Robert Johnson taught how to play the guitar. Lockwood, on account of also being called Robert, became known as Robert Junior Lockwood. Born in 1915 he lived to be 91 and died in November 2006. Dick Waterman described him as one of the most foul mouthed people he has ever met, but a lovely man...
From Dick's book - "Between Midnight & Day":
"Let's say that everyone on earth is allocated a certain number of curse words to use in their lifetime. Now take a couple of thousand nuns and remove their curse words because they won't ever use them. Take those curse words and give them to a hot-tempered old man with bad attitude and a short fuse. Welcome to the world of Robert Lockwood.
To put it quite simply, Robert has no tact, no civility, no sense of decorum, and a total inability not to give you the blunt truth right to your face. And I love him madly."
Helena is home to the Delta Cultural Center - a museum featuring excellent exhibits on the blues and its development as well as an overview of the artists which were either native to Helena like Robert Jr Lockwood and Robert Nighthawk or adopted like Robert Johnson and Alec "Rice" Miller - who was better known as Sonny Boy Williamson II.
This is a great museum and well worth the visit as it is genuinely instructional and informative.
The town of Helena is also worth driving around. It's small but expands massively every year to host the King Biscuit Time Blues Festival. On most corners and down the streets you can find juke joints and food places selling fried catfish, chicken and bbq and many still have their original facades - now slightly faded.
I headed back to Clarksdale crossing the Mississippi once again with Alvin Youngblood Hart's "Big Mama's Door" playing sweetly in my ears. Alvin Youngblood is a contemporary bluesman who sounds like he's from the 1930s. Playing acoustic and slide he has a beautiful playing style and a powerful voice. Gary Williams of the Bluessource.com had told me that he was a very belligerent, aggressive and foul mouthed man who is forgiven all of the above because of his enormous talent. I thoroughly recommend him.
This time I was determined to visit the Delta Blues Museum. I pulled up with about 40 mins of Museum opening time left. Unlike the Delta Cultural Center in Helena which is free - here there is a 7$ entrance fee, although they discounted mine to 5$ as there wasn't much opening time left.
This museum is very different from the Delta Cultural Center. It displays wonderful collections of vintage guitars and other instruments, performance costumes, photographs and so on - as well as a whole corner devoted to Muddy Waters - but it lacks the information and instruction that its counterpart in Helena has. I would certainly recommend seeing both.
As the museum closed at 5pm I went for a cup of coffee and to find out what time the music was going to start in the evening...
With a couple of hours or so to kill before the blues started I decided to head on down to Rosedale - another place which is believed to be the location of "the Crossroads" of Robert Johnson fame. Indeed, many people believe that it was here that Johnson met the devil - where Highway 8 and Highway 1 meet...
The road to Rosedale was lovely - with the last light of the day just before it fades to dusk. Swamp and marsh either side of the road as I headed towards the Mississippi with Muddy Water's classic tracks playing a cool rhythmic accompaniment to the tires of the car clacking on the seems of the highway...
Rosedale is small and quite pretty in parts with some lovely houses and their immaculate lawns. Downtown is a little run-down like many places around these parts.
After a quick moment of reflection at the Crossroads of Highway's 8 and 1, I headed off back to Clarksdale in the direction of Abe's BBQ to go get me a fill of pork BBQ, beans and slaw...
I put on Eric for my journey back to Clarksdale - this time an album simply called "Blues". Having been a bit savage about Eric in an earlier posting on this blog, I am now going to have to take most of what I said back. He really loves the Blues and as much as a white boy from Kingston Upon Thames can have the blues, he has had the blues and it shows in his music. And he is an amazing guitarist. When he sings as Eric -rather than trying to imitate or emulate - he sounds a lot better to my mind.
So Eric delivers me at Abe's and I chow down in impressive fashion before part 2 of my day begins...
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Day 4 - Clarksdale, MS - Oxford MS - Helena, AR - Memphis, Tennessee
Ok - so slow starts are becoming part of the norm on this trip and today was no exception.... Woke up in my shack with a thick head from the many beers of the previous afternoon and evening...
After the swift administration of several aspirins and the application of strong black coffee to the central nervous system I sat and played guitar for a little while - trying to think of some words and a tune for the "Blues for Jimmy Wingo" that I am going to write on this trip.
(Jimmy Wingo, inmate #103467, was a death row prisoner on the Angola Farm in Louisiana and was executed on 16 June 1987 for a double murder that occurred during a bungled robbery. He maintained his innocence claiming his accomplice actually carried out the murders while he was outside the house they were robbing. I saw his mugshots in the Angola museum and his crazy hair made him stand out. Then researching his story I found some interesting stuff about the case. Was Jimmy innocent when he went to the chair? Only God knows but the question mark remained right until his death with several appeals. You can read more about Jimmy Wingo in this New York Times story the day he was executed... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEED8103FF935A25755C0A961948260 )
After noodling around for a while, I called Dick Waterman to see if I could go meet with him at his home. I wrote about Dick on a previous posting - he is one of the links between the Lomax recordings and that era of the Blues and today. As a photographer he shot some of the most dramatic as well as poignant images of bluesmen as well as capturing some of the most important moments in blues history - including the day Skip James re-emerged after 33 years of obscurity to play at the Newport Festival of 1964 in his famous shot of the musician singing the first syllable of the song Devil Got My Woman. (To read about Dick, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Waterman and also visit his website: www.dickwaterman.com)
I couldn't get through to Dick so I left a message and sent him an email, then packed up the car and headed off towards Helena, Arkansas where Robert Johnson had apparently gone to learn how to play proper guitar. Helena is also a major blues center and is home to the King Biscuit Time radio and hosts an important annual blues festival.
As I reached the crossroads at 49 & 61 I got a message back from Dick saying he was home all day and would be happy for me to visit. So I turned the car around and headed off on Highway 6 to Oxford, Mississippi where Dick lives. John Mayer was my music across to Oxford with his studio album Continuum. Mayer may be the pin-up boy of modern blues with thousands of young women getting excited, but one shouldn't overlook the fact that he is an extremely talented musician (classically trained) and an outstanding blues guitarist (who by his own admission owes a lot to Clapton - and not just the preference for Strats...)
Arriving at Dick's house I was in a state of some excitement and trepidation. This man is a direct connection to the music and the artists that I love. He was friends with many, worked with them, managed them, travelled with them, took care of them when they were sick and photographed them in all kinds of situations. He was there and he was part of it - still is.
