|
GREENVILLE , seventy miles south of Clarksdale, is the largest town on the Delta. Still an important riverport, it hosts the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival (tel 1-888/812-5837, ) on the third weekend of September. Tree-lined avenues lead from the characterless outskirts into the business district, beyond which pallid warehouses stand in the shadow of a huge levee. If you're staying overnight, the hotels near the river and the casinos would probably be the safest option. For a place to eat , try the original Doe's , at the safer end of Nelson Street at no. 502 (tel 662/334-3315) - arguably the best in the entire Delta for down-home cooking. Leland , seven miles east of Greenville off US-82, is where Mississippi native Jim Henson created Kermit the Frog, naming him after his childhood playmate, Kermit Scott. The exhibit, located on the banks of Deer Creek, at the intersection of Hwy-82 and Hwy-61, is small, but well worth a stop, with displays following Henson's life, Muppet memorabilia, and videos showing much of his work, including his early efforts (Mon-Sat 10am-4pm; free; tel 662/686-2687). Sixteen miles farther east on US-82, INDIANOLA is the home of the largest catfish processing company in the world, Delta. B.B. King , who was born here, plays an open-air hometown show once a year under the auspices of Club Ebony , 404 Hannah Ave (tel 662/887-9915). GREENWOOD , a sleepy town of 20,000 people, forty miles east on US-82, is the country's second largest cotton exchange after Memphis. The nineteenth-century offices of downtown's Cotton Row overlook the shady Yazoo River, and graceful mansions line pretty Grand Boulevard. The Cottonlandia Museum (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat & Sun 2-5pm; $4), about two miles west of the town center on the US-82 W bypass, is a rag-tag collection of old hardware, Native American beads, stuffed birds and oddly long wooden benches polished by the tongues of mules - not one word on slavery or black history, but there's some intriguing artwork. Although Greenwood has recently begun to play on its Robert Johnson connection (he died here), the Cotton Capital Blues Festival in October is the city's current contribution to the Delta Blues music legacy. Of the many motels along US-49 and US-82, the Travel Inn at no. 623 US-82 W (tel 662/453-8810, fax 662/453-1277; $35-50) is basic, clean and good value, with an outdoor pool. By far the best place to eat in Greenwood, and one of the finest in the South, is Lusco's , on the wrong side of the railway tracks at 722 Carrolton Ave (tel 662/453-5365). Each table in this eccentric old place is hidden away in a small booth, veiled from other diners, and waiters, by chintz curtains - an arrangement dating from the days of Prohibition, when Lusco's was the renowned haunt of cotton barons who came here to drink moonshine. Its Italian/Cajun food is superlative, especially the pompano, lightly grilled in a garlicky lemon butter.
As recently as 1900, much of the Mississippi Delta remained an impenetrable wilderness of cypress and gum trees, roamed by panthers and bears and plagued with mosquitoes. Bit by bit land was cleared for cotton plantations, but, though the soil was fertile, white laborers could not be enticed to work in this godforsaken backcountry. After emancipation, the economy came to depend on black share-croppers , who would work a portion of the land on a white-owned plantation in return for a share (often pitifully small) of the eventual crop. As a rule, this lifestyle ensured long periods of poverty and debt interspersed with occasional windfalls; but in the Delta the returns tended to be greater than elsewhere, and blacks moved here from all over Mississippi. In 1903, W.C. Handy, often credited as "the Father of the Blues" but at that time the leader of a vaudeville orchestra, found himself waiting for a train in Tutwiler, fifteen miles southeast of Clarksdale. At some point in the night, a ragged black man carrying a guitar sat down next to him and began to play what Handy called "the weirdest music I had ever heard." Using a pocketknife pressed against the guitar strings to accentuate his mournful vocal style, the man sang that he was "Goin' where the Southern cross the Dog." This was the Delta blues , characterized by the interplay between words and music, with the guitar aiming to parallel and complement the singing rather than simply provide a backing. Though a local, place-specific music - the "Southern" and the "Dog" were railroads that crossed a short way south at Moorhead - it did not simply appear from nowhere, but combined traditional African instrumental and vocal techniques with the "field hollers" chanted by slaves and the reels and jigs then at the basis of popular entertainment. The blues started out as young people's music; the old folk liked the banjo, fife and drum, but the younger generation were crazy for the wild showmanship of bluesmen such as Charley Patton . Born in April 1891, Patton was the classic itinerant bluesman, moving from plantation to plantation and wife to wife, and playing Saturday-night dances with a repertoire that extended from rollicking dance pieces to documentary songs such as High Water Everywhere , about the bursting of the Mississippi levees in April 1927. The enigmatic Robert Johnson was rumored to have sold his soul to the Devil in return for a few brief years of writing songs such as Love in Vain and Stop Breakin' Down . His Crossroads Blues spoke of being stranded at night in the chilling emptiness of the Delta; themes carried to metaphysical extremes in Hellhound on My Trail and Me and the Devil Blues - "you may bury my body down by the highway side/So my old evil spirit can catch a Greyhound bus and ride." Both Patton and Johnson died in the 1930s. However, within a few years the Delta blues had been carried north to Chicago by men such as Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf . Their electrified urban blues was the most immediate ancestor of rock 'n' roll. In addition to towns such as Clarksdale and Helena, blues enthusiasts may want to search out the following rural sites: Stovall Plantation Stovall Road, 7 miles northwest of Clarksdale. Where tractor-driver Muddy Waters was first recorded; his cabin is still (just) standing. Sonny Boy Williamson II's Grave Outside Tutwiler, 13 miles southeast of Clarksdale. Parchman Farm Junction US-49 W and Hwy-32. Mississippi State penitentiary, immortalized by former prisoner Bukka White. Dockery Plantation On Hwy-8, between Cleveland and Ruleville. One of Patton's few long-term bases, also home to Howlin' Wolf and Roebuck "Pops" Staples. Charley Patton's Grave New Jerusalem Church, Holly Ridge, off US-82 6 miles west of Indianola. Robert Johnson's Grave Payne Chapel in Quito, off Hwy-7, roughly 6 miles southwest of Greenwood, where he was poisoned. Getting to hear live blues music Managing to hear live blues music in the Delta is rarely straightforward. Half the time nobody seems to know who is playing where, let alone when, and many of the jook-joints themselves - which can be dark, rudimentary, even intimidating places, making few concessions to decor or comfort - don't have phones. Most "jookin" gets done at weekends; we've listed a few likely venues under the specific Delta towns. With public transportation - even taxis - being all but nonexistent, a car is essential. Useful sources of information are the Delta Blues Museum , (tel 662/627-6820) in Clarksdale, the Memphis Blues Foundation (tel 901/527-2583), Shangrila Records , 1916 Madison Ave (tel 901/274-1916), also in Memphis, and the website . |
Delta Towns 