A Lesson in the Blues

© Dan Evon / RumBum.com

Getting ready for a trip along the blues highways takes a lot more than just prepping the bike. Yes, oil, gas, bags, helmet, tools, tent, and everything else are important. But a trip down the blues highway requires a proper play list, too.

Robert Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, W.C. Handy, Howlin' Wolf, they are all somewhere along highway 61. The list of musicians that have made their living somewhere along the road from New Orleans to Chicago is staggering. But if you add in their influence, the music that spawned in the Delta plains, covers the globe.

I was starting from New Orleans, which isn't exactly the start of the blues highway, and it isn't exactly the end, either. But traveling the blues highway in chronological order is nearly impossible. So New Orleans would have to do, and it did fine.

New Orleans to Natchez

"The Blues is the roots, the rest is the fruits" - Willie Dixon

New Orleans is a good place to start a journey on the Blues highway, because it can show you all the possibilities that lay within the blues. From the solo acoustic street performers that still sing the haunting melodies of Muddy Waters, to the imaginative jazz musicians that play something so removed but so rooted within the blues. From the booze filled pop rock that fills the clubs on bourbon, to the hip hop spun in the Dragon's Den. It all comes from the blues, and it all comes from the Mississippi Delta.

Driving out of New Orleans, the landscape turns quickly from pavement, bars, and buildings, to one single lane highway that runs over swamps, over water, and through the country. They call it Airline Highway in this part of the country, but it is only the first name of many that will be given to the blues highway.

Airline takes you up through the outskirts of Baton Rouge, than along a long and lonely road that passes between cotton fields and through towns like Sibley, Hardwood, and St. Francisville. Towns that you have to go back and check the map to remember their names. Towns, where the only memorable thing is that the speed limit dropped from 55 down to 35 for a few minutes.

But soon, you're in Natchez, Mississippi.

Natchez has a long history in singing the blues, and perhaps, has one of the most tragic stories within its history. The Rhythm Club, which sat on the banks of the Mississippi river, hidden by the big white mansions owned by slaveholders, burned to the ground in 19 and 36. Walter Barnes and his Royal Creolians Orchestra were playing the night of the fire, in which 209 people died.

There isn't much left of the old Rhythm Club, just a tombstone that sits in an open field overlooking the river. The Natchez fire has been immortalized in the blues by people like John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, and Cab Calloway.

But Natchez doesn't only represent the doom and gloom of the blues, it also has a criminal side. Natchez Under the Hill is infamous for its Tortuga personality. It may have not been pirates, but criminals, thieves, hookers, and murderers were common place along the strip of bars beneath Natchez. A bed and breakfast and a gift shop now stand on these marks of history, but it isn't the only place where commercialism has overtaken history.

Clarksdale, Mississippi

If there is one thing you are going to want to see along the Blues trail, it is the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul. Following the blues highway up, which is now called the Great River road, into Clarksdale, you'll pass plenty of remote intersections that would have made fine places to sell a soul to the devil. The road is thin and veiled by either corn stalks or cotton. Cars are few, and at night, the only light shining down comes from the stars above.

© Dan Evon / RumBum.comBut the intersection where Johnson traded his soul for the ability to play the guitar, is now covered by the florescent glow of street lights at a busy intersection in Clarksdale. A small tower stands erect on a small patch of grass, marking possibly the greatest landmark in the history of the blues. It is sad to see, so I snap a picture and drive away to find a better reason for why I came to Clarksdale.

It isn't hard to find a another reason to come to Clarksdale. Across the street from the Delta Blues Museum, sits quite possibly, the coolest bar in America. Owned by Morgan Freeman, and graced with legends like Buddy Guy, Aretha Franklin, and Johnny Lang, The Ground Zero Blues Club quickly reminds me that the blues didn't die when something like the crossroads was paved over, but lives whenever a guitar is picked up.

I sit down to have a beer and a burger, and on stage is one of the cooks. The place is empty and I listen to him tap his foot and play. The waitress comes over to take my order then yells at the cook to get back in the kitchen and cook. There is music playing on the hidden speakers throughout the bar, and every inch of space, whether it be table, wall, picture, or bar stool, is covered with someone's signature.

The Ground Zero Blues club has rooms to rent upstairs, and I decide to stay, and get reacquainted with the blues that night.

Memphis

The next morning is hot. It's the type of hot that when you step outside your clothes instantly stick to your skin. The sun isn't even up past the buildings yet, but my whole body is covered with a thin layer of sweat. I try to imagine what it must have been like to have toiled all day out in the sun for no pay and no reward. It is a picture that is way beyond my understanding.

I take a detour to drive by Muddy Waters Cabin, but never managed to find it. I was told later that it had been torn down, and that a few pieces of wood are sitting in the Delta Blues Museum.

The blues highway changes names again by Memphis, where it gets renamed for Memphis's most famous resident, B.B. King. The B.B. King highway leads all the way to Beale St. where his music club lies. Beale St. has the same vibe as Bourbon in New Orleans, and I wonder if blues music is solely responsible for so much debauchery.

Sweet Home Chicago

Shortly after Memphis, the blues highway turns back into the Great River road and follows the Mississippi River up to St. Louis, and eventually into Wisconsin. I take a different path though, and meander my way through the windy plains of Illinois toward Chicago, the end of the Blues highway.

The blues started as a lonely song in the delta plains, got developed as traveling musicians made their way up North through Memphis, and had its final electric touches stamped on to it in the mean streets of Chicago. Buddy Guy's legends still stands in Chicago, and the blues legend still comes down to play. I have to wait a week until I finally get the chance to see Buddy in action, but as he takes the stage, you can see the influences of Natches, of B.B. King, of Clarksdale, of New Orleans.

Louisiana born Buddy Guy is the embodiment of the Blues highway. He is a living history of the blues, with everyone from Muddy Waters, to Howlin' Wolf, to Sonny Boy Williamson living somewhere inside of him. When Guy takes the stage, so do the blues, and I know I've made it home, to Sweet Home Chicago.