Dick is a lovely and fascinating guy. Disarmingly straightforward and down to earth and still as passionate today in his early seventies as he evidently was 40 plus years ago. He showed me around his home which is packed with images, posters, gold discs from record sales of artists like Bonnie Raitt whom he managed for some 20 years and of course the photographs. Some are totally unique - like the one of Dylan looking straight into Dick's lens wearing the lime green polka dot shirt that marks this shot as the day that Dylan played electric for the very first time. Others are incredibly personal such as the image of Mick Jagger looking at himself in the mirror, the photographs of the old bluesman Mississippi John Hurt (whose smile Dick told me was 100% representative of the lovely man he was) and the photograph of Robert Pete Williams at the bottom of the stairs in Dick's apartment in the 60s - singing quietly to his wife a thousand miles away...
Dick very kindly gave me a copy of his book "Between Midnight & Day" which contains many of his photographs and his accounts of each of the artists featured including some wonderful anecdotes. He then took me through many of his photos (some are in Holland for an exhibition of his work) and told the stories behind many of the shots. Truly amazing photography that captures an era in music (and in particular the Blues) that is now sadly passed like so many of the artists in the pictures I looked at.
Dick got married for the first time a couple of years ago and I met his charming wife also. Later on in conversation about the Rolling Stones whom he met and photographed many times, I asked him if he had seen the Scorsese film of the Stones - Shine A Light. He laughed and said no, but told me that he had been invited by the head of Paramount to go to the concert in New York that was the concert shot in the film. He had declined because his wife was due back from visiting her family that day and he wanted to be home to welcome her back. A lovely story made all the more touching by the fact that his wife chewed him out for missing such an amazing opportunity to see the Rolling Stones play live towards the end of their careers in such an intimate setting!
He also showed me some photos of his "wedding" - not the formal legal ceremony but the wedding celebration with friends. Down on a beach Taj Mahal (a long time friend of Dick's) plays the father of the bride and brings her to the "ceremony" and the preacher is played by Bobby Rush the blues legend who is also another long time friend of Dick's. A great bunch of photographs and a lot of fun.
I spent about two and a half hours with Dick and his photographs - many of which will be joining my collection of black and white shots of performing artists in my studio / guitar room at home. It was an amazing experience to meet this gentle man who has enjoyed a wonderful life and continues to do so attending festivals and still taking photographs. Thank you Dick for giving me such a fascinating backdrop to these musicians and the music.
Leaving Oxford I scooted back over to Clarksdale following a recommendation of Dick's to go visit Richard Stolle at Cat Head - a shop selling blues memorabilia and historical photographs, books and so on.
Another mini paradise Cat Head offered an array of blues CDs of both well known artists and rarer which I won't ever see in Dubai. I bought a ton of CDs, some T-shirts and a DVD which had been produced by Cat Head's Richard Stolle about Big George Brock - a man now in his seventies who has been in his lifetime a sharecropper, a boxer, a night club owner and a blues musician. Can't wait to watch this movie. Roger also advised of two blues sessions for Wednesday night - one at Ground Zero (Morgan Freeman's club) and one at Sarah's - a juke joint around the corner which will feature Bilbo Walker who also stars in Roger's forthcoming blues travelogue documentary "M for Mississippi".
So I left Clarksdale once again - knowing I would be back the next night - and headed for Helena, Arkansas, crossing the Mississippi on the way. Helena is a small town (population 15,000) - but its influence on the blues is disproportionate to its size. I arrived late with everything shut, but will return to Helena tomorrow to check out the Delta Cultural Centre there and then back to Clarksdale.
I left Helena and headed for Memphis driving up old 61 through some pretty countryside and the lovely town of Tunica.
I blew into Memphis around 7pm and immediately felt the power of a city - Nine Below Zero Live - accompanied this journey, preceded by some Howlin' Wolf coming out of Helena.
Got myself a room at a cheap hotel across the street from Memphis's pride and joy, the Peabody Hotel. Just three blocks from Beale Street I wandered over for browse around what was once to Memphis what Maxwell Street was to Chicago. BUT Beale Street is now just a tourist attraction and all the bars are filled with white executives on vacation and they're served watered down blues by white musicians and watered down beer by ugly barmaids. I chugged a couple of beers listening to a band called Delta Saturn but left after a while because the music just wasn't there. The guitar player tried to cover Texas Flood by Stevie Ray and it ended up sounding like Belgium Flood or something - very poor guitar playing. When the band played a Jerry Lee Lewis number I knew it was time to go, and when the covered "The Weight" by The Band, I knew it was time to "take a load off my fanny" (American usage here!) and hit the street. (Fans of The Band will get my little joke...)
My guitar buddy and boss - Lozz Laurence - with whom I have been recording and playing some blues recently, had sent me an email in the morning recommending a Creole food joint around the corner from the Peabody called Café 61 on 82nd Street. I duly went there to dine on hot BBQ sausage and 'slaw and a nice piece of super spicy blackened grouper served with spinach and corn bread with Jalapenos.... Fantastic.
With a full stomach and a light beer buzz I wandered back to my hotel longing to hear proper live blues - which will happen tomorrow night in Clarksdale....
Tonight I took my aspirins and heartburn pills BEFORE going to sleep to make sure the beer and the spicy grouper don't wake me up with an axe through the head and a spear through the heart!
After the swift administration of several aspirins and the application of strong black coffee to the central nervous system I sat and played guitar for a little while - trying to think of some words and a tune for the "Blues for Jimmy Wingo" that I am going to write on this trip.
(Jimmy Wingo, inmate #103467, was a death row prisoner on the Angola Farm in Louisiana and was executed on 16 June 1987 for a double murder that occurred during a bungled robbery. He maintained his innocence claiming his accomplice actually carried out the murders while he was outside the house they were robbing. I saw his mugshots in the Angola museum and his crazy hair made him stand out. Then researching his story I found some interesting stuff about the case. Was Jimmy innocent when he went to the chair? Only God knows but the question mark remained right until his death with several appeals. You can read more about Jimmy Wingo in this New York Times story the day he was executed... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEED8103FF935A25755C0A961948260 )
After noodling around for a while, I called Dick Waterman to see if I could go meet with him at his home. I wrote about Dick on a previous posting - he is one of the links between the Lomax recordings and that era of the Blues and today. As a photographer he shot some of the most dramatic as well as poignant images of bluesmen as well as capturing some of the most important moments in blues history - including the day Skip James re-emerged after 33 years of obscurity to play at the Newport Festival of 1964 in his famous shot of the musician singing the first syllable of the song Devil Got My Woman. (To read about Dick, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Waterman and also visit his website: www.dickwaterman.com)
I couldn't get through to Dick so I left a message and sent him an email, then packed up the car and headed off towards Helena, Arkansas where Robert Johnson had apparently gone to learn how to play proper guitar. Helena is also a major blues center and is home to the King Biscuit Time radio and hosts an important annual blues festival.
