I’m a blues music fan. I’ve liked it ever since I was in college working in a bookstore where I heard Junior Kimbrough’s album Everywhere I Go. I’m not terribly well-versed in blues history and I certainly don’t know half of the musicians. I’ve read enough about it to know that it was heavily influenced by the string music brought over from Africa, and that it originated in the fields of the Mississippi delta. I know there are a few different styles of blues music: Delta, Chicago, Texas, Zydeco, Country, etc. and that it spawned most of modern American music when it spun off and morphed in soul and rock n roll. I like almost all styles, but my favorite is delta – specifically North Mississippi / Hill Country. I moved to Memphis to work with an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting the blues. Like the Kimbrough song says, “most things haven’t worked out.” When I can, I go out and listen to live blues music, and sometimes take blues/music related road trips.
This weekend, my friend Stacy and I made our way down to Clarksdale, Mississippi. It’s about an hour and half of flat highway due south and a little west of Memphis. Cotton fields sometimes line the sides of the road and in the late summer heat you see the mirror-like heat rippling off the highway up ahead. That highway is the famed highway 61. In Clarksdale, highway 61 crosses highway 49. This intersection marks crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his musical talents. Fifteen miles down the road on highway 49 is the tiny town of Tutwiler, MS which is where W. C. Handy was waiting for a train one night when he heard a man playing slide guitar and singing “Goin’ where the Southern cross’ the Dog” which became Handy’s “Yellow Dog Blues” – the first blues song. All of this happened in the early 1900s and the history is mixed with a bit of legend. Nobody knows where anyone is buried or exactly who did what where. Robert Johnson has three different grave sites. In an effort to capitalize on tourism, there are small museums dotting the delta – each one claiming their piece of blues history – with most roads leading to Memphis and beyond. Outside of Memphis, Clarksdale is must visit for a lot of blues fans.
While my last job may not have worked out, I did broker a sponsorship package with the Clarksdale tourism group. Through that negotiation, I got to know great guy named Bubba and one of his board members, Roger. Both of them insisted we stop by and say hello on our trip. They welcomed us and gave us tips on what to do and see. Roger owns a shop in town called Cat Head. It’s a blues and folk art store. They have lots of books, cds, vinyl, and photos. I got a new hat while I was there. Roger knows a thing or two about the blues and blues history – he’s written books about juke joints and the hidden history of the delta blues. Over fifteen years ago he Bubba founded the Juke Joint Festival, one of the big festivals for the city of Clarksdale. I didn’t go down there fishing for compliments, but as we sat in Bubba’s office, he thanked me many times for taking care of him when I was with my previous employer. My job was to make sure our sponsors and donors were happy. I think if our board of directors had spoken to our sponsors and vendors and member societies, they would have walked away with a different, and more positive, understanding of the work I was doing. I’m glad some of the relationships last beyond the employment.
We stayed at a “hotel” called the Shack Up Inn. It’s a cool concept for a hotel and has been written about countless times in travel magazines and newspapers. They’ve bought and transported shacks from all over the delta. They’re plopped down along a side road just off the highway. It has a very communal feel to it, and I suspect durign busier times, lots of people are enjoy each other’s company as they sit on rocking chairs on their front porches. I’m assuming they’ve restored the shacks a bit and done things like add plumbing if it didn’t exist – but they try to stay true to ther original. There’s a big courtyard with live music and a large barn-like structure for a lobby – though it was closed due to COVID. They also converted several grain bins in to rooms that can be rented. The Shack Up Inn is about 3 miles down the road (and railroad tracks) from downtown Clarksdale. The shack we stayed in was called the Robert Clay shack. While fairly spacious for the two of us, I can’t imagine how Mr. Clay raised seven children in his shack.
rusted truck at Shack Up 
Creaky old windmill 
Courtyard 
View of Robert Clay Kitchen 
Robert Clay Interior 
Robert Clay Kitchen 
Robert Clay Shack 
Lobby 
Tracks heading into Clarksdale
We went in to town for dinner Friday night and some music later. Under normal circumstances, Clarksdale has a vibrant music scene. They have a handful of clubs that have blues bands. The two best known bars, Ground Zero (owned by Morgan Freeman who is from Clarksdale) and Red’s (a dive of a place) were both closed. We heard a folk act playing outside of a general store – they were the only act in town. Walking through town, we half expected tumbleweeds. It’s pretty run down. There are a lot of abandoned buildings, and with tourism down, the streets are empty.
