Just singing' the blues

We’ve been pitching the blues at volume as we head south in Mississippi: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B B King, amongst them. Their voices echo evocatively over this vast flat land with its silt rich fields layered over centuries from Mississippi overflow: the mud: in the Delta. 

Historically, this land made beautiful cotton country. And rich black singing voices have been rolling in from the fields around these parts for as long as there has been cotton pickin’ goin’ on. Keeping rhythm to the beat of the hoe. A slow sad rhythm, in the main, telling raw and wrenching tales of sad lives. Tales of the blues. 

Clarksdale is at the heart of the Blues in Mississippi. This old town with many of its crumbling art deco facades slowly being rejuvenated, is fast becoming like Nashville with its Country music focus. But all about the blues. 

Here, it is said, at the iconic crossroads where Highway 61 intersects with 49, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for the gift of his guitar skill. His fingers were the ones to emulate. Muddy Waters. The Rolling Stones. Z Z Top. The blues influence is still rippling through the music scene. 

And the Delta Blues Museum in the centre of Clarksdale is collecting, recording and displaying the details.

So taken with Muddy Waters was the guitarist of ZZ top, Billy Gibbons, that he made a pilgrimage, years after Muddy’s death, to visit the site where Muddy lived, in a crumbling share-cropper’s cabin on Stovall cotton plantation, just north of here. There, Billy picked up a broken wooden wall plank that had once belonged to Muddy’s cabin, that had long fallen to the ground. He took it away and had a guitar fashioned from the wood that sheltered Muddy when he was alive and playing the blues. So honouring the man. 

So many of the bluesmen come from this area. Wade Walton, the local barber, could skilfully slap out his blues rhythm with his razor and a strop, along with the best of them; while his brother, Frank, blew the jug and danced. Today we have Josh Razorblade Stewart, called ‘Razorblade’ because he dresses as sharp as, walking the streets and playing the venues. Looking like a lean limping crane on a polished walking stick.

On our first night there he came on stage for just a short set where he wooed the crowds at the Ground Zero Blues Club, where Morgan Freeman is co-owner and a huge supporter of the Clarksdale blues revival. Razorblade is 69 and counting, yet his cover of Ain’t No Sunshine was simply awesome. 

Others in town are the talented Steve Kolbus who rocks the clubs regularly, belting out the blues on his harmonica as he sings poignant, and somewhat funny songs, that are the tales of his life. A couple in the audience we spoke to drive 2 1/2 hours back and forth to see Steve each time he is on stage here. From Alabama. True fans. And, we Aussies got another welcome from Steve when he was on stage during the night, too. Our fame is spreading like cotton balls blown' in the wind. 

We spent most of our time in Clarksdale talking. We came across an Aussie who had just opened a restaurant on a corner opposite an iconic Greyhound sign. He had owned restaurants in Sydney but was a bluesman, and wanted to be close to the heart of the blues where he could occasionally perform.

We met a group of guys in the Bluesberry cafe when we were searching for coffee, and were there for half the morning, just shooting the breeze : music, politics, the problems of the world. One would get up and play us a ditty on the piano, just to illustrate something: that would be Theo, the attorney from the Netherlands, who mostly lives in Memphis. He is owner and curator of the Rock and Blues museum in town, among other things. Watermelon Slim, a legendary figure in these parts, played us a ballad about cockatoos and wallabies that he had created when he’d been invited to play at Melbourne’s Moomba festival not so long ago. With traces of Irish folk ballad in its haunting chorus. Arturo, the owner of the Blueberry cafe sang beautifully to us. All ad lib. All to illustrate something that we had been chatting about. 

Everywhere we went in Clarksdale music was the core and heartbeat of the conversation. Yet, here, for the first time, we came across Southerners who admit to being keen supporters of Bernie Sanders for President. Amazing place. We had the best time.

When they are not singing they are working.  This is the work of Stan Street so evocative of the blues.

Old Art Deco facades in town slowly being rejuvenated

The Crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil

Wade Walton's barber shop.  He never trusted he would earn enough playing the blues, so would not give up his barbershop

Josh Razorblade Stewart.  A character. 

Ground Zero Blues Club where porch pooches can sit on the relaxing sofas stretched along the verandah and smell the BBQ'd pork butts being hickory smoked close by

Every wall, window, post, column, table cloth, chair in Ground Zero has been autographed. Pete found a small space where his pen could make our mark.

Ground Zero at night

Art Deco Greyhound sign

Owner of Rock and Blues Museum giving us a blues solo

Original song about Australia by the very unique Watermelon Slim

Keep it a secret, though. We don't want too many people changing it too quickly