In early 1977, my mother kept my sister and I up late on a school night, to watch television. This had never happened before, and my sister does not recall the one time it did, but for me it is unforgettable. The mini series Roots was playing, and my mother decided that her two very young children should watch Kunta Kinte be whipped on a small black and white screen, explaining afterward that, “This was how they used to treat Black people in this country, and it was wrong.” Later in 1977, Elvis died.
I grew up to be a huge rock music fan in addition to being a fierce advocate for civil rights. Blues music and civil rights are historically inextricable, and this trip reflects upon them both. It is the most logistically and emotionally challenging journey I have ever taken.
I took this trip while my life felt like it was on fire. There are holidays that help you forget your problems and others that put them into perspective. This was a little of each.
Choose Your Fighter
Living in the South, I was able to do this trip in my own car. Dolly is a 2018 Mazda Miata GT in ceramic metallic with a dark cherry roof – six speed because I have never owned an automatic and don’t intend to. She bore a Dolly Parton license plate and a sparkly pink stick figure family displaying a woman, a cat and two bags of money. I was not sure if I’d catch hell for the stick figure family, but nobody messed with me or my car.
I only saw two other convertibles the entire time from Jackson to Little Rock. It’s hot as fuck, so most times of day are not convertible friendly. Just have a car with good AC, a good stereo and comfortable seats. Also, plenty of people there drive Dodge Challengers, but good gas mileage is also strategic. You‘ll be putting down some miles on this trip.
Driving in the South
Here is my ranking 1-4 of driver quality in the four states I visited.
1. Tennessee: mostly good drivers. A little fast at times but not crazy. The exceptions are pickup trucks that go at speeds of “fuck you, I will drive as fast as I want” or “fuck you, I will drive as slow as I want” in the left lane. People mark the location of cops on Apple Maps, and the cops sit out in the middle of the freeway in a clearly visible spot. The cars are 2-toned, black and baby poop color, so you can’t miss them. Tennessee mostly has no interest in pulling people over on the interstate from what I can tell. They are just there to say “hey y’all, just don’t be too crazy.”
2. Mississippi: similar drivers to Tennessee except a little crazy. Also, I do not mean to mock Jackson, it’s in a poor state, but can we talk about the roads there? It’s not that there are potholes, but rather open gravel pits, wavy roadways, and no consistency of paving materials. The drivers there go the fastest on the worst streets, and I don’t understand how their cars are still running. In terms of cops, I only saw one cop on the interstate in Mississippi, but there are local cops everywhere. Greenville seemed to have fancy police cars while Leland had an old truck that almost looked spray painted – I’m not sure why the difference, but I suspect it correlates with the level of overpolicing in those communities.
3. Alabama: from a technical standpoint, the Alabama drivers may be the best ones. However, they do not get the fuck out of your way. Except in my case they finally did, and I got a massive speeding ticket. When you see a 24-cylinder presidential motorcade level vehicle coming up on you at 110mph, just know that it’s going to be expensive. Those SUVs cost real money, and they need to keep the revenue stream going. ACAB!
4. [this space intentionally left blank in the 1-4 ranking]
5. Arkansas: this is the worst driving I have ever seen anywhere in the world, and I watched a man in Shanghai drive on the wrong side of the street to cut the line at a left hand turn signal. Imagine a freeway where the speed limit is 75. That sounds fantastic, right? Well, a bunch of big rigs are in left lane going 65. Drivers in cars are trying to dart around them on the right, only to get stuck behind an even slower big rig. Those drivers then try to cut you off or jump behind you and tailgate aggressively. This cycle repeats until you’ve passed and been passed by the same Nissan Altima on the right 12 times, yet they never manage to get in front of you. Your extra bitchy driving habit of closing up the hole in front of you and then lingering while the car behind you catches up and closes the hole behind you is used repeatedly. Whenever overaggressive drivers pound the steering wheel due to your efforts, you feel a jolt of joy and pride. Heading back from Little Rock, you leave before dawn while all these idiots are asleep. It’s pouring rain in a city you don’t know, but that’s much safer and better for your blood pressure.
Logistics
I have traveled the world, and this trip was the most logistically difficult of any journey I have ever taken. It was also the most emotionally difficult and the most personally meaningful. This will become evident in the trip report below, but here are some additional details to ensure things go smoothly for you.