Saturday, we went back in to town. We spent the day walking around. There’s a large mansion that’s tied to Tennessee Williams, and small river walk. Walking the grounds of the mansion I must have stepped on an ant nest – probably had about twenty of them on me biting me. Between chiggers, ants, and the mosquitoes, I think I’ve gotten more bug bit in the past year than I have the rest of my life. The ants were a nuisance for a bit, but the stinging wore off as we walked. We ducked down lots of side alleys to look at the murals that are spread out all over town. I didn’t get pics of very many of them, but here are a few.
Saturday was when we stopped by Roger’s place Cat Head and also made our way our to the crossroads sign, where I had some BBQ at a place called Abe’s (it’s been around since the 20s).
In 2017, I drove down to Memphis and then North Mississippi for a blues picnic. I had hoped to visit Clarksdale, but couldn’t squeeze it in. While at the picnic, I met a bunch of different people… Cash Money, Big Bobby, Tom, Brian. I learned Tom lived in Newtown, PA, and we hung a number of times since the picnic. Bobby, who everyone called the Mayor, is from the St. Louis area. He and I chat over Facebook every now and then. He makes a half-dozen trips to Clarksdale every year. I told him I’d be going down, and he flooded my inbox with places to go and people to see. One place was a small unassuming cafe called the Delta Amusement Blues Cafe. It’s run by a guy named Bobby Tarzi. I was told he was expecting me. And if it all sounds a bit old school mob like, it felt like that too. When we told Bubba and Roger we were supposed to swing by the Cafe, I was told not to lose my shirt in one of Bobby’s poker games. True to form, it was a tiny place where everyone knew everyone else and they were all comfortable enough to go behind the counter to grab their own beer or run the register to pay their own tab. Stacy and I hung out there for about an hour and listened to stories. We heard about how the interstate went that way and the railroad too – and with them went the industry and the jobs. There’s not much work to be had in Clarksdale, but some outside folks are coming in and opening up restaurants. It was a hoot to be with all these slightly older Clarksdale lifers. We couldn’t always understand them, and they weren’t terribly PC in their choice of language, but the beer was cheap, the stories were good and they made us feel at home.
After spending the day in town, we went back to the Inn to watch Lightnin’ Malcom play in the courtyard. Just before he kicked off his set, a young couple got married on an old wooden flatbed not more than few hundred feet from our front porch. We sat outside, listened to music and watched the sun go down between the silhouette of the shacks. It was a nice evening among the relics of forgotten Americana.
Wedding at the Shack Up 
Rustic Americana 
Sunset at the Shack Up
The next morning, we went back to town – Roger told us Watermelon Slim would be playing a blues and breakfast set at the Bluesberry Cafe. The French toast was extra thick, the coffee was hot, and town was still empty. A few people came and went for the backyard patio at the Bluesberry. Slim is a great entertainer with a fantastic deep and gravely voice. He sang a lot of blues, and an occasional hymn. He knocked his guitar over twice, constantly misplaced his harmonicas, and anytime he got near the speakers with his mic, they let out an awful feedback squeal. Slim looks a little like Charles Bukowski, sagging pockmarked jowls and a face that looks like he’s lived a pretty hard life. He jokes about not having teeth and smiles a gummy smile. He tells stories about serving in Nam and probably getting sprayed with agent orange. He also tells stories about protesting war, his days as a truck driver, the two or three times he’s been robbed and how one of the robbers killed his dog. Way back when, he was working in a field in Oklahoma, eating a slice of watermelon that he had picked. He had watermelon in one hand and a harmonica in the other – that’s when he became Watermelon Slim. We listened to him for a solid three hours before hopping in the car and heading back to Memphis.
Last week I opined a bit about the crossroads. As I walked around this town that’s holding on to what it’s been and trying to stay afloat, I could see potential in every hollowed out building. I tried to imagine living there – in a place small enough where everyone knows your name, and your business. Without real jobs and a real economy that isn’t based almost entirely on tourism, I suspect it’s hard to keep things going in Clarksdale. It’s a city that’s out of the way – you have to want to go there in order to get there. Most of the residents are poor, though if you can eek out a decent wage, property is cheap – I just looked and there a 4800 sq ft house that needs a little work for $72k. I don’t know if I could live in a town that small. The summers are delta hot and slow and the nearest cities are a long long drive down that lonesome road.