Friday, 17 February 2012

Clarkesdale to Jackson Ms

The Delta land here is very flat and pools of water abound everywhere, with fields
practicaly waterlogged. Sometimes we see herons lazily flapping across the landscape as we travel the dead straight road to Clarkesdale. This is the Blues town! Everything geared to telling the story of the blues and our recommendation to visit even if you have little time to be here. We parked up at the County Fairground and Expo opposite Wildcat Plaza which is a vast car park off Highway 61 with electricityand water available for a donation of $15 which you put in a steel pipe embedded in the ground. It is still cold and rainy but forecast says warmer and chance of thunderstorms coming in.
Roberts Western World on Broadway Nashville
Brandon Giles a mad boogie pianist at Layla's

Wednesday 16th.
Delta sunset at campground Clarkesdale
Clarkesdale The town is really spread out and seems empty at first but we park in town taking up about 4 car spaces but no one objects. A stroll along the street reveals Ground Zero Blues Club, with sofas and giant iron bar b Q outside under the porch.
The entrance to Ground Zero





This place is co owned by Morgan Freeman and legendary all around the world, open 11 am to 11 pm every day. It is covered in graffiti, every possible surface has been written on and is very atmospheric. You can imagine many riotous nights have gone down here, stage at one end of the long room and pool tables at the other tables in between and a long bar down one side but on a vast scale. We enter at 5 past 11 and there is music playing and the smell of grilled pork. Guitars and posters hanging everywhere including the ceiling a great place to be on a saturday night but this is Wednesday morning. Outside is a 1960's limosine looks like it has been there since then, and across the street in the converted station is The Delta Blues Museum. As the one time home of Muddy Waters there is the remains of his family shack with a wax model of him playing guitar which is quite spooky, but also many photographs taken around the area of blues stars and bars. Besides this museum there is a privately run Rock and Blues museum, and Cathead shop. With decaying cafes and bars in every street. I call in to a bank and in John Lee Hooker Avenue to get some dollars, and then Scott and I get our hair cut in an old barbers shop. The barber is an ex sportsman and talks about the players and runners he has known. For lunch we hit Abes Rib Place situated on the crossroads of 49 and 61, which has a sign bearing 3 blue guitars on a very busy junction. My book (Blues Travelling) tells us that this is not Robert johnson's crossroads as the highways have been moved several times over the years, but it will have to do for now, legends are legends.
We decided that we would need bikes in N.O. So tried several pawn shops before we found one with a row of bikes, so we all picked one. Mysteriously the one I chose was labelled at $60 but I was only charged $42, but turns out to be the best of the 3 except it has puncture in the rear wheel. They all go in the boot of the RV no problem.
After roaming around awhile and taking a more photographs, we head off down the highway once more through Tutweiler and Leland, passing cotton plantations and famous prison, Parchman Farm to Cleveland. We make this our destination as we hear that Mose Allison is playing a homecoming concert at the university. However this turns out to be a dissapointment as he is well past concerts and staggers through the music in something of a shambles reading the words to his own songs. He is due to be presented with a lifetime acheivment award the next day. I will have to remember him as he was 30  years ago as this was a very bad performance. The college band that preceeded him gave a better show. Music in Cleveland was not to be found even though we looked hard afterwards. We called in to the Airport Grocery because the book said it had occasional blues nights, but it was a barfull of loaded rednecks and the kitchen was closed. So we headed on down the road to Greenville where we found a tourist office in the shape of a riverboat marooned off the highway and stayed the night, to be woken at 8 and asked to move.


Thursday 16th.
We had  been travelling parallel to the river so wanted to actually see the river Ms and headed west to a supposed RV park over the levee, but this turned out to be closed for renovation, and we were turned away after a glimpse of a string of massive barges being pushed along by a small tug. 

On Southwards through small towns,Wayside, Arcola, Hollandale, Belzoni and Yazoo city. All tese places have blues stories to tell, but we must move on. The landscape has an iery feel to it with vast muddy spaces all furrowed perfectly straight and each furrow with some water in it which reflected the sky as we passed. Clumps of trees and machinery dumps dotted the entitirely flat Landscape with little fragile houses surrounded by junk every now and then plonked along the roadside. It seems that a lot of Southern Americans live in very poor houses or caravans parked all over every state, but the poverty here is tangible, pawn shops and loan companies are everywhere on the outskirts of towns, allong with the liqour stores and burger joints, all with garish illuminated signs. Oh America you have made such a mess of this land.
We made it into Jackson, the state capital and tried to find the Lefleur State Park where there was supposed to be an RV park. We had a desperate hour on an spaghetti type intersection before a kindly park ranger put us on the right track to a beautiful lakeside campground where we met a couple whose bloke was just  back from Iraq, and here on a camping trip to relax.


Clarkesdale



Campsite Jackson



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