If you are only staying one day per place, you have to figure out your arrival and departure strategy. If you arrive at 2pm somewhere and all the sites close at 4pm, how much will you get to see? Some places open at 9am, most at 10am, and some at noon. Some will close at 3pm, most at 4pm, and some are open later. Tours may be by special appointment or happen at prescribed times. Sundays, Mondays and holidays can present challenges.
There is too much to do to check every one of these details, but make sure you know the parameters for things of most interest to you. The big museums and sites will be most accessible, with more planning needed for smaller sites. With some of the things I missed seeing, I might have been able to organize my visit differently had I called ahead or checked individual websites for details. I didn’t miss the most important things, but I did show up to a few places not understanding that they might not be open.
In terms of travel, you have two choices. Drive in the morning or drive in the evening. I originally thought I would do the latter, but I changed my mind and cannot recommend the former enough. I did have a convertible and enjoyed top down drives in the cool mornings of late spring in the South. However, there are other advantages. Your prime hours are 10-2. Everything you might want to do is probably open during some of those four hours. My overall advice is thus to get your ass up and go. Drive in the morning when it’s cool out and there are fewer people on the road. Hungover from being out drinking in Clarksdale? It doesn’t matter, GET UP. Get to popular places early and be first in line. Do you want to be ahead of 250 elderly people at Elvis’ birthplace or be behind them? Do you want to listen to some “dad rock” musician explain the blues to his uninterested kid at the BB King museum or be leaving when they show up? Do the most touristy shit first thing in the morning and anything more off the beaten path in the afternoon.
The other reason to show up early is parking. There will be five spots in the parking lot with tree shade, and employees have taken four of them. Your job is to get that last spot. On that note, bring one of those windshield shades if you own one. When I keep telling you everywhere is HOT, I am not kidding.
Stay in hotels where there is free breakfast so that you can quickly eat and GTFO. Grab a banana or bagel to go. At lunchtime, eat your bagel or a granola bar and cope, because wasting mid-day hours is a bad strategy. You can pig out on steak and gulf shrimp at dinner without guilt. The only exception would be a barbecue place that is only open in the afternoons.
There are other variations on this trip. I had been to Nashville, Memphis, Muscle Shoals and Birmingham previously. However, starting your trip in Nashville or Birmingham and adding sites to what I did is an option.
Playlists
This is not meant to represent the entirety of what you could listen to on a blues tour, just some things that I enjoyed. I don’t care if you know something better or more comprehensive. Good for you.
The Devil at the Crossroads (Spotify)
Fat Possum Records (Spotify)
Stax Records Hits and Classics (Spotify)
Robert Johnson (Amazon Music)
It’s Bad and You Know More (Amazon Music)
RL Burnside (Apple Music, own digital copies)
Hill Country Blues (Pandora)
Delta Blues Radio (Pandora)
BB King Radio (Pandora)
Blues Radio (Pandora)
Dirty Blues Radio (Pandora)
Junior Kimbrough Radio (Pandora)
RL Burnside Radio (Pandora)
I also recently became enamored with a band called Mr. Airplane Man. It’s two women who named their band after a Howlin’ Wolf song. They list their influences as hill country blues, the Stooges, Memphis rock and the Velvet Underground. I feel we could be friends if only I were cooler. I bought their entire catalog on Bandcamp for $60, which I didn’t include in my souvenir total. I should have done it before I left Little Rock so that I didn’t have to listen to commercials on Spotify the whole way home.
Cost (7 nights, 8 days, $2300)
Hotels: $875
Gas: $250
Food/Drinks: $425
Fees and Donations for Museums/Sites: $135
Souvenirs: $285 (6 LPs, 2 books, 2 magnets, 4 photos)
Gratuities for Bands/Housekeeping: $100
Donation to NAACP: $100
Parking ticket: $16
Speeding ticket: $225
Car wash: $21
Sites and Sights
My first stop on the journey was also the heaviest. Montgomery AL is a southern state capitol that feels hot and oppressive. Even walking around with a UV umbrella, the sun was overwhelming. Whether because of the heat or the population level, the downtown seemed sparse. I arrived in the early afternoon and had three sites that were my top priorities. The Rosa Parks Library is downtown, near the capitol building. The exhibit is small but interesting, and it opens with a visual account of Rosa’s determination in keeping her seat on a Montgomery city bus before finally being arrested. You cannot take pictures inside of the exhibit, but there is a statue in the lobby with Rosa sitting on a bus bench, and you can sit beside her for a photo. I personally chose not to do this, not feeling that this was an appropriate selfie moment for a white person.
