Tracing the Delta Blues Trail in and Around Clarksdale Mississippi

“Who’s your favorite blues singer?” Abe Hudson, the owner of Real Delta Tours, LLC, asked me when he picked me up from the Clarksdale, Mississippi Greyhound station.

I paused, but it didn’t take me more than a couple of seconds to definitively say, “Bessie Smith.” Afterward, I barely blinked before Abe pulled up on Sunflower Avenue in front of the Riverside Hotel – the place where Bessie died in 1937. When Bessie was there, it was the G.T. Thomas Afro-American Hospital, as she was turned away from the local white hospital following an injury in a car accident. Eventually, it became one of the only hotels in Mississippi that allowed African-Americans guests. Back in the day, it hosted the likes of Duke Ellington, Ike Turner, and Sonny Boy Williamson II.

From the Riverside, we were well on our way to exploring the Mississippi Delta Blues Trail – an experience that is both celebratory and sobering due to the gross, government-sanctioned discrimination of the time.

I had just spent a couple of days visiting Memphis but had always wanted to see at least some of the Blues Trail. Since Clarksdale is only 1-1/2 hours from Memphis by bus, I decided to spend a day touring the area. Luckily, Abe was available to give me a colorful and insightful tour.

When he asked me what I was interested in, I said, “blues history, Civil Rights history, and Tennessee Williams.” Well, Abe did not disappoint. He packed more into our day than I thought could be humanly possible, and he covered all of those bases for me.

First of all, I learned quickly that clutter is the design aesthetic of the “juke joints” and some of the shops in this area. We visited Red’s Lounge, also on Sunflower Avenue, that was lined with junk in a way that I could only describe as “southern cool” (although anti-clutter author Marie Kondo would probably faint at the sight). Even though it was outside of business hours, I got to meet Red. To call him a “character” is an understatement – and I mean that in the best possible way. When asked how many years he’d been running juke joints in Mississippi, he said, “40 ass years.”

Then, there’s Ground Zero Blues Club, where Morgan Freeman is part owner, but it’s no swankier from a design perspective. The look of a juke joint has to be cluttered, or it “just ain’t right.” When I entered Ground Zero, so named because Clarksdale was considered “ground zero” for the blues, I was given a Sharpie to write my name somewhere in the club. I chose the rug on the stage, thank you very much.

Equally cluttered, and delightfully so, is the Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art Shop, which is a must-see. The memorabilia is literally all over the place. Even though he isn’t a Mississippi native, owner Roger Stolle wrote a book called Hidden History of Mississippi Blues and is a virtual encyclopedia of knowledge on the subject. The Cat Head website will give you the local music calendar and let you know when music festivals are happening in the area.\

Of course, there are numerous markers throughout Clarksdale. Besides the Blues Trail markers, there are Mississippi Freedom Trail markers showing Civil Rights sites, the Mississippi Mound Trail that points out prehistoric archaeological Indian locations, the Mississippi Writers Trail, and the Mississippi Country Music Trail.

One of our stops was the Delta Blues Museum. The most intriguing exhibit there consists of the remains of the cabin from Stovall Farms where Muddy Waters lived during his days as a sharecropper and tractor driver. Modest doesn’t begin to describe its open windows and spaces between the logs. It barely passes for a shelter. In 1941, Waters was recorded for the Library of Congress on the shack’s front porch.

Abe also took me into nearby Cleveland, Mississippi to visit the Grammy Museum, which opened in 2016 by the Cleveland Music Foundation. Many of the exhibits are interactive, such as one in which you can write a new blues song with Keb Mo. Another allows you to try out dance styles over the years. There are also a number of artifacts like dresses worn by Beyonce and Katy Perry.

Another interesting spot on the Blues Trail in Cleveland is St. Peter’s Rock Missionary Baptist Church where Rev. C.I. Franklin once preached. His daughter, Aretha (you just might have heard of her), would go on to become the Queen of Soul.

Also in Cleveland, Dockery Farms is the place where some, including B.B. King, believe the blues was born. Established to produce cotton in 1895, Dockery was a post-Civil War farm that only paid in its own currency. So workers lived on the farm and bought their goods at stores on the farm. It was its own kind of enslavement. Blues pioneer Charley Patton was among those who worked there, and Robert Johnson purportedly learned to play guitar from others at Dockery.

On the Mississippi Freedom Trail, Abe took me to the beautiful memorial garden in Ruleville, which is a tribute to Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. In 1962, at age 44, Hamer was fired from her plantation job in punishment for trying to register to vote. She’s most famous for saying, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Abe made special arrangements for me to visit the Tennessee Williams Rectory Museum. It doesn’t have regular hours, so you have to call ahead. This is the location of St. George’s Episcopal Church, where playwright Williams’ grandfather Rev. Walter E. Dakin served as rector from 1917-1932. It’s a lovely church with beautiful stained glass windows, so it’s worth a visit.

As a child, Williams lived with his grandparents for a period of time in the home next door to the church. It has been painstakingly appointed with appropriate period furniture and artifacts. If you can arrange for a visit, I highly recommend it. And in October each year, Clarksdale is home to a three-day Tennessee Williams Festival. It’s famous for its “Porch Plays” of Williams works performed on area historic porches.

While I didn’t go inside, I saw the outside of the Cutrer Mansion in Clarksdale, now a popular place for weddings. It was built in 1916 and served as inspiration for Williams. The lady of the house was named Blanche, and the home was called “Belvoir.” Blanche reportedly threw grand parties at Cutrer. If you’re familiar with Williams’ play, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” you may recall that the main character of Blanche DuBois came from a family home called “Belle Reve.”

The most sobering stop of my day in Mississippi was in Sumner, MS. Here, Abe took me to the courthouse where 14-year-old Emmett Till‘s murderers were exonerated in 1955. While it has been renovated since then, it’s the same building and the same room. I was surprised and distressed to learn that there’s still a Confederate statue outside of the courthouse.

My day with Abe was my first time in the state of Mississippi. After this experience, however, it definitely won’t be my last. I hope to see more of the Blues and Freedom Trails in the state and take in the history and cultural character that make Mississippi unique.