Saturday morning was another bright and cool day, with the promise of a nice warm up in the afternoon. After packing up and shooting a few pictures, we headed off to Blues Berry’s bakery for a quick breakfast. Remember this is where we were grooving to the blues only a few short hours before. After that it was off to the Delta Museum to check out the great collection of art and artifacts they have on display ( including a reconstruction of Muddy Waters cabin). Then down the street to New York styles to buy my hat. I just couldn’t talk Dave into that purple suit, but he is still talking about it. Around the corner to Blues town Music. This is the place in Clarksville for music gear and the staff was very helpful. I found an American made Silvertone acoustic that was the perfect fit for what I was seeking as a momento of this trip. As an added bonus, even though it had strings from who knows when, it stays in tune fairly well and has a great tone. Kind of hard on the fingers, but that’s why they call it the blues. Dave picked up a new Takamine acoustic w/case. So now we could not only go to the crossroads, we could play at the crossroads. Across the street from the music store is CatHead http://www.cathead.biz/
and our friend Roger Stolle. Now if you are out and about in Clarksdale, Roger will at one time or another end up everywhere you do. That’s what makes Roger so cool, he is living this blues dream so many of us would like to. He owns a great store, with some one of a kind merchandise, he books acts, he has entertainment outside his store, he knows all the musicians, he is the blues ambassador for Clarksdale. Thank you again Roger. Mississippi Adam Riddle was playing outside Rogers store this Saturday, but we couldn’t stay long, much past saying hi to the guys in the band again. Next stop was Stan Street's Hambone Gallery(http://www.stanstreet.com/). As I said, Stan is a great artist and another ambassador for the Clarksdale blues scene. Sadly, it was time to leave this place. We had such a great time, met such a diverse crowd of great people, it was hard just not to book another night and stay, but the crossroads awaits. South of Clarksville is Hobson Plantation. This is where ShackUp Inn and Cotton Gin Inn are located. Check out the pictures and go to their site http://www.shackupinn.com/. If you go ask for Bill. He is a card, a historian, a real nice guy, and from what I gather, really likes beer. Again, just can't say enough about how nice everyone was. After Hopson plantation, comes Parchman Farm. If you don't know what Parchman is, just think Mississippi State Penitentary. As you drive by the entrance( I wouldn't recommend stopping, we took the signs literally) you can imagine back when the inmates worked the fields around the prision, singing the hymns and work songs of the slaves. This is the only American prison to ever turn a profit from the labor of the inmates. There is still plenty of razor wire around the place in case you need reaasurance this is still an active prision.
Sonny Boy Williamson's grave is not hard to find, once you find the map. Once you are in Tutwiler, you just have to look for the mural. The mural is located accross the street from where the old Tutwiler train depot was. There is still a concrete pad here, but nothing more but the spirts of W.C. Handy, the man credited with discovering blues music and bringing it to mainstream America. Legend has it the Tutwiler train Depot is where Handy first heard a young black man playing the blues and became intregued with the music. Long gone but certainly not forgotten. The mural and map are a block off mainstreet, so its best to look for the tracks and head toward them. Look at the map carefully, follow its directions, and you will find Sonny Boy's grave. Now we headed towards route 8, and the path to Rosedale. Before we got to there, we came accross Dockery Plantation, which was the epicenter of the blues in the 20's and 30's. Everybody who was anybody came here to play for the sharecroppers. This is where Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Willie Dixon, Son House, Sonny Boy, and a host of others performed, playing for nickles, pennies, and dimes. Part of the cotton gin still stands and a loading platform, complete with a chair, still bekons as you pull in the drive. It is a short walk down the path to the plantation house, which is actually much smaller than I expected. Some old buildings are still there including the overgrown store which a survived not quite intact.
Then we headed to Rosedale. This is where we expected to find the crossroads, not only the one in the movie, but the intersection of route 8 and route 1 is reputed to be the one and only authentic place. Problem always is, things change. The town of Rosedale is typical of most of this part of Mississippi.Boarded up stores, broken cars, broken dreams, and broken lives. I suspect the jobless rate must be pretty high, because we just didn't see a lot of places to work, although the places people do work seem to attract lots of hangaround types. We drove through Rosedale, and I have to tell you, there just didn't seem to be anywhere we wanted to stop. The intersection I had so wanted to set foot on just didn't call to me, and our choice was, try to find the crossroads outside of town that had been in the movie, or stay there til sundown. Quick deliberations told us we both shared the same feeling about Rosedale, so off we went with some very iffy directions. We headed toward Beulah, passed through to the second road outside town and turned east onto a dirt road. After traveling for about a mile, we came upon another dirt road heading north, back toward Beulah,and took it. After another mile or so, we came to another intersection, another dirt road. The road we were on didn't stop, but it did become mostly a grass road. That didn't matter, because about 200 yards from the corner we saw a clump of trees and after walking half way there, we realized it was a cemetary. My research had told me a church that was on site, was burned and probably no longer standing. Also the tree shown in the movie was no there, but here was a graveyard. In this part of Mississippi, it seemed all the cemetarys were behind churches, so this all made sense. We found chunks of brick plowed into the field around the graveyard, probably the remains of the church. So taking it for what it was, we grabbed the guitars, the cameras, a fair amount of bravado, and set off to fulfill this mad fantasy that had brought us here. Let me tell you, if you have never been in a graveyard at sundown, in the middle of the Mississippi Delta, you just haven't lived. This was amazing. No, the devil didn't drive by, unless it was that black lady in that 1989 Buick, but just the same, the spirit was flowing. At the very least it was a great picture taking opportunity. Night fell as we were wrapping up our adventure, which meant we were 2 or 3 miles from anywhere, in the dark. The Garmin GPS to the rescue, and soon we had plotted our course for Indianola to find a place to stay and try to catch some live blues at Club Ebony and the 308 club. We found the room, found out the local BBQ joint had closed, had to eat Mexican food, found no live music at Club Ebony, and the band was still setting up. We waited about an hour for them to start but by then the day was catching up with us, so after they had played about a set, we decided to call it a night. Next stop The search for Charlie Patton's grave, and the three graves of Robert Johnson. http://picasaweb.google.com/jcvitte for pictures.