The Montgomery bus boycott lasted nearly a year and bolstered the emerging civil rights movement. Rosa helped found the NAACP, and you can also see the offices for the Southern Poverty Law Center nearby. I would have stopped by the Hank Williams Museum or the Legacy Museum, but my limited time required choices. My visit included the Dexter Parsonage Museum, a house where Dr. King lived when he was a minister at the nearby Baptist church on Dexter Avenue. The home contains many furnishings from the time of his residence, including the kitchen table where he asked God whether to continue the Montgomery bus boycott. On the front porch, there is a scar in the concrete, from where someone placed dynamite in front of the house. Luckily, Coretta Scott King and Mary Lucy Williams quickly moved to the back of the home, where the Kings’ daughter Yolanda was sleeping, prior to the explosion.
The exhibits for Rosa Parks and MLK were ultimately uplifting despite being unsettling. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice afforded no such relief. I can say, unequivocally, that being there was the most emotionally challenging experience I have ever willingly participated in. Each United States county where a lynching occurred is represented by a metal box. Each box lists the names of the people, largely African American men, who were lynched in that county. The boxes hang from the ceiling, as if suspended by a noose. Outside, there are copies of these same boxes, arranged in coffin-like rows. Hundreds of boxes, rows of rows, representing 4400 known lynching victims.
I found my last name listed many times, and one man shared the same name as my father. My family name comes via an immigration mistake rather than any colonial past, but these details added to the emotional overwhelm of the experience. There is a water feature to represent all of the unknown victims of lynching, and I had to sit down for a few minutes and let the tears come out.
I truly don’t know how other visitors could be so composed by comparison, but perhaps processing this level of human depravity is sadly more central to life experience for many of them. A couple of others didn’t seem to get it at all. I guess people take selfies at Auschwitz, too. Personally, I have trouble even looking at another person in these spaces. I try to be an invisible observer and avoid impacting the experience of anyone else, especially those for whom these sites are painful on a personal level that I cannot comprehend.
In the morning, I left for Jackson. Along the way, I stopped in Selma to take a photograph of the Edmond Pettus Bridge. Bloody Sunday is a famous instance of extreme police brutality, one that nearly killed future Congressman John Lewis of Georgia. A peaceful group of protestors intended to walk from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery and were met with police dogs and batons. It’s about an hour’s drive between Selma and Montgomery, which means it would have taken about four days to walk there. The heat was unbearable, and I cannot for many reasons begin to imagine that journey.
I arrived into Jackson in the late morning. My first stop was the home of Medgar Evers during his time in Jackson as a Secretary of the NAACP. Apple Maps took me one street over, where I got a curious look from a man sitting out on his front porch. He was very nice in directing me to the correct spot, somewhat amused but also happy that I was there. My noon arrival did not align with either of the posted tours (10–12, 2-4), but I was able to see the outside of the home, which is a national landmark. Evers’ blood is still soaked into the driveway where he was shot. He was murdered because of his efforts to integrate schools such as the University of Mississippi, where Evers wanted to study law. His killer was finally brought to justice, but it took 31 years.
The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum offers a broad account of southern civil rights history, with many artifacts and historic photos. There is a central atrium with booking photos of hundreds of activists. For whatever reason, many of the women were smiling, the men not so much. Most of the activists were African American, but others stood with them in calling for racial justice, particularly Jewish students from Ivy League schools. Some even lost their lives doing so.
The exhibits are visceral, hurling racist language while you view photographs of the worst injustices. The thing that stood out to me the most was not the Klan robes and other memorabilia but a graph showing the percentage of Black (presumably male) registered voters in the era following Reconstruction. Just prior to 1870, roughly 65% of Black men were registered to vote. By the early 1890s, it had dropped to around 5% as the result of voter intimidation, poll taxes, “grandfather” laws, literacy tests and overpolicing combined with felony voting prohibitions. The emerging political power of African Americans was effectively crushed for a century.
At the Mississippi Museum of Art, there is a mixture of artists and styles reflecting the region. African American and Indigenous artwork is highlighted and celebrated. Upon leaving, I asked the staff at the front desk about visiting the Farish Street Historical District. Specifically, I wanted to know where I could park and walk around, whether there was a particular shop or landmark I could use for mapping purposes. They were quite nice but shuffled a bit on their feet trying to tell me how to get over there. I did find the street but quickly understood that it wasn’t a great idea for me to walk around. It was relatively empty, and the only person I recall seeing was lying in a doorway passed out. I cropped him out of my photo of the plaque for the Alamo Theater. There are also markers for H.C. Spier, who recorded early blues artists such as Charley Patton, as well as for Trumpet Records, who put out records from Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James and others.
