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"On a per capita basis,
an extraordinary amount" of musical talent has come out of
northern Mississippi — from Elvis Presley and B.B. King to
Muddy Waters and Conway Twitty — says musician John Mohead,
37, who plays his blues-influenced country elsewhere but
always returns to his home in the Delta, north of Clarksdale.
"There has to be something about the place. I think it's the
struggle to make a living. I think it's the lack of
entertainment. People make their own."
A search for home-grown sounds takes a
road-tripper off the beaten tourist track. Snakes slither
across sun-baked two-lane roads, catfish farms dot the flat
countryside, and fast-growing kudzu smothers telephone
poles.
Phrases such as "mmmmm hmmm" and "yes,
ma'am" punctuate conversation. And old times — the good and
the bad — are not forgotten.
Day 1: Holly Springs to Clarksdale, 183
miles
Elvis has not left this building: a
white-pillared house at 200 Gholson Ave. in Holly Springs,
Miss., an hour southeast of Memphis. Above the door, opened by
sideburn-sporting Paul MacLeod, is the hand-painted
legend: "Graceland Too."
MacLeod's house, open 24 hours a day, is
stuffed floor to ceiling with Presley memorabilia. This
self-described "ultimate, No. 1 Elvis fan" has collected
artifacts for 48 years. "My wife told me, 'Make up your mind
who you're married to,' and I said, 'Bye, honey,' " he
recalls.
Night and day, visitors ante up the $5
entrance fee. MacLeod says Jenna Bush and pals recently
dropped in at 4 a.m. (The White House doesn't comment on the
Bush daughters' whereabouts.)
VIPs — like all guests — are treated to
MacLeod's hip-wriggling Elvis imitation and a peek at his
single-minded existence, which includes taping TV channels to
log any mention of his hero. "I'm doing it for history's
sake."
A more sedate historical display awaits
an hour away in Tupelo. The Elvis Presley Birthplace and
Museum contains the two-room house where he was born and
mementos including a Vegas jumpsuit.
No time today to browse the museum shop's
souvenirs, including a $14.95 Elvis wall clock with legs that
rock. Across the state, it's check-in time at the Shack Up
Inn, six weathered sharecroppers' cabins at an old plantation
outside Clarksdale.
A snazzy Porsche convertible is parked
outside one tin-roofed shack, where a Memphis lawyer's weekend
surprise has backfired. His sullen wife sits on the porch
working on a bottle of white wine. She has "shack shock,"
explains genial innkeeper Bill Talbot. Though updated and
whimsically decorated to pay homage to blues stars, the cabins
have walls of rough-hewn wood and flea-market furnishings.
"It's not for everybody," says co-owner
James Butler. Local church ladies tsk-tsk about the Shack Up
name. Some African-Americans are offended that a sad chapter
in their history is used in this manner.
Shack Up — where mini-Moon Pies instead
of mints are left on your pillow — has plenty of fans, though,
including musicians seeking a funky retreat. Blues-revering
celebrities have long flocked to the region to visit the
rough-and-tumble music clubs called "juke joints" and to eat
barbecue.
Nowadays, there are more upscale options:
Ground Zero and the Clarksdale restaurant called Madidi, in
which Freeman and lawyer Bill Luckett are partners.
On this evening, Freeman is dining at
Madidi with Luckett, their spouses and others. Luckett
explains that the two men grew up in the Delta in an era when
blacks and whites didn't really socialize together. Freeman
and Luckett became pals when he represented the actor in
disputes with contractors. Tired of driving to find "fine
dining," they opened their own eatery, Freeman says, savoring
Madidi's succulent Colorado lamb.
Madidi, named for a park in Bolivia,
wouldn't be out of place in New York or L.A. But with tabs
that can easily top $100, building a large local client base
in a not-ritzy city of 20,000 is difficult.
After dinner, their party strolls down
the street to Ground Zero. (The name, chosen long before Sept.
11, pays homage to Clarksdale as the place where blues
exploded in the early 1900s.) Freeman's friend Robert Johnson,
founder of Black Entertainment Television, chats with the
local band, called Deep Cuts.
"What would it take for an old, ugly
fellow like me to get on TV?" asks saxman Joshua Stewart, 55,
in fedora and silvery vest. "Everybody ignores the blues."
Even here, live blues is getting harder
to find. Musician Mohead offers a tour of juke joints. Sarah's
Kitchen is closed tonight. Red's is not. "Any music tonight?"
Mohead asks the owner of Red's, who's standing out front. "No
music," comes the reply.
Back at the Shack Up Inn, the Commissary
bar — sometimes jumping — is quiet. And the white Porsche is
gone.
Day 2: Clarksdale to Oxford, 226
miles
A pilgrimage here must include "the
Crossroads," the Clarksdale intersection of highways 61 and
49, where blues great Robert Johnson may or may not have sold
his soul to the devil, as legend has it, in exchange for
guitar-playing genius.
Then it's on to the Delta Blues Museum to
see the plantation cabin where blues ace Muddy Waters lived.
It was Waters' song Rollin' Stone that inspired the
name of the band that's a rock powerhouse.
Most museum visitors are white tourists,
some from blues-loving Europe. Blues, rooted in the mournful
chants of field workers, "is not part of this generation" of
younger African-Americans, says museum director Tony Czech.
"Juke joints still exist, but not in the same vein."
That sentiment is echoed later after a
drive south to the Highway 61 Blues Festival in Leland. "Young
people, they like rap," explains Mississippi Slim, a
56-year-old African-American bluesman decked out in a beige
suit, two-tone shoes and a burgundy shirt that matches the
tint in his hair. "The black people have let the blues
go."
As he speaks, veteran bluesman Eddie
Cusic, 76, is onstage jamming with tow-headed Casey Ruth, 12,
who studied with Cusic in a mentoring program.
Says festival organizer Billy Johnson,
director of Leland's new Highway 61 Blues Museum, "Those old
masters, what they can teach you, you can't find in a music
book. It's part of carrying the tradition on."
Elsewhere in northern Mississippi, other
traditions are being carried on. On Saturday nights, the porch
of weathered Taylor Grocery, in the hamlet of Taylor,
overflows with folk sipping bring-your-own booze, waiting to
sit at tables covered with red-checked plastic cloths and dig
into catfish dinners served up with live music. Tonight, it's
a mix of country and blues.
The décor — including walls filled with
graffiti by generations of University of Mississippi students
from nearby Oxford — is unpretentious. "People told me, 'Leave
it alone,' " says current owner Lynn Hewlettt.
"We don't want to be no McDonald's," adds
Forrest Bryan, a Hewlett relative who helps out here.
Inside, Marc Deloach leads his trio
through a harmonica-accented Up Against the Wall,
Redneck Mother. Wife and bandmate Christine Schultz
volunteers that she's from New Hampshire, but Mississippi
music doesn't sound as good up there. "This place is based on
heat and mud. The whole feel and sound is different. I tried
to take it back home, and it just didn't work."
After dinner, cars and SUVs in the
grocery lot head north, past fields and rolling hills, to
Oxford. The preppy college town depicted in John Grisham books
also is a music mecca. Tonight, though, school is out, and a
hot spot — Proud Larry's — is pulsating with a shrieky,
alternative sound that only the twentysomethings in khakis and
sundresses could love. For the older set, a stroll around the
picturesque courthouse square seems a more pleasant
alternative.
Day 3: Oxford to Memphis, 79 miles
Whizzing up Interstate 55 to Memphis, the
car rings with what the 103.5 FM deejay calls "rhythm and
praise music before you head out to church." It's a worthy
warm-up for today's destination: the Rev. Al Green's Full
Gospel Tabernacle.
Green, famed for secular hits such as
Let's Stay Together, takes the pulpit Sundays when in
town. This is one of them.
Parishioners in hats and bright-colored
finery, joined by more casually dressed tourists, trickle into
the unpretentious white building and greet each other with a
smile and a "good morning." "Touch the person next to you and
tell them 'I love you,' " directs Green, before launching into
two hours of celebration and worship.
This is not a sit-on-your-hands
experience. Green bursts into song to the pounding
accompaniment of a six-piece band and a gospel choir.
Parishioners rise to their feet, dance, applaud and yell
responses — Uh huhh! AAA-men!! One woman begins
jabbering in tongues. A man in a lime jacket falls on the
floor in an apparent faint and is ministered to by a team of
women who cover him with a white sheet and fan him until he
revives.
Services don't end until, as Green aide
Caroline Feagin puts it, "the spirit leaves us." Today, it
shows signs of staying long after some in the pews are due to
catch planes home. They slip discreetly toward the exit and
fumble with keys to rental cars, as the soulful sounds fade
away. | 
