THE DELTA: BIRTHPLACE OF THE BLUES

[Fritz96@xxxxxxx]

THE DELTA: BIRTHPLACE OF THE BLUES 
( The Dallas Morning News ) 

CLEVELAND, Miss. - It's a big, plain, hand-painted sign on the side of an old
barn. The words on the ramshackle building, on a country road a few miles east
of U.S. Highway 61 outside Cleveland, say, " DOCKERY FARMS, EST. 1895." This
was the source, the cotton plantation, where, in the early part of the 20th
century, Charlie Patton, the first great delta bluesman, worked and lived -
and influenced generations of blues musicians. Robert Johnson, a key figure in
early delta blues, learned from him. 

His music also inspired Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and others who moved to
Chicago in the 1940s, where their music became the "electric urban blues" that
were the headwaters of rock 'n' roll. Without them, Elvis would never have
become The King, and Mick and Keith wouldn' t be counting their money in
villas on Majorca today. 

A gravel road not far from the Dockery barn cuts straight across empty fields
for nearly a mile before ending at a tree line. The dark ground was newly
plowed in this spring season. 

Until the machinery that displaced them started coming along after World War
II, this road had been lined with the wooden shacks of more than 2,500 black
farm laborers and their families.  Ghosts now. They lived here, working some
of the richest earth on Earth left by eons of Aprils when the Mississippi
River overflowed its banks and its water spread for miles, leaving behind more
topsoil each time it withdrew. 

That's what the Mississippi Delta is. Not the fan of land that accumulates at
the mouth of the river when it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. Rather, it is the
vast floodplain that stretches nearly 200 miles from Memphis to Vicksburg and
extends as much as 30 miles on both sides of the river's course.  Until the
Civil War, it had been soggy ground covered with hardwoods. But in the years
that followed, the trees were nearly all cut and levees built to control the
river. 
By the time Charlie Patton came to work at Dockery, the delta was becoming as
it is now, farmland as far as the eye can see. There is a stark beauty to the
unrelentingly flat landscape, which has nurtured the blues as lovingly as it
has cotton and other crops. 


Homage to the King 
I began this road-trip pilgrimage in Memphis. My first stop, because it's 10
minutes from the airport, and somehow as inevitable as death and Walt Disney
World, was Graceland. 

Elvis' famous mansion seemed unexpectedly dinky as mansions go, but I was glad
I took the tour.  The increasingly garish - and increasingly large - jumpsuits
on display in the memorabilia room adjoining the mansion attest to his long,
sad fall. But for a while there, Elvis was as cool as it got.  Soon I was out
in the country, beginning the stretch of Route 61 known as "Blues Alley." Many
of the fields were a bright-yellow sea of wildflowers. The utility poles were
the skinny, slightly crooked, old-fashioned kind, the power lines drooping and
drooping to the horizon. Everywhere were freshly plowed fields, furrows
flooded with spring rain. 

Probably the single thing I enjoyed most about the whole trip was taking these
semi-lost excursions off Route 61 into the countryside. On back roads so back
some have no number, the nostalgic faded signs, abandoned farmhouses,
outbuildings overgrown with kudzu vines, and the fresh, clean air are peaceful
and redolent of more tranquil times in ways that are incredibly soothing.  The
town of Tunica, 3 miles from Route 61, looked to be fast asleep, its main
square practically empty. Most of the storefronts - relics of an earlier and
more prosperous time - were closed, so I drove to the river a few miles west.
The sun was setting, the county road paralleling a remnant of cypress swamp,
its still water the pinky color of the sky, dark gnarled stumps rising from
it.  Beyond the levee, along the riverbank, is a fishing camp of the truly
down-home variety. More than a few of the riverside "cabins" are old aluminum
mobile homes, raised on stilts to protect them from flooding.  As I got out to
stretch my legs and admire the sun going down over the river, I felt happily
far from home. 


Ground zero 
The next morning I explored Clarksdale, 40 miles south on Route 61. With
15,000 people, Clarksdale is one of the bigger cities in the delta. And it's
ground zero when it comes to delta blues.  Even former Led Zep rockers Jimmy
Page and Robert Plant know it - their most recent semi-reunion album is titled
Walkin' to Clarksdale. 

The roster of important blues artists that came from around here includes
Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Son House, Ike Turner and many
others.  The sharecropper's cabin on the outskirts of town, where Muddy spent
his childhood, is, after a fashion, still standing - usually, that is. While I
was here last spring, it was on tour, being taken around to various House of
Blues clubs for display, though it's back home now. 

And the little brick train depot where he got on the Illinois Central for
Chicago in 1943 - symbolizing the beginning of the new electric blues he
created after he got there - is long shut down.  But you can stand on the
platform humming "I'm a man" and "feeling like a rollin' stone" just the way
he did. 

She wasn't from Clarksdale, but Bessie Smith, one of the first ladies of the
blues, died at the now-decrepit Riverside Hotel on Sunflower Street after a
car accident on Route 61. Countless classic blues performers stayed here while
playing local juke joints, a few of which, such as Smitty's Red Top and
Sarah's Kitchen, are still in business. 