Back at my hotel, I asked the staff where to go for dinner, someplace with food and a live band. Everywhere I went, hotel staff were delighted to help me find ways to enjoy their cities. There is a BB King’s location in Jackson, but I didn’t see a show posted for that evening. One of the places that came up in my searching was a place I’d seen on Farish Street while driving through. I knew damned well that Johnny T’s was not a “suitable place for me to go as a lady on my own” but I asked about it just to show I had done my own homework. The hotel clerk wasn’t exactly like “girl, hell nah, you can’t go in Johnny T’s” but she did instead direct me to a place called the Iron Horse Grill. I had a delicious steak, half of which was packed up to save for dinner the next night. I met a lovely woman while sitting at the bar, with whom I will try to stay in touch. I also met a man who was old and weird and touchy. After 30m or so of sitting next to him, I decided to leave.
My next stop was Cleveland MS, with a stop by Greenville on the way. I planned my arrival into Greenville to coincide with the opening time for their local history museum. Being a few minutes early, I drove a few more blocks in order to take in the Mississippi River. It was a very windy day, and I fought a bit with my dress as I stood on the river bank to capture some photos.
I pulled up in front of the museum just a few minutes before it opened. A woman was sitting on the bench in front of the museum, I assumed waiting for it to open. In reality, she was having a very loud and very private phone conversation. It was awkward to now be parked in front of her waiting for the museum, nothing else in the town open except for the white church across the street that was letting out around 10am on Sunday.
When I got out of my car to go into the museum and said good morning to her, this woman took her umbrella and opened it, then kept peeking around it to stare daggers at me. The museum was not open as advertised, and calling only resulted in me hearing the phone ringing as I stood outside the door. The woman continued to stare me down, so I left. I stopped at a gas station and was directed to the county welcome center, where they did have a few blues artifacts and photographs.
Cleveland MS is an adorable little town, and I only regret that I was there on a Sunday when the shops were closed. The downtown is truly charming, with public art in addition to boutique retail. I stayed at the Cotton House, which was the most expensive booking of the trip. Nearby, one of two Grammy Museums in the US is located, in honor of Mississippi being the birthplace of more Grammy winners of any other US state. With the town being mostly closed up on a Sunday and without much else to see, I spent nearly three hours in the museum, which was only open from 12-3pm that day. A copy of every Album of the Year winner was on display. Awards ceremony outfits from Megan Thee Stallion, Taylor Swift and others were part of the collection. You could do a collaborative blues recording with Keb Mo, though I could not get this to work well when I tried.
The shining highlight of the museum was the Highway 61 exhibit. The video showing the contributions of musicians from the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, Memphis, etc. was so good I watched it completely through. Bobby Bland teaching a boy of about 6-7 years old how to sing “I Got a Woman” was simply adorable. That evening was spent on the rooftop patio of the Cotton House, where it was hot but shady with a breeze. I ate my leftover steak with plastic utensils, and a light rain came through to create a rainbow in the distance.
In the morning, I drove over to Dockery Farms, birthplace of the blues, arriving just as it opened. Charley Patton, Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson worked the cotton fields during the day and played music as a hobby in the evenings. Unlike some farms and plantations, the owners allowed congregation and revelry among their workers. The Dockery Farms site has a few buildings in the front. It may also be possible to walk or drive around the back of the site, but I wasn’t clear from the signage what was allowed. I also didn’t want to get my sports car stuck on a service road in the early morning with nobody else around.
The slide guitar is the defining sound of blues music, which emerged in part from a simple instrument sometimes given to rural southern children to learn on. The diddley bow has a single string that you play using a hard object. It is modeled after instruments from West Africa, the primary point of origin for African Americans whose ancestors were brought to the Delta region as slaves via Benin. In the Delta, the necks of beer bottles were used as slides, and blues guitar was born.
