My Mississippi Manifest Destiny: Clarksdale, Home of the Delta Blues

The Delta Blues heritage of Clarksdale, Mississippi is immense. As for ascertaining who "invented" the blues, it's like attempting who invented music itself. W.C Handy was not a native of Mississippi, but lived in Clarksdale for a few years, where a parking lot is now located. Although he was known as "Father of the Blues, Handy also composed and performed jazz pieces.

Behind the W.C. Handy historical marker in the picture above is the former Wade Walton's Barbershop.

From Marlo Carter Fitzpatrick's Mississippi Off the Beaten Path:

A personal friend of W.C. Handy, Sonny Boy Williamson, and John Lee Hooker, the late Wade Walton was given to impromptu blues performances and gifted story-telling sessions. Patrons who spent time in Walton's chair left with not only a spiffy new look, but a better understanding of the lifestyle called the blues.

It was closed, except for one restaurant, by the time I arrived in town, but a must-see that I was unable to see was Clarksdale Station, an old Illinois Central depot, and like the bus station I blogged about last week, this was undoubtedly a major exit point for the circa 1917-1970 black diaspora. Inside the old station is the Delta Blues Museum.

What remains of the cabin McKinley Morganfield grew up in can be found inside the museum. Never heard of Morganfield? He's best known by his stage name, Muddy Waters. And yes, The Rolling Stones did choose their moniker from a Waters tune. Waters, who died in 1983, was a pioneer of Chicago Blues, an amplified and more upbeat descendant of Delta Blues--the faster pace of city life transformed the genre. The blues great spent much of his youth in Clarksdale.

When I reach Arkansas, I'll have a post about a house--still lived in--that may end up in a museum one day.

Waters' artistic peak was in the 1950s, but in the 1970s, with the guidance of Johnny Winter, who has family roots in Leland, Mississippi, Waters recorded some of his old songs, and along with some new ones. One of the latter was "The Blues Had A Baby And They Named It Rock And Roll." As Waters certainly knew, in 1951 Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats recorded--in Clarksdale--the first version of what many historians call the first rock and roll song, "Rocket 88."

Brenston, who was born in Clarksdale, sang and played saxophone on the song. however, many believe credit for "Rocket 88" should go to Ike Turner, another Clarksdale-born musician--his band made up most of "The Delta Cats." The edition that was released to the public was cut in Memphis. Sam Phillips, who later founded the seminal Sun Records, produced the song.

Turner, a brilliant musician who is best known as the brutal, philandering and drug abusing ex-husband of Tina Turner, died late last year.

The blues still lives in Clarksdale. Every Friday in April, May and June, there are live concerts at the Blues Alley Stage. I was there on Friday, May 23, and the band was packing up--I wish I had arrived earlier.

Actor Morgan Freeman moved around a lot as a child, but he spend much of his early years in the Mississippi Delta region--he graduated from Greenwood High School, a town southwest of Clarksdale. Freeman still has roots in the Delta, he is co-owner of a blues club, Ground Zero, pictured on the right, which is just a block from Clarksdale Station.

Clarksdale is a great town, one I would have spent more time in, had I not spent a big chunk of that afternoon in Leland. Such is the way of byway adventures.

Next: The Mississippi Blues Trail

Previous My Mississippi Manifest Destiny posts:

• Mound Bayou, a town founded by freed slaves
• What Mike Espy is up to these days
• Churches
• Teddy Bear
• Coca-Cola museums
• Prison laborer in Louisiana
• Corinth
• Carl Perkins
• The Varsity Theatre in Martin, Tennessee
• Lincoln and Kentucky
• Metropolis

Clarksdale posts:

• Robert Johnson's Crossroads
• Clarksdale's Old Greyhound Station

Shiloh posts:

• Shiloh Part One
• Shiloh Part Two
• Shiloh Part Three
• Shiloh Part Four

Tupelo posts:

• $aving$ in Tupelo
• Elvis Presley's birthplace
• Where Elvis bought his first guitar
• The Battle of Tupelo

Natchez Trace posts:

• The Natchez Trace Part One
• The Natchez Trace Part Two, Indian Mounds
• The Natchez Trace Part Three
• The Natchez Trace Part Four, Ghost Town
• Logging

Natchez posts:

• The Father of Waters
• Natchez Part One
• Natchez Part Two, Forks of the Road
• Natchez Part Three

Vicksburg posts:

• Vicksburg Battlefield, Part One
• Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Two, State Memorials
• Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Three, Illinois Memorial
• Vicksburg Battlefield, Part Four, The USS Cairo
• Vicksburg Battlefield Part Five
• Mississippi River at Vicksburg
• Memorial Day tribute to our ally Australia
• Memorial Day--a time to remember

Leland posts:

• Highway 61 Blues Museum
• Leland's Blues Murals
• Birthplace of Kermit the Frog