The Crossroads 
The most notorious spot is the intersection of Highways 61 and 49. Other
places in the delta make the claim, but this is generally accepted as the
crossroads where Robert Johnson is said to have made his unholy deal with the
devil.  One dark midnight, the legend goes, he sold his soul here in exchange
for playing guitar and singing the blues like a tormented angel. It' s the one
in his song Crossroads, arguably the quintessential delta blues of the '30s,
updated with a vengeance by Cream into one of the most powerful rock songs of
all time. 

Today the intersection, for a non-blues fan, is unremarkable or worse. It's
not a spooky rural meeting place of gravel tracks, but rather a face-off of a
Fuel Mart, a Church's Chicken, the Delta Donut Shop and Abe's Barbecue. Still,
for me at least, it was kind of a thrill to see after all these years of
listening to the song. 

So was the green rusty metal "THREE FORKS STORE" sign hanging on a wall of the
Delta Blues Museum, housed in part of the Carnegie Public Library downtown.
This is the actual sign from the juke joint where Mr. Johnson died in 1938 at
the age of 27. 

He was poisoned - according to most accounts - by drinking from a bottle of
whiskey laced with strychnine, generously offered him by the owner for
flagrantly fooling around with his woman, the final payoff of Mr. Johnson's
deal with the devil. 


"Little Chicago' 
Even though it involved a small detour, I decided I couldn't miss Helena,
Ark., about 25 miles northwest, just across the Mississippi River. The trip
seemed worthwhile because Helena is a charming old river town that was known
as "Little Chicago" during its pre-railroad heyday. 

Helena's connection to delta blues is strong. It was here the King Biscuit
Flour Hour radio show began in 1941, broadcasting the blues to a large rural
black audience. And the show's still on the air, as is "Sunshine" Sonny Payne,
the disc jockey who started it. 

Today he's a gnomelike senior, his love of the music undiminished. Two years
ago he won a Peabody Award. He does his show from the Delta Cultural Center, a
former rail depot right by the levee, which has a striking long mural of local
music greats painted on it, starting with Mr. Payne himself, tipping a bowler
hat. 

The big field in front of the center is home every September to the King
Biscuit Blues Festival, one of the best. 

Across the street is Blues Corner, a record/CD/poster shop run by Bubba
Sullivan, one of the festival's organizers. His selection is terrific, and his
guest book impressive. In the two weeks before my visit, people from
Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Japan had stopped in. 


Soaking up the blues 
>From Helena, I headed back to Route 61, and south to Cleveland, 50 miles down
the road. 

The next day was Saturday, and it rained pitchforks the whole time. But I
didn't mind because I'd lucked out. There was an all-day, into- the-night
indoor blues festival going on at the Airport Grocery, out on the road toward
Rosedale. 

The former grocery store near the airport is now a funky bar/restaurant with a
stage at one end. The decor suggests a museum, with old metal Texaco Skychief,
Drink Barque's and Dr Pepper signs on the walls; dangling lights with rusty
gray tin buckets as shades; and tables covered with green oilcloth.  I spent
most of the day there. The Grocery has a good-time family atmosphere, and the
food is as authentic as the music. A heaping platter of boiled crawfish (known
as mudbugs in these parts) and an oyster po'-boy was my choice for lunch. When
I wasn't eating, or just sitting back soaking up the music, I struck up easy
conversations with other blues fans and performers, too.  One was Willie J.
Foster, a harmonica player. He's 72 years old and legally blind, and he gets
around with an aluminum walker, which he puts aside when he fronts his band to
play. 

After his set, I ran into him outside, sitting in his van waiting for the rest
of the band to head for its next gig, which was that night at a club called
the Walnut Street Bait Shop in Greenville, an hour south. I walked up and said
how much I'd enjoyed hearing him, and he was happy to talk for a while.  "I
was born in Leland, just down the road - born on a cotton sack, raised on a
farm," he said. "I lived around Leland 17 years, then I wanted to see what the
world was like. Bought my first harmonica in 1928; I was 7 years old. I played
with Muddy Waters for six years up in Chicago when he was startin' out there.
Might you care to buy one of my tapes?" 

I said absolutely, and he dug one out of a valise for me, along with a
publicity still, which he autographed even as he apologized for the writing
because of his near-blindness. 

When I got home, I looked him up in my Blues Who's Who, and there he was. He
hadn't mentioned, as the book put it, he'd "reportedly served time for a fatal
shooting [in] 1974." He seemed such a gentle good soul it was hard to believe.
But you never know. 


At rest 
Certainly Mr. Johnson had met a bad early end, and the next morning - bright
and sunny, with soft poofy clouds and a mild gentle breeze - I went in search
of his grave in Morgan City, about 30 miles southeast of Cleveland.  Morgan
City must have been named in a fit of optimism. It's just a blip on a blue
highway, little more than a cotton gin, a grocery store and a small clump of
houses. I had to ask directions at the grocery for the Mount Zion churchyard. 

On a side lane a mile past town, it seemed nearly forgotten. The little white
church, hardly bigger than a double garage, was closed tight on this Sunday
morning, nothing but farm fields in every direction.  But I found the gray
granite grave marker and stood looking at it for a while, the quote on it from
one of his songs come true: " You may bury my body down by the highway side,
so my evil old spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride." It seemed fitting
that Mr. Johnson, so mysterious and elusive during his short life, had come to
rest in this out-of-the-way place.  For more information on travel in
Mississippi, contact the Division of Tourism Development, P.O.
Box 1705, Ocean Springs, Miss. 39566; 1-800-927-6378.