I headed up to Clarksdale, which is perhaps the number one blues music destination for most tourists. The drive takes you along historic Highway 61, and it was incredible to travel through there in a convertible enjoying the cool morning air. I almost lost my favorite driving hat to the Delta after a semi truck passed coming the opposite direction. Luckily, my reflexes are quick, and I caught it as it came off my head. After that, I held tightly onto the steering wheel with one hand and my hat with the other hand each time there was an oncoming truck.
I arrived in Clarksdale on Memorial Day, and once again the town was mostly closed down. I had breakfast at Our Grandma’s House of Pancakes, where you can get two banana walnut pancakes and a cup of coffee for less than ten dollars. I drove out to Stovall Farms, where Muddy Waters lived and worked. I did the guided walking tour of downtown Clarksdale. Even in the relatively early morning, it was hot, and I was once again grateful for my UV umbrella. The old Roxy theater. Red’s juke joint. A spray painted Cadillac. Clarksdale is where the musicians came to play.
I went down to the Crossroads. I didn’t fall down on my knees. I might have sold my soul to the Devil. I did meet a lady named Sandy who lived in south Florida and was part of a traveling group of bikers who apparently were in the same pancake house that morning. The Crossroads of highways 61 and 49 are allegedly where Robert Johnson sold his soul in exchange for musical prowess. He clearly got his wish, but his life might have been longer if he’d followed the one of the Ten Commandments about not coveting his neighbor’s wife, as he was poisoned by a jealous husband before the age of 30. I wonder if others like Sandy understand the full significance of this space or if they are just wild adventurers out to see it all. I wonder the same about myself just to check my motivations.
The Blues Museum was closed for the holiday. Between this and the things I had missed the previous day, I had to reassess my strategy. But first, I needed to feel the music. Clarksdale boasts blues artists 365 days a year, and 366 days in a leap year. There were three shows to choose from, even on a Monday holiday. One of the acts I could see in Oxford the following evening, and I also prefer going to places where the bands start earlier and you can order dinner. Bluesberry Cafe was an absolutely perfect venue. I arrived early, which I feel is the best strategy for a solo traveler to feel most welcomed. Arriving when it’s busy as a solo means places will sometimes be irritated about giving you a table. When you arrive before everyone else, you are viewed as added business. At this place, I would have been welcomed regardless, as it’s the sort of establishment where the owner and staff treat you like instant family.
I grabbed a booth at the back of Bluesberry, which serves some Italian dishes in addition to hosting live music. One man was on a high school graduation trip with his son, which seemed like a really lovely thing to do together. I did laugh that the dad asked detailed questions about the pasta options considering this was a place that didn’t even serve wine, though I have to concede that the shrimp scampi was quite delicious. Another man came in shortly after I sat down. Something was off about the guy, and he was trying to find a record store nearby, which was surely closed along with everything else. He later came back to listen to the music and sat in the booth next to mine. I overheard him speaking to the owner, saying that he was visiting from Kansas City. At some point, I briefly sat in the part of my booth that was adjacent to his, to show him the cool shirt I was picking up from Fat Possum Records in Oxford, as he was clearly a t-shirt type of guy on the same sort of blues tour I was doing. I quickly realized what was off about him. It was perhaps 7:00pm, and this guy was totally drunk. I quickly went back to the other part of my table, wanting to hear the music. He then got up, moved over to my table and started yammering. A couple of times I softly said “no, I am good on my own, I just want to listen.” I finally and firmly said “you need to go back to your table.” I am a really friendly person and always love meeting people, but I was there for the band.
Cash’s Juke Joint from Macon GA were playing. Their set was FIRE. It’s unfortunate that there were not too many people at Bluesberry that night, because the show was incredible. The singer was on slide guitar, and the percussionist had a drum that he sat on, playing the sides, in addition to many hand held instruments. A local named Watermelon Slim jammed with them for a few songs, adding harmonica to the mixture of sounds. It was perfection. I tipped the staff and the band like I was a party of four instead of a solo traveler.
At Bluesberry, I met a couple visiting from the south of France. They were nice enough, but the woman was extremely annoyed at how large America was and the fact that there was a lot of nothing in between the places they wanted to visit. There are actually things to visit between Baton Rouge and Clarksdale, but you have to do your homework. It turned out that they were staying at the same place I was, so I got a ride back to the hotel as they were leaving. It was only a 10m walk, and the area seemed safe enough, but you never know. Earlier that day I had tested out some pepper spray I bought about 15 years earlier after a bad online dating experience. It dripped and drizzled into the sink, coming out thick and yellow like dark urine. Rinsing out the sink released fumes that left me coughing a bit.
