Day 9 Mississippi - Pretty Scenes from the Delta

Its Not the Heat, It's the Humidity
Today was officially hot - 105 F in the shade by 11:00 am and humidity like you were standing in a