I went down to the crossroads

Late one again....

Yesterday we went here:

and saw a tonne of fab stuff including Muddy Waters' salvaged house, the 'Muddywood' guitar ZZ Top had made from a plank from the house

Items from the joint where it's claimed Robert Johnson was poisoned and loads more memorabilia.

Then we headed to Ground Zero -Morgan  Freeman's place - and signed the bar, as is tradition.

Then we wandered around Clarksdsle in the sweltering heat, feeling the vibe which   is a mix of cool and delapatated. Really friendly people - per usual - but the place clearly depends on blues tourism. There are about 7 blues markers:

We chatted to a guy about having seen T-Model Ford on the Thekla in Bristol a couple of years back, just before he died. The guy said he went to his funeral, which was a great reflection of T-Model's drinking and womanising life. He was married 6 times and had 26 kids, but tonnes more rocked up that day! He was godless, so three preachers attended to try and guide him into heaven, at the same time as a bottle of bourbon was being added to his casket!

And then we went to the formal, but one of 5 possible crossroads. We attempted to sell our souls, but given the spot is in the middle of a now very busy junction, we felt we may lose them altogether. 

On returning to the Shack Up, the sky darkened, the dust clouds kicked up from the delta soil and the thunder rumbled around us. We stood on the balcony until the rain came in, but not before our neighbours give us champange, so we could toast their birthday and raise a glass to BB King on the day he died. A windswept Mr Wise:

In the evening we visited the hotel where numerous stars stopped and prior to that had been a hospital where Bessie Smith died, having been refused medical attention at the white hospital following a car crash. The room she was in:

Then it was off to Red's juke joint (that's a BBQ trailer outside), where you get just beer or coke served from a big cool box. The bartender couldn't understand Lou's accent at all and an American had to order for her. Cool points at zero :(

We had gone to see Christone 'kingfish' Ingram, who Lou came across a few months back. How lucky were we that he was in his hometown this weekend?!! He is 16, has been playing since he was tiny, though only gigging formally for 2 years. 

Check him out online. Playing with his teeth:

Red's was packed (takes 50) with locals and tourists and was an awesome delapidated shack in which to witness great playing. Kingfish has just been invited to play with the BB King band. Lucky bugger!

And so ended another day of blues, heat, deltatastic fabness. Amen. 

I did not know that: W C Handy first heard the blues from a black guy playing a guitar using a knife as a slide, on a railway station platform, singing "I'm going where the southern cross the dog".

Banjo: A lack of weirdness today, or are we just becoming more weird ourselves?

Diner: Hot tamales, ribs, mac n cheese.

Co-pilot: Den drove straight at a post and Lou kept giving wrong turnings. These things are unrelated. 4-4. 

Mozzies: I call that one bitey.