The next day I needed to go to the museum in Clarksdale, which opened at 10am. I had also missed the BB King Museum in Indianola, the Highway 61 Museum in Leland and the Birthplace of Kermit the Frog, because the south closes up on Sundays. My original plan had been to drive from Clarksdale to Oxford but overshoot in order to see Tupelo on the way. If I had waited for the museum in Clarksdale to open and then drove back down to the Delta and up to Tupelo, I would have run out of time. The solution was to leave Tupelo until the next day, drive down to Indianola and arrive when the BB King Museum opened. I did not mind another morning drive through the Delta in a convertible, the lush green fields offering immense beauty even as it was impossible to avoid consideration of their shameful history.
The BB King Museum was well worth the drive down. The stories about him were charming, and it seems like he was someone everyone loved as a person as well as a musician. He had 15 children with different women and worked to put them all through school, never questioning whether any were truly his. I know he toured until the end of his life in part because he never got a fair cut of recording profits, though the museum does not speak of this.
Next, I went over to the Birthplace of Kermit the Frog, which is Jim Henson’s childhood home in Leland. It’s free to stop by, and you can of course leave a donation. The house is nice but modest, sitting above a small river out back. It’s packed with Muppets memorabilia and will have any Gen X kid smiling wide.
My last stop was the Highway 61 Blues Museum in Leland. One thing I learned is not to expect the small sites and museums to be open at all. The two guys who run the museum just took the day off, though the one I spoke with on the phone was nice enough. It was one of a few things I had hoped to see but couldn’t, though fortunately the larger museums had much to offer.
I drove back to Clarksdale in order to see the Blues Museum there. It’s probably the largest museum dedicated to the blues, and it did not disappoint. I refused to interact with anything related to Tina Turner’s first husband, despite him being a Clarksdale native. In the back of the museum, you can see a reconstruction of Muddy Waters’ house. There is also one of the famed Muddywood guitars created by Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top using wood from a part of Muddy’s house that was destroyed in a storm.
From Clarksdale, I drove to Oxford, which is the home of the University of Mississippi. The main thing to do in Oxford is go around the central town square. There is a fantastic record store called The End of All Music, which stocks vinyl records that any rocker will love. I bought a signed copy of Cedric Burnside’s newest album. His grandfather, R.L. Burnside, is one of the two most notable early musicians in the local hill country style of blues music. Cedric won a Grammy award and recently played the Big Ears festival in Knoxville.
I stopped by Fat Possum Records to pick up some things I had ordered, three R.L. Burnside albums and a t-shirt. The t-shirt says “Miiippi, Born to Party, Forced to Work.” I guess I just retired, but I’m still going to wear it a lot. It’s black with an orange stencil of a cobra, with whom the fat possum presumably fights. Upon leaving Oxford, I could not find the shirt. Thinking I drove off with it on the roof of my car, I ordered another one to be sent to my house, because not owning it was not an option. Of course, I did eventually find the first one, so I will have to gift the other one to someone who is cool enough to appreciate it.
I went to Proud Larry’s for dinner and a show by Ghalia Volt. She’s a Belgian woman who plays hill country blues impressively well. Her show in Clarksdale the previous evening was apparently packed, and she also had a great turnout in Oxford. My bartender was a cool guy who was also a musician. We reminisced about punk/indie clubs like Bottom of the Hill in SF. I had a Caesar salad with shrimp. The shrimp were the tiniest bit too salty, but they were fresh gulf shrimp, which is all I want to eat in the Deep South. Ghalia was really sweet and even signed an album for me. It was a little odd to see someone from so far outside Mississippi coming to play venues there, but it is also reflective of the very deep, lasting and worldwide impact that blues has had on modern music.
Before leaving Mississippi, I had two stops left, Tupelo and Holly Springs. I left Oxford early so that I could get to Elvis’ birthplace before it opened. The grounds can be accessed 24 hours a day, and it was beautiful to walk around from 8-9am enjoying the reflecting pool and taking photos. It was also so nice to enjoy the scenery before throngs of elderly tourists arrived by the busload. I made sure to be first in line for tickets and headed straight into Elvis’ birthplace before anyone else got in there. You can see the bed where Elvis and his stillborn twin were born. Inside the museum, there is a lot of cool memorabilia, like his costumes and instruments.
