Home of the Delta Blues

Me 'n' Muddy
see all photos »

Well, the Mississippi delta is shining like a national guitar.  It's beautiful country, thick, jungle green and silver with standing glistening bayous all the way to the horizon.  I swear if you stood still for an hour the stuff would grow right over you.  Huge expances of field crops stretch to the horizon, air crop sprayers are here, the ribbon roads turn to silver mirage in front of us as we roll through rural Miss/Alabama.

We pass Greenfield where Robert Johnson was poisoned, according to legend by a jealous husband, and go onto Clarksdale, ground zero for blues music.  Today, in the feirce heat nothing moves, not a car, dawg or person.  We stay up the road in Tunica.  Tunica has casinos, we like casinos.

At The Crossroads
see all photos »

We don't gamble, but boy, Americans do!  Casinos mean luxury suites at $29 a night, all you can eat buffets of extraordinary quality at $17 and the "Barker Bet" the only one where the house is gauranteed to lose.

They have slot machines set in the bar.  Pull up a stool, slide one crisp dollar bill into its' slot and it gratefully lights up, flashing here, there and everywhere, enticing you sluttishly to

"push my buttons baby..... go on you know you want to....."

Don't touch a thing, all the time the lights are flashing......the barman thinks you're playing...... your drinks are free.

At the Bayou with Bernadete
see all photos »

Back in Clarkesdale there is the Delta blues museum, a stunning collection of stuff.  John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson all spent time here and there are artifacts, instruments and the like here.  Fascinating stuff trying to trace Johnsons burial spot and of course the location of "The crossroads".

Outside it's still broiling hot, a huge train is rolling through as the museum is set tight up against the track, it's fitting as one of RJ's songs finishes with "When I'm dead and gone, bury me by the railroad side, so my restless spirit can hop a freight train and ride."

Us, we're off to Memphis Tennessee, how cool is that?