As I reached the crossroads at 49 & 61 I got a message back from Dick saying he was home all day and would be happy for me to visit. So I turned the car around and headed off on Highway 6 to Oxford, Mississippi where Dick lives. John Mayer was my music across to Oxford with his studio album Continuum. Mayer may be the pin-up boy of modern blues with thousands of young women getting excited, but one shouldn't overlook the fact that he is an extremely talented musician (classically trained) and an outstanding blues guitarist (who by his own admission owes a lot to Clapton - and not just the preference for Strats...)
Arriving at Dick's house I was in a state of some excitement and trepidation. This man is a direct connection to the music and the artists that I love. He was friends with many, worked with them, managed them, travelled with them, took care of them when they were sick and photographed them in all kinds of situations. He was there and he was part of it - still is.
Dick is a lovely and fascinating guy. Disarmingly straightforward and down to earth and still as passionate today in his early seventies as he evidently was 40 plus years ago. He showed me around his home which is packed with images, posters, gold discs from record sales of artists like Bonnie Raitt whom he managed for some 20 years and of course the photographs. Some are totally unique - like the one of Dylan looking straight into Dick's lens wearing the lime green polka dot shirt that marks this shot as the day that Dylan played electric for the very first time. Others are incredibly personal such as the image of Mick Jagger looking at himself in the mirror, the photographs of the old bluesman Mississippi John Hurt (whose smile Dick told me was 100% representative of the lovely man he was) and the photograph of Robert Pete Williams at the bottom of the stairs in Dick's apartment in the 60s - singing quietly to his wife a thousand miles away...
Dick very kindly gave me a copy of his book "Between Midnight & Day" which contains many of his photographs and his accounts of each of the artists featured including some wonderful anecdotes. He then took me through many of his photos (some are in Holland for an exhibition of his work) and told the stories behind many of the shots. Truly amazing photography that captures an era in music (and in particular the Blues) that is now sadly passed like so many of the artists in the pictures I looked at.
Dick got married for the first time a couple of years ago and I met his charming wife also. Later on in conversation about the Rolling Stones whom he met and photographed many times, I asked him if he had seen the Scorsese film of the Stones - Shine A Light. He laughed and said no, but told me that he had been invited by the head of Paramount to go to the concert in New York that was the concert shot in the film. He had declined because his wife was due back from visiting her family that day and he wanted to be home to welcome her back. A lovely story made all the more touching by the fact that his wife chewed him out for missing such an amazing opportunity to see the Rolling Stones play live towards the end of their careers in such an intimate setting!
He also showed me some photos of his "wedding" - not the formal legal ceremony but the wedding celebration with friends. Down on a beach Taj Mahal (a long time friend of Dick's) plays the father of the bride and brings her to the "ceremony" and the preacher is played by Bobby Rush the blues legend who is also another long time friend of Dick's. A great bunch of photographs and a lot of fun.
I spent about two and a half hours with Dick and his photographs - many of which will be joining my collection of black and white shots of performing artists in my studio / guitar room at home. It was an amazing experience to meet this gentle man who has enjoyed a wonderful life and continues to do so attending festivals and still taking photographs. Thank you Dick for giving me such a fascinating backdrop to these musicians and the music.
Leaving Oxford I scooted back over to Clarksdale following a recommendation of Dick's to go visit Richard Stolle at Cat Head - a shop selling blues memorabilia and historical photographs, books and so on.
Another mini paradise Cat Head offered an array of blues CDs of both well known artists and rarer which I won't ever see in Dubai. I bought a ton of CDs, some T-shirts and a DVD which had been produced by Cat Head's Richard Stolle about Big George Brock - a man now in his seventies who has been in his lifetime a sharecropper, a boxer, a night club owner and a blues musician. Can't wait to watch this movie. Roger also advised of two blues sessions for Wednesday night - one at Ground Zero (Morgan Freeman's club) and one at Sarah's - a juke joint around the corner which will feature Bilbo Walker who also stars in Roger's forthcoming blues travelogue documentary "M for Mississippi".
So I left Clarksdale once again - knowing I would be back the next night - and headed for Helena, Arkansas, crossing the Mississippi on the way. Helena is a small town (population 15,000) - but its influence on the blues is disproportionate to its size. I arrived late with everything shut, but will return to Helena tomorrow to check out the Delta Cultural Centre there and then back to Clarksdale.
I left Helena and headed for Memphis driving up old 61 through some pretty countryside and the lovely town of Tunica.
I blew into Memphis around 7pm and immediately felt the power of a city - Nine Below Zero Live - accompanied this journey, preceded by some Howlin' Wolf coming out of Helena.
Got myself a room at a cheap hotel across the street from Memphis's pride and joy, the Peabody Hotel. Just three blocks from Beale Street I wandered over for browse around what was once to Memphis what Maxwell Street was to Chicago. BUT Beale Street is now just a tourist attraction and all the bars are filled with white executives on vacation and they're served watered down blues by white musicians and watered down beer by ugly barmaids. I chugged a couple of beers listening to a band called Delta Saturn but left after a while because the music just wasn't there. The guitar player tried to cover Texas Flood by Stevie Ray and it ended up sounding like Belgium Flood or something - very poor guitar playing. When the band played a Jerry Lee Lewis number I knew it was time to go, and when the covered "The Weight" by The Band, I knew it was time to "take a load off my fanny" (American usage here!) and hit the street. (Fans of The Band will get my little joke...)
My guitar buddy and boss - Lozz Laurence - with whom I have been recording and playing some blues recently, had sent me an email in the morning recommending a Creole food joint around the corner from the Peabody called Café 61 on 82nd Street. I duly went there to dine on hot BBQ sausage and 'slaw and a nice piece of super spicy blackened grouper served with spinach and corn bread with Jalapenos.... Fantastic.
With a full stomach and a light beer buzz I wandered back to my hotel longing to hear proper live blues - which will happen tomorrow night in Clarksdale....
Tonight I took my aspirins and heartburn pills BEFORE going to sleep to make sure the beer and the spicy grouper don't wake me up with an axe through the head and a spear through the heart!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Day 3 (Part 2) - Clarksdale Mississippi
Clarksdale, Mississippi. What can you say? John Lee Hooker born just down the road. Sonny Boy Williamson was from around these parts and was buried not far from here and of course Robert Johnson the enigmatic blues legend was supposed to have sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads of Highway 61 and Highway 49 (but not at the current location.) right here in Clarksdale.
Apparently the devil appeared to Johnson in the form of a large black man who took his guitar and retuned it in a way that let Johnson play anything he wanted. However, many believe that this folklore was really made up as an explanation for how Robert Johnson went from being described as a poor player to a magnificent player in a short space of time. Later on in my day I got the story from a Clarksdale local.... But I'll get to that....
Driving into Clarksdale one notice immediately that this is a fairly unprepossessing sort of place. No tarting up for the tourists. What you see is what you get - and to be honest, only musicians and blues pilgrims come here.
I headed towards the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale - which happily is sign posted well. Good news as Jenny the GPS had just about given up for the day...
But I never made it to the museum....
Driving down Delta Avenue having taken a wrong turn I hear some blues wailing out of a speaker somewhere in the street.
I stop and turn my head to see a beat up old shop with a couple of guitars without strings nailed to the wall (an SG copy and a red Strat for guitar nerds) and a vintage amp cabinet playing the blues with a wire leading into the shop. I have discovered the Blues Music guitar shop - vintage and non-vintage bought, sold and traded... I am now, officially, in heaven.
The next two hours are spent chatting with the owner of the store and his wife and son, and playing steel resonators, archtops, vintage Stellas (the guitar that most bluesmen started on), strats, tele copies and a bunch of others... Playing the electrics through original vintage Fender amps just added to the glory of the moment, although as usual I couldn't get any of my fingers to do what they're supposed to do (always happens in guitar shops - some kind of performance anxiety as you're surrounded by real guitar heads)...
I progressed to some Stellas and make a note of a 1964 vintage model which is priced attractively. It's not the nicest guitar I've played, but it is a proper blues acoustic and the name is so evocative...and it sounds very 'true'.
Then I get my paws around a new Dobro Hound Dog steel resonator with a big heavy wooden body and a massive square neck. The action on this guitar is set at about an inch and it is clearly JUST for slide. I borrow a slide and start playing. A couple of buzzy bass strings can be sorted by adjusting the bridge, but this baby has tone and richness with the steel and wood harmonising just right. I played ok too - recovering some cool points but still massively in deficit from earlier...
Then I meet an interesting 1960s Telecaster copy with two sealed pick-ups in a faded cream colour and a rosewood neck and a giant 60's Fender logo on the bass of the guitar. It's a steal at $160 and it sounds real nice too...but I put her aside as I have been cultivating a long distance relationship with a proper Fender 1952 replica model in London...whom I hope to persuade to come and live with me later this year...
Then I set eyes upon a candy apple red strat with two straight single coil Tex Mex pickups and a Fat Strat humbucker - an unusual combination for a Strat. She's got a fancy pick guard in white pearl effect and she's a US made original from the "California Series". I have fallen in love with her looks but it only gets deeper when I plug her in to the vintage amp.... She's gorgeous. Rich tones, deep power from the humbucker and light twang from the single coils. The tremelo bar also works great with much more control than my other Strat. I know immediately that she is coming home with me.
And so is the Dobro Hound Dog. Hard cases are found at the back of the store for both and cash is stumped up. The owner of the store - Ronnie - was a great guy and genuinely appreciative of the sale (his son was getting married a week later and weddings always hurt dad's pocket!). He threw in a brass slide as part of the deal and gave me good prices on the cases. The Dobro got an old vintage brown leather semi hard case while the Strat got a Fender case. How I'm going to get them back I don't know, but I'll figure it out.
Anyone who loves guitars really needs to see this store. It's not the overall collection of vintage and new guitars, nor the amps but the overall feel of the place. It's rammed with posters, photos, blues memorabilia, bits and pieces of guitars, accessories and so on. None of it is formally laid out and there is none of the snotty behaviour you get with big commercial stores. Pick up and play whatever you like and welcome to a family atmosphere. This is a place full of guitar culture and not just guitars. Elvis Costello popped by a year or so ago and bought a guitar there which he went on to use in live gigs. I think everyone who visits should buy something there so this place continues to thrive.
The store owner gave me two recommendations before I left. Find Gary - the local blues expert and the most knowledgeable man on the blues in Clarksdale and go to the Hopson Plantation two miles out of town. One of the largest plantations in Mississippi, Hopson has converted the out buildings into a semi museum and the old wooden shacks where the sharecroppers used to live are available to rent...
A quick look out the door and Gary's truck was spotted outside the bar on Delta Avenue... And so Gary was inside. I duly headed in that direction....
The bar was cool. Locals kicking back and enjoying a beer or seven... Gary was to be found hanging out behind the bar so I sat down on a bar stool and got introduced.
Gary is the editor and publisher of BluesSource.com the #1 Blues online magazine in the world. He is also a collector and retailer of vintage and original recordings of blues, country and associated genres and a walking encyclopedia of the blues. In his younger days he played with some of the blues and country greats including people like Howlin' Wolf and Carl Perkins. He once got an impromptu guitar lesson from Son House himself.
During his lifelong association with the blues he's spent plenty of time in Juke Joints around Mississippi and rolling out of bars and clubs in Chicago often there listening to or playing with some of the greats. Gary plays guitar and blues harp (harmonica).
He told me some wonderful stories as we exchanged views on the Blues and favourite artists. One story was when he was in Chicago after Leonard Chess's death. Chess was the founder of Chess Records - perhaps the greatest blues record label of the time with artists like Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf on its books. Leonard Chess himself nurtured much of the black talent that came up from the Delta to Chicago and recorded the records that took them to a mass audience.
Gary met up with Howlin' Wolf at a gathering after Chess's untimely death and commented how sad it was that Chess had died so young etc etc. To which the Wolf replied "Shit, that motherf+@ker still owed me money!" Such a commercial obsession was a common trait of the bluesmen of the time - presumably because they had been ripped off so many times in the past.
Another tale explains the real story behind Robert Johnson's transformation as a guitarist. Son House - one of the greatest Mississippi Delta bluesmen - told Gary that he was in a juke joint one night in Clarksdale listening to Robert Johnson play. Son House thought Johnson's playing was poor to say the least and after Johnson finished his set Son House went up and told him how bad he was. Johnson, who by all accounts was a shy person, was so horrified and embarrassed by this criticism that he upped and left there and then and went to Helena in Arkansas where he stayed for two years. No-one knows who taught him there (it was a another renowned blues centre) but when he came back to Clarksdale he could outplay the best of them and went on to record the famous songs that live on today...
Talking with Gary Miller for those 2-3 hours was a great experience. A man whose passion for the blues has never wained and who has crossed over the major stages in Blues in the US. From what he calls original (Son House and Skip James era in the 30s) to "modern" - Muddy Waters and co in the 60s to "contemporary" - people like Keb' Mo' and Watermelon Slim who Gary introduced me too via the jukebox in the bar.
Before leaving the bar I asked the owner what the legal drinking and driving levels were (as I had had several beers). He replied, "As long as you don't run anybody down and kill 'em, the cops won't give you any trouble.".
Welcome to Mississippi!
Leaving town I headed to Hopson's Plantation and was lucky enough to get a room for the night in one of the original wooden shacks. Mine is "The Crossroads" shack. It's got electricity, air conditioning and regular plumbing, but that's the only concession to the modern day. The walls are covered in old posters from blues festivals and there is a rickety old stand-up piano in one space. Wooden floors, walls and ceiling and plenty of interesting looking bugs complete the experience.
On the recommendation of the Hopson people I dined at Abe's BBQ near the crossroads of 61 & 49. Abe's has been going since 1924 and was founded by Abe Davis an immigrant from Lebanon. Abe Junior runs it today and I feasted on BBQ pork and BBQ beef together with home made beans and coleslaw. The pork and beef were so tender and so delicious that words alone cannot capture the delight. The beans and 'slaw were great too. All washed down with a bottle of Bud and it was back to the plantation and to my shack.
I ended the day sitting in the big armchair in my wooden shack with my Dobro guitar across my lap playing slide blues guitar until sleep took me sometime in the night....
Apparently the devil appeared to Johnson in the form of a large black man who took his guitar and retuned it in a way that let Johnson play anything he wanted. However, many believe that this folklore was really made up as an explanation for how Robert Johnson went from being described as a poor player to a magnificent player in a short space of time. Later on in my day I got the story from a Clarksdale local.... But I'll get to that....
Driving into Clarksdale one notice immediately that this is a fairly unprepossessing sort of place. No tarting up for the tourists. What you see is what you get - and to be honest, only musicians and blues pilgrims come here.
I headed towards the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale - which happily is sign posted well. Good news as Jenny the GPS had just about given up for the day...
But I never made it to the museum....
Driving down Delta Avenue having taken a wrong turn I hear some blues wailing out of a speaker somewhere in the street.
I stop and turn my head to see a beat up old shop with a couple of guitars without strings nailed to the wall (an SG copy and a red Strat for guitar nerds) and a vintage amp cabinet playing the blues with a wire leading into the shop. I have discovered the Blues Music guitar shop - vintage and non-vintage bought, sold and traded... I am now, officially, in heaven.
The next two hours are spent chatting with the owner of the store and his wife and son, and playing steel resonators, archtops, vintage Stellas (the guitar that most bluesmen started on), strats, tele copies and a bunch of others... Playing the electrics through original vintage Fender amps just added to the glory of the moment, although as usual I couldn't get any of my fingers to do what they're supposed to do (always happens in guitar shops - some kind of performance anxiety as you're surrounded by real guitar heads)...
I progressed to some Stellas and make a note of a 1964 vintage model which is priced attractively. It's not the nicest guitar I've played, but it is a proper blues acoustic and the name is so evocative...and it sounds very 'true'.
Then I get my paws around a new Dobro Hound Dog steel resonator with a big heavy wooden body and a massive square neck. The action on this guitar is set at about an inch and it is clearly JUST for slide. I borrow a slide and start playing. A couple of buzzy bass strings can be sorted by adjusting the bridge, but this baby has tone and richness with the steel and wood harmonising just right. I played ok too - recovering some cool points but still massively in deficit from earlier...
Then I meet an interesting 1960s Telecaster copy with two sealed pick-ups in a faded cream colour and a rosewood neck and a giant 60's Fender logo on the bass of the guitar. It's a steal at $160 and it sounds real nice too...but I put her aside as I have been cultivating a long distance relationship with a proper Fender 1952 replica model in London...whom I hope to persuade to come and live with me later this year...
Then I set eyes upon a candy apple red strat with two straight single coil Tex Mex pickups and a Fat Strat humbucker - an unusual combination for a Strat. She's got a fancy pick guard in white pearl effect and she's a US made original from the "California Series". I have fallen in love with her looks but it only gets deeper when I plug her in to the vintage amp.... She's gorgeous. Rich tones, deep power from the humbucker and light twang from the single coils. The tremelo bar also works great with much more control than my other Strat. I know immediately that she is coming home with me.
And so is the Dobro Hound Dog. Hard cases are found at the back of the store for both and cash is stumped up. The owner of the store - Ronnie - was a great guy and genuinely appreciative of the sale (his son was getting married a week later and weddings always hurt dad's pocket!). He threw in a brass slide as part of the deal and gave me good prices on the cases. The Dobro got an old vintage brown leather semi hard case while the Strat got a Fender case. How I'm going to get them back I don't know, but I'll figure it out.
Anyone who loves guitars really needs to see this store. It's not the overall collection of vintage and new guitars, nor the amps but the overall feel of the place. It's rammed with posters, photos, blues memorabilia, bits and pieces of guitars, accessories and so on. None of it is formally laid out and there is none of the snotty behaviour you get with big commercial stores. Pick up and play whatever you like and welcome to a family atmosphere. This is a place full of guitar culture and not just guitars. Elvis Costello popped by a year or so ago and bought a guitar there which he went on to use in live gigs. I think everyone who visits should buy something there so this place continues to thrive.
The store owner gave me two recommendations before I left. Find Gary - the local blues expert and the most knowledgeable man on the blues in Clarksdale and go to the Hopson Plantation two miles out of town. One of the largest plantations in Mississippi, Hopson has converted the out buildings into a semi museum and the old wooden shacks where the sharecroppers used to live are available to rent...
A quick look out the door and Gary's truck was spotted outside the bar on Delta Avenue... And so Gary was inside. I duly headed in that direction....
The bar was cool. Locals kicking back and enjoying a beer or seven... Gary was to be found hanging out behind the bar so I sat down on a bar stool and got introduced.
Gary is the editor and publisher of BluesSource.com the #1 Blues online magazine in the world. He is also a collector and retailer of vintage and original recordings of blues, country and associated genres and a walking encyclopedia of the blues. In his younger days he played with some of the blues and country greats including people like Howlin' Wolf and Carl Perkins. He once got an impromptu guitar lesson from Son House himself.
During his lifelong association with the blues he's spent plenty of time in Juke Joints around Mississippi and rolling out of bars and clubs in Chicago often there listening to or playing with some of the greats. Gary plays guitar and blues harp (harmonica).
He told me some wonderful stories as we exchanged views on the Blues and favourite artists. One story was when he was in Chicago after Leonard Chess's death. Chess was the founder of Chess Records - perhaps the greatest blues record label of the time with artists like Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf on its books. Leonard Chess himself nurtured much of the black talent that came up from the Delta to Chicago and recorded the records that took them to a mass audience.
Gary met up with Howlin' Wolf at a gathering after Chess's untimely death and commented how sad it was that Chess had died so young etc etc. To which the Wolf replied "Shit, that motherf+@ker still owed me money!" Such a commercial obsession was a common trait of the bluesmen of the time - presumably because they had been ripped off so many times in the past.
Another tale explains the real story behind Robert Johnson's transformation as a guitarist. Son House - one of the greatest Mississippi Delta bluesmen - told Gary that he was in a juke joint one night in Clarksdale listening to Robert Johnson play. Son House thought Johnson's playing was poor to say the least and after Johnson finished his set Son House went up and told him how bad he was. Johnson, who by all accounts was a shy person, was so horrified and embarrassed by this criticism that he upped and left there and then and went to Helena in Arkansas where he stayed for two years. No-one knows who taught him there (it was a another renowned blues centre) but when he came back to Clarksdale he could outplay the best of them and went on to record the famous songs that live on today...
Talking with Gary Miller for those 2-3 hours was a great experience. A man whose passion for the blues has never wained and who has crossed over the major stages in Blues in the US. From what he calls original (Son House and Skip James era in the 30s) to "modern" - Muddy Waters and co in the 60s to "contemporary" - people like Keb' Mo' and Watermelon Slim who Gary introduced me too via the jukebox in the bar.
Before leaving the bar I asked the owner what the legal drinking and driving levels were (as I had had several beers). He replied, "As long as you don't run anybody down and kill 'em, the cops won't give you any trouble.".
Welcome to Mississippi!
Leaving town I headed to Hopson's Plantation and was lucky enough to get a room for the night in one of the original wooden shacks. Mine is "The Crossroads" shack. It's got electricity, air conditioning and regular plumbing, but that's the only concession to the modern day. The walls are covered in old posters from blues festivals and there is a rickety old stand-up piano in one space. Wooden floors, walls and ceiling and plenty of interesting looking bugs complete the experience.
On the recommendation of the Hopson people I dined at Abe's BBQ near the crossroads of 61 & 49. Abe's has been going since 1924 and was founded by Abe Davis an immigrant from Lebanon. Abe Junior runs it today and I feasted on BBQ pork and BBQ beef together with home made beans and coleslaw. The pork and beef were so tender and so delicious that words alone cannot capture the delight. The beans and 'slaw were great too. All washed down with a bottle of Bud and it was back to the plantation and to my shack.
I ended the day sitting in the big armchair in my wooden shack with my Dobro guitar across my lap playing slide blues guitar until sleep took me sometime in the night....
Day 3 (Part 1) - Jackson MS to Clarksdale MS
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....
(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....
Monday, July 28, 2008
Day 2 - New Orleans, LA to Jackson Mississippi.
So I head out of New Orleans on Highway 61 towards Baton Rouge in the "car" for the trip.... A real tug between a silver Mustang and a. Chrysler Sebring convertible in electric blue... Breaking with my road trip tradition I went for the Chrysler.... It was in blue so that kind of fitted with the grand scheme of the trip.
First music of the day was a song that had been buzzing around my head since I left. John Mayall's "Death of JB Lenoir"... Awesome song and a clear marker in the relationship between American Blues and the British Blues school which developed in the 60's and which was lead by John Mayall, Alexis Korner and then developed by people like Eric Clapton...
A session of JB Lenoir inevitably followed. His high pitched, almost childish voice and simple but infectious guitar rhythms contrasting with the (at the time) quite risque political content (Eisenhower Blues was originally release under another title for example) and with the sassiness of tracks like "Mama Talk To Your Daughter" from 1954....
"Mama, mama, please talk to your daughter 'bout me
Mama, mama, please talk to your daughter 'bout me
She done made me love her and I ain't gonna leave her be."
Driving across the swamps and the bayous of Louisiana I was tempted to go for a Creedence Clearwater Revival moment, but took a turn into more blues with the 1966 Berkeley Blues Festival and three wildly different but supremely enjoyable bluesmen....
Mance Lipscomb - Texas acoustic blues, farmer style with the wonderful Shake, Shake Mama (I'll buy you a diamond ring)... Where dancing becomes a metaphor for all kinds of other good things....
Clifton Chenier - the king of zydeco. This is Acadian music known as Cajun because locals couldn't pronounce Acadian so it became corrupted to "cajun" which we all know). This is somewhere between jazz, blues and folk music with instruments such as the washboard and accordion featuring heavily. Chenier sings a great rendition of Ray Charles's song "What I'd Say" substituting piano with accordion. A genuine Louisiana sound.
Lightnin' Hopkins - perhaps my favourite blues man. Sam Lightnin' Hopkins was from Houston Texas and was a legend. His deep voice and his instantly recognisable guitar style set him apart with songs like "Black Cadillac" (where his eye for the ladies costs him his Black Cadillac of the title), "Last Night" with it's haunting top string whines and so on. More on Lightnin' later on this trip as I will be bumping into him again in Mississippi for sure....
Muddy Waters and various blues men (Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter) then saw me to the doors of Angola - or The Farm.
Angola Prison is the Louisiana State Penitentiary and houses all the state's death row prisoners. An enormous farm, Angola was home to many bluesmen - among them Leadbelly who spent time there for Aggravated Assault with Intent To Murder....
You can read more about Angola at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_State_Penitentiary
Angola has it's own museum just outside the main gates and it is definitely worth stopping by.
Not only are the exhibits fascinating, but you can also buy original recordings of inmates which were recorded at Angola in the late 50s. I naturally picked up a bunch including recordings of Prison Work Songs which are amazing -rhythm being supplied by hammers hitting rails, sewing machines and other equipment. Also a collection of spirituals sung by the prisoners, and proper blues recorded by inmates including the velvet voice of inmate Roosevelt Charles.
Listening to the work songs in particular and you can instantly connect with both plantation songs and the jump to West African tribal music (where the blues originated and came to America with the slave trade).
The rhythmical beats and the proclamations followed by the chorus response also form the basis for the simplest blues structures and listening to these recordings back to back is a revelation. And unlike a lot of blues "classics" they are not about the woman leaving and waking up in the morning after a fight or too many drinks or both... No, these songs are more fundamental. They're about inequality, suffering, hope, belief in God, salvation and the will to go on. Very human truths from people stripped of everything else. In one talking blues the singer recognises the requirement or hope that the prisoners are there to pay penance for their sins and crimes - and simply beseaches the authorities to allow him to do so in peace and being treated fairly.
That music took me all the way into Mississippi and through Vicksburg - where the last battle of the Civil War took place and up 61 to Rolling Fork (birthplace of McKinly Morganfield or Muddy Waters as better known). From Rolling Fork to Leland and across to Indianola - birthplace of BB King who is finishing a Museum dedicated to the Delta Blues.
This whole is plantation dominated with corn, cotton and sugar cane as the main crops. The landscape is at the same time inspiring and threatening with its vast expanse.
These are the fields where men like Muddy Waters and BB King and thousands of others worked 12 hour days and then played the blues to each other and their friends at night. This is where the blues began in the United States and these were the pioneers along with Son House, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf and Skip James, who made it a musical genre which lasts until today.
The day ended heading to Jackson, the capital of Mississippi and being accompanied by Buddy Guy singing acoustic delta blues including tracks like Crawling Kingsnake, Lucy Mae Blues and Hardtime Killing Floor. Buddy Guy, who is synonymous with the Chicago electric blues sound that he and people like Muddy Waters pioneered, but BG - just like Muddy - had his roots in the delta. And this album shows a different side of Buddy Guy which is as surprising as it is beautiful. Great way to end a great day.
How the blues left the delta and went to Chicago and how it developed is the focus on the rest of this journey - but Mississippi holds more learning before the road goes to Tennessee and Memphis....
First music of the day was a song that had been buzzing around my head since I left. John Mayall's "Death of JB Lenoir"... Awesome song and a clear marker in the relationship between American Blues and the British Blues school which developed in the 60's and which was lead by John Mayall, Alexis Korner and then developed by people like Eric Clapton...
A session of JB Lenoir inevitably followed. His high pitched, almost childish voice and simple but infectious guitar rhythms contrasting with the (at the time) quite risque political content (Eisenhower Blues was originally release under another title for example) and with the sassiness of tracks like "Mama Talk To Your Daughter" from 1954....
"Mama, mama, please talk to your daughter 'bout me
Mama, mama, please talk to your daughter 'bout me
She done made me love her and I ain't gonna leave her be."
Driving across the swamps and the bayous of Louisiana I was tempted to go for a Creedence Clearwater Revival moment, but took a turn into more blues with the 1966 Berkeley Blues Festival and three wildly different but supremely enjoyable bluesmen....
Mance Lipscomb - Texas acoustic blues, farmer style with the wonderful Shake, Shake Mama (I'll buy you a diamond ring)... Where dancing becomes a metaphor for all kinds of other good things....
Clifton Chenier - the king of zydeco. This is Acadian music known as Cajun because locals couldn't pronounce Acadian so it became corrupted to "cajun" which we all know). This is somewhere between jazz, blues and folk music with instruments such as the washboard and accordion featuring heavily. Chenier sings a great rendition of Ray Charles's song "What I'd Say" substituting piano with accordion. A genuine Louisiana sound.
Lightnin' Hopkins - perhaps my favourite blues man. Sam Lightnin' Hopkins was from Houston Texas and was a legend. His deep voice and his instantly recognisable guitar style set him apart with songs like "Black Cadillac" (where his eye for the ladies costs him his Black Cadillac of the title), "Last Night" with it's haunting top string whines and so on. More on Lightnin' later on this trip as I will be bumping into him again in Mississippi for sure....
Muddy Waters and various blues men (Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter) then saw me to the doors of Angola - or The Farm.
Angola Prison is the Louisiana State Penitentiary and houses all the state's death row prisoners. An enormous farm, Angola was home to many bluesmen - among them Leadbelly who spent time there for Aggravated Assault with Intent To Murder....
You can read more about Angola at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_State_Penitentiary
Angola has it's own museum just outside the main gates and it is definitely worth stopping by.
Not only are the exhibits fascinating, but you can also buy original recordings of inmates which were recorded at Angola in the late 50s. I naturally picked up a bunch including recordings of Prison Work Songs which are amazing -rhythm being supplied by hammers hitting rails, sewing machines and other equipment. Also a collection of spirituals sung by the prisoners, and proper blues recorded by inmates including the velvet voice of inmate Roosevelt Charles.
Listening to the work songs in particular and you can instantly connect with both plantation songs and the jump to West African tribal music (where the blues originated and came to America with the slave trade).
The rhythmical beats and the proclamations followed by the chorus response also form the basis for the simplest blues structures and listening to these recordings back to back is a revelation. And unlike a lot of blues "classics" they are not about the woman leaving and waking up in the morning after a fight or too many drinks or both... No, these songs are more fundamental. They're about inequality, suffering, hope, belief in God, salvation and the will to go on. Very human truths from people stripped of everything else. In one talking blues the singer recognises the requirement or hope that the prisoners are there to pay penance for their sins and crimes - and simply beseaches the authorities to allow him to do so in peace and being treated fairly.
That music took me all the way into Mississippi and through Vicksburg - where the last battle of the Civil War took place and up 61 to Rolling Fork (birthplace of McKinly Morganfield or Muddy Waters as better known). From Rolling Fork to Leland and across to Indianola - birthplace of BB King who is finishing a Museum dedicated to the Delta Blues.
This whole is plantation dominated with corn, cotton and sugar cane as the main crops. The landscape is at the same time inspiring and threatening with its vast expanse.
These are the fields where men like Muddy Waters and BB King and thousands of others worked 12 hour days and then played the blues to each other and their friends at night. This is where the blues began in the United States and these were the pioneers along with Son House, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf and Skip James, who made it a musical genre which lasts until today.
The day ended heading to Jackson, the capital of Mississippi and being accompanied by Buddy Guy singing acoustic delta blues including tracks like Crawling Kingsnake, Lucy Mae Blues and Hardtime Killing Floor. Buddy Guy, who is synonymous with the Chicago electric blues sound that he and people like Muddy Waters pioneered, but BG - just like Muddy - had his roots in the delta. And this album shows a different side of Buddy Guy which is as surprising as it is beautiful. Great way to end a great day.
How the blues left the delta and went to Chicago and how it developed is the focus on the rest of this journey - but Mississippi holds more learning before the road goes to Tennessee and Memphis....
Day 1 - New Orleans, Louisiana
Slow start to the day following nearly a full day of travel and poor sleep from jet lag.
The "Vieux Carre" or The French Quarter has charm and sophistication on the outside - including stunning architecture - and lots of sleaze and dirt on the inside with strip joints, blues and jazz clubs jostling for position with art galleries and smart boutiques.
Wandering around the side streets between Chartre St and Bourbon St takes you past some great cafes where the multicultural natives of the city celebrate their diversity and the one thing they all have in common - whether Creole, Cajun, or Coloured - being laid back.
It isn't called the Big Easy for nothing and there is a decidedly gentle pace of life here and a dedicated belief that good food, good drinks and good conversation are a sure route to salvation.
My tour of the Quarter saw a bunch of photographs being snapped away coupled with some full-on people watching. Oh yes.... And Voodoo.
The Voodoo museum, while small and perhaps slightly eclectic and random, does give a flavour of this fascinating religion. An amalgam of animistic religions from West Africa (mainly Benin, West Congo and the Yoruba tribal parts of Nigeria) and western Christianity. Whether the beguiling looks of Marie Levaux in her many images get you or the chilling sights of Baron Samedi or Le Grand Zombi, Voodoo is much more interesting than the myth, folklore and plain bullshit that surround it.
Forced to be a hidden belief system, voodoo (which comes from the word "vudu" from the Fon tribe of Benin) follows what all religions have had to do at one point. It borrows heavily from the existing and current religions of the place both using them as a mask and concurrently adopting aspects as the practice integrates. Hence you see beautiful triptychs of the Madonna and Child and assorted saints next to voodoo dolls and skulls....
It is not right in my opinion to think of voodoo as the occult. That's too easy and way to easy for the Catholic Priests of old New Orleans who wanted to protect their "turf" and outlaw the competition.
Anyway - laden with my 101 guide to voodoo I headed off to explore more when the opening licks of Hendrix's "Red House" penetrated by ears... I followed the sound of a wailing blue guitar till I found myself firmly seated at the bar of the Funky Pirate - the # Blues Bar in the French Quarter. It was only 4pm but the band were cooking and it seemed obvious that the appropriate and sensible thing to do was to park up and exploit the happy hour prices on Red Hook beer from Brooklyn...
Four hours later and I was best buddies with Dave the barman, had analysed the flexibility and versatility of the blues with front man, vocalist and guitarist of The Pentones - Mark Penton, and was afloat with beer and bar stool philosophy.
The Pentones were one of those local bands and Mark was an extremely talented guitarist and vocalist who certainly had the talent to make it big, but who gave the impression of probably being pretty happy with his lot as a Bourbon St troubador and entertainer.
His banter was also first class. A couple of gems stood out and were duly recorded.
Introducing one of his own compositions:
"This is one of my songs. Most of my songs are about women. About women leaving me. I don't understand that. I mean, I'm perfect. Right?"
And on one of his standards:
"Here's a song about trucks. About drinking wine, smoking some weed. Taking some speed. There's probably a hooker in there somewhere, but I ain't found her yet!"
And on that happy note I wandered out into the street and into a thunderstorm of biblical proportions. I was so completely soaked that I got the distinct impression that even my skin had become permeable.
As I walked / swam back to the hotel it was pleasing to see New Orleans busy. Things have been tough after the flood and Katerina - but it seems to be getting better. After a 27 year absence for me, it was great to be back and I am going to make a point of getting back to NOLA as soon as I can to spend a more relaxed time there. Maybe in Mardi Gras!
The "Vieux Carre" or The French Quarter has charm and sophistication on the outside - including stunning architecture - and lots of sleaze and dirt on the inside with strip joints, blues and jazz clubs jostling for position with art galleries and smart boutiques.
Wandering around the side streets between Chartre St and Bourbon St takes you past some great cafes where the multicultural natives of the city celebrate their diversity and the one thing they all have in common - whether Creole, Cajun, or Coloured - being laid back.
It isn't called the Big Easy for nothing and there is a decidedly gentle pace of life here and a dedicated belief that good food, good drinks and good conversation are a sure route to salvation.
My tour of the Quarter saw a bunch of photographs being snapped away coupled with some full-on people watching. Oh yes.... And Voodoo.
The Voodoo museum, while small and perhaps slightly eclectic and random, does give a flavour of this fascinating religion. An amalgam of animistic religions from West Africa (mainly Benin, West Congo and the Yoruba tribal parts of Nigeria) and western Christianity. Whether the beguiling looks of Marie Levaux in her many images get you or the chilling sights of Baron Samedi or Le Grand Zombi, Voodoo is much more interesting than the myth, folklore and plain bullshit that surround it.
Forced to be a hidden belief system, voodoo (which comes from the word "vudu" from the Fon tribe of Benin) follows what all religions have had to do at one point. It borrows heavily from the existing and current religions of the place both using them as a mask and concurrently adopting aspects as the practice integrates. Hence you see beautiful triptychs of the Madonna and Child and assorted saints next to voodoo dolls and skulls....
It is not right in my opinion to think of voodoo as the occult. That's too easy and way to easy for the Catholic Priests of old New Orleans who wanted to protect their "turf" and outlaw the competition.
Anyway - laden with my 101 guide to voodoo I headed off to explore more when the opening licks of Hendrix's "Red House" penetrated by ears... I followed the sound of a wailing blue guitar till I found myself firmly seated at the bar of the Funky Pirate - the # Blues Bar in the French Quarter. It was only 4pm but the band were cooking and it seemed obvious that the appropriate and sensible thing to do was to park up and exploit the happy hour prices on Red Hook beer from Brooklyn...
Four hours later and I was best buddies with Dave the barman, had analysed the flexibility and versatility of the blues with front man, vocalist and guitarist of The Pentones - Mark Penton, and was afloat with beer and bar stool philosophy.
The Pentones were one of those local bands and Mark was an extremely talented guitarist and vocalist who certainly had the talent to make it big, but who gave the impression of probably being pretty happy with his lot as a Bourbon St troubador and entertainer.
His banter was also first class. A couple of gems stood out and were duly recorded.
Introducing one of his own compositions:
"This is one of my songs. Most of my songs are about women. About women leaving me. I don't understand that. I mean, I'm perfect. Right?"
And on one of his standards:
"Here's a song about trucks. About drinking wine, smoking some weed. Taking some speed. There's probably a hooker in there somewhere, but I ain't found her yet!"
And on that happy note I wandered out into the street and into a thunderstorm of biblical proportions. I was so completely soaked that I got the distinct impression that even my skin had become permeable.
As I walked / swam back to the hotel it was pleasing to see New Orleans busy. Things have been tough after the flood and Katerina - but it seems to be getting better. After a 27 year absence for me, it was great to be back and I am going to make a point of getting back to NOLA as soon as I can to spend a more relaxed time there. Maybe in Mardi Gras!
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