The somewhat funny thing is that he got his first guitar as a birthday present when he really wanted a gun instead (parents take note.) Markers exist for each year that he lived, abruptly stopping in 1977. In the spring before he died, my elementary school had an Elvis impersonation contest, in which I participated but lost. His death that August was mourned worldwide.
Coming west back through Mississippi, I wanted to stop in Holly Springs. This is where the hill country blues musicians originated, and there are markers downtown for them. A man who saw me taking a photo of the marker for Ida B. Wells stopped to make sure I knew where to find the markers for Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. I noticed that the white residents I spoke with seemed very proud of their notable Black residents, but it also seemed that race relations may not ideal there. I stopped at the Marshall County History Museum, thinking they might have some sort of display for hill country blues. The person who ran the museum expressed an interest in it but said that the Kimbrough and Burnside families said they did not have items to donate. I suggested that photos are easy to share, and he smiled as if I’d given him an idea, but I’m not sure it will work out as hoped. The museum was not exactly confederate, but it was pretty old south and featured former Mississippi state flags that would give any African American pause. The upstairs collection of dresses was pretty cool to see, though. It’s fine to look like Gone With the Wind so long as you don’t act it out.
My last stop in Holly Springs was Rust College, where they have an Ida B. Wells Museum. I did not call in advance, which I perhaps should have. The woman outside was not exactly rude, but she was also not happy to see me. I was told that the museum was “closed indefinitely.” I don’t know if that’s the truth or if she was gatekeeping, and it doesn’t really matter. On the one hand I think it’s important that people like me know and care about Ida B. Wells. On the other hand, it’s ok with me if Black women want some of these spaces for themselves. It would have been nice to learn more about Wells inside the museum, but it wasn’t meant to be.
When I reorganized my trip, I did not expect to be able to stop in Memphis. I had visited previously but did not have time to make it to the Stax Museum. I now had an extra hour or two to kill on the way to Little Rock. I found a shady spot in the parking lot and briefly said hello to some folks who were barbecuing on a hill outside the museum. They offered me a hot dog, for which I was appreciative but I also wanted to get into the museum. It’s an incredibly fun space that will have you dancing and singing along to R&B classics. I could not help but buy an album of Stax #1 singles as a souvenir.
Coming out of the museum I stopped again to talk with the folks out back, asking if they were locals or visitors. It turned out that they worked at the nearby school and were just chillin’ and grillin’ on a lunch break. If I had been staying in Memphis, I would have taken that hot dog and made some new friends. Had I not been to Memphis before, I would have added it as an overnight stop. Graceland, the Rock and Soul Museum, Beale Street, the National Civil Rights Museum and Sun Studios were all highlights of my first visit.
Heading to Little Rock, I somehow mismapped the Sister Rosetta Tharpe historical marker in Cotton Plant. It’s just a short detour off the I-40 and was the one musical thing I wanted to do in Arkansas. I continued on, so that I could arrive into Little Rock before dinner time. I found this amazing restaurant called Brave New Restaurant, that sits right on the bank of the Arkansas River. It’s fairly expensive, and I could have easily spent $200 just for myself, but I kept it light and left for around $100. The owner is a quirky and interesting guy who came out to chat and learn more about my trip.
The bartender back in Oxford suggested a place in Little Rock that he thought I would like, and there was a soul musician playing. However, my bed and breakfast had a room with a jacuzzi tub, I had lived without one for nearly 7 nears. I sat in it for about two hours playing blues music and nearly nodding off. It was glorious and one of a few moments of the trip when I could completely relax instead of trying to get somewhere to see something.
The next morning, I went early to the Clinton Presidential Library. As with Elvis’ birthplace, I wanted to take photos outdoors without lots of people around. The area surrounding the library is stunning, a river front city park for all to enjoy. I think Clinton made a few mistakes as president, but I also admire him immensely and think he’s one of the better presidents in my lifetime. He and Hillary have a 4th floor residence at the library that is where they stay when they come to Little Rock. They had visited recently for a funeral but were not there presently. I’m sure they must have their own elevator, but can you even imagine running into them? I would have been speechless and possibly crying.
The first thing you will see in the library is a replica of Clinton’s White House Cabinet room. The docent pointed out that the president’s chair is two inches higher than all of the others, something I would not have noticed on my own. I asked about the placement of seats. The Vice President sits directly across from the President, while the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense sit on either side. Apparently, this dates back to a time when the President had only three secretaries, each of which was given a proximal seat. Presumably, the places were gradually added, and those farthest away from the President represent the newest cabinet roles.
