23.6.2012 – 23.6.2012  34 °C

Our day today took us from Vicksburg up to Clarkesdale Mississippi, the home of the Blues! Our drive today was fairly uneventful as we passed through acre upon acre of cotton fields, corn and soya beans. Our drive also took us through many small black communities (I say that because we were the only non-Negros to be seen!). These communities all have a couple of things in common, no businesses and the towns look unkempt. It’s quite sad, we saw how little business seemed to be open in Vicksburg and here further up into the Mississippi Delta the problem seemed to be even worse, old rotting factories and businesses.. I sure do feel sorry for the locals around here, there doesn’t seem to be much employment (nor prospects of employment) and their “lot” in life seems to pretty tough.

We made a mid morning stop in the small black community of Rolling Fork (birthplace of Muddy Waters) looking for a morning tea stop. We found one out of the town in one of the state parks. It was very nicely laid out but it is a user-pays park.. In other words, if you want to stay the night or even picnic expect that you need to pay for the privilege… D managed to talk our way out of the fee so we got to have our coffee for free but anyone else using it for the day would normally need to pay. The park was on the banks of some sort of Bayou. Apparently ‘gaters swim in these waters so we didn’t go for a swim, even though the temp is well over 90 today and we were sorely tempted.. J

We arrived in Clarkesdale just after lunch time (we had previously picked up some chicken and salad stuff) so after eating some food we headed into downtown Clarkesdale to see where the Blues began! My first impression of downtown Clarkesdale was depressing.. In fact, if it was just me travelling I would have taken one look at the town, got back in my car and just kept on driving. Half of the town was boarded up. At some point in its past history it must have been a thriving metropolis, today it is a town of concrete and weeds.. That was my first impression.. Luckily, D was pretty keen to see the town and hear the Blues so he forced me to just keep going and so we checked out the Blues Museum.

The museum was actually quite good! It featured early Blues artists (I won’t try and name them because most of the names I didn’t recognise!), the most prominent being Muddy Waters. I had at least heard of this guy so that did help! The museum was filled with pieces of memorabilia from these artists and a video that featured Keith Richards, ZZ Top guy and others who were singing the praises of Muddy Waters. The museum had even recreated Muddy Waters home that he grew up in.

We then wandered around the streets checking out the little shops. We ended up at Ground Zero, which is this Blues club that was setup by Morgan Freeman. He setup the club (which the locals call a juke joint not a bar or club!) to ensure that the Blues were still played in the town where it all first began. The club looks like this gungy, daggy old building. Think of the worse looking building you can imagine, and your picture would be pretty close to Ground Zero! Clearly, Morgan runs this place at a profit, because he hasn’t spent a cent on the décor!! The interior is covered in graffiti.. every inch of writable space has someone’s name or tag written on it! Even the roof is graffiti-ed!! The tables and chairs are a hodge podge of el-cheapos from every garage sale that the town has had over the past few years! It is a place that has to be seen to be believed. The band weren’t coming on til after 8pm so after having a quick drink to cool us down we kept on driving thru town and eventually back to our digs for a rest before we headed back out just before 8pm.

8pm rolled around and we went hunting something to eat. The town had really picked up since earlier and nearly every car parking space had been taken.. I couldn’t believe it.. the town had gone from completely dead to busy! (It is Sat night but I still hadn’t expected to see this) We checked out a couple of restaurants but nothing really took our fancy. The other juke joint Red’s, seemed to be shut so we went back to Ground Zero to hear the band and have something to eat. Our burgers were pretty good and then the band hit the stage. They were awesome! I’ve never been a huge Blues fan (and was expecting lots of harmonica and slow 12 bar type stuff) and was completely surprised! The music was much more Rock-y and Jazz-y so I was pretty stoked!! We stayed around for their whole first set before our sleepiness finally overtook us and we headed back to our hotel. All I can say is that Clarkesdale totally blew me away.. I was willing to drive thru when I first saw the town and by the night’s end I wanted to stay another day! Just goes to show that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover!!

Song of the Day– Muddy Waters, I just want to make love to you