Walking through the exhibits, moments in time flash back. The Unibomber’s capture. Columbine. The Brady Bill. The Kyoto Protocol. Bill’s sax is there, along with a treasure trove of gifts from hosted White House dinners. Letters to the President are displayed in glass cases, including a lengthy handwritten letter from Elton John to Bill Clinton about addressing the AIDS crisis. You can view the President’s schedule on any date, with the docent insisting I check my birthday.
There is an exact replica of Clinton’s Oval Office. I asked one of the docents if the pictures were the same as Clinton had up. I followed up with “you mean Bill Clinton had a picture of Andrew Jackson in his office?” When he responded affirmatively, I loudly blurted out “EEEEW” without even thinking, but he smiled a bit like he understood. There is a building directly in front of the library that says Choctaw Route on it, I don’t know what Bill was thinking.
You can take photos sitting at the replica Resolute Desk. Even if you don’t end up buying the photos, you should do it anyway. You cannot put your feet on the desk, I asked. I bought all four pictures, because that shit is funny as hell, but also because I don’t normally photograph well and the photos were amazing. Yes, I later photoshopped a cigar into my mouth for one of them. I would actually love to know whether anyone ever shows up there with an actual cigar, but it didn’t occur to me at the time to ask.
I had time to visit the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, which I highly recommend. It’s donation based with a lot of interesting history and cultural artifacts. The top floor has photos of notable African-Americans, plus exactly one white person, the one sometimes called the “first Black President.”
The other extremely important thing to do in Little Rock is to visit Little Rock Central High School. You’ve likely seen the photo of Elizabeth Eckford, in a white dress and sunglasses, getting yelled at by a white girl as she tried to enter Little Rock Central High School.
Eckford looks calm, actually quite beautiful in her dress and sunglasses, seemingly composed while a mob of white students screamed and spat at her. In reality, she was terrified and suffered from PTSD afterward, even making an attempt on her own life at one point. She didn’t go into the school that day, instead walking down the middle of the street, in between the National Guard on one sidewalk and protestors on the other.
By the time she arrived at a bus stop at the end of the block, her dress was ruined. A reporter was fired for sitting down on the bus bench next to her, consoling her while telling her, “don’t let them see you cry.” She’s since said in interviews that she had no idea at the time the magnitude of what she would endure and was totally unprepared for what transpired.
Little Rock was the only time other than Montgomery where I sobbed in public, unable to hide my sadness for what African Americans have endured in this country. It’s easy to admire ultimate triumphs while overlooking the real costs to specific individuals, in this case children.
I had dinner that night at the art museum, which has a small but respectable collection of pieces from internationally known artists. I had expected something more local, but the museum was nice either way. Unlike some of the other cities and state capitols I visited on this trip, there seems to be a bit more wealth in Little Rock.
My waiter was another fellow punk. We talked about my trip and how one of the few music cities I had not visited was Detroit. He was a likeminded MC5 and Stooges nerd. Sensing that someone who would go on a blues tour of the south, loved punk rock and visited the Clinton library would not be a Trump fan, he whispered “did you see the news, they got that motherfucker.” Thirty-four counts and counting. I had dinner, wine and dessert that night, because how could you not celebrate?
I slept well but was awoken to the sound of heavy rain around 3:30am. I could either try to go back to sleep or get up and be past Memphis before rush hour. You know what I chose. I made my detour to see Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s marker in Cotton Plant. The nearby museum is closed at the moment, so I arrived around dawn to snap my photo and kept moving.
No bathroom break until the other side of Memphis, no matter how much coffee I drank. Crossing the bridge over the Mississippi River from Arkansas into Tennessee is visually striking. I stopped once for gas and again at the car wash close to home, to wash 2000 miles of dirt and bugs off of Dolly.
I don’t know how to fully process and capture what I saw on this trip, but it’s likely the most meaningful trip I will ever take in my lifetime. I have great privilege to have done this in a fun sports car, staying at decent hotels and dining anywhere I liked. The people who created the music I came to hear and fought the societal battles I came to learn more about had a very different experience.
The ability to turn pain and struggle into art is something that is seen throughout human history. For me personally, the impact of blues musicians has been profound. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a music fan of highest order, especially when it comes to rock n roll. It would not exist without the blues, and the blues would not exist without some very ugly history. Learning more about them together was the experience of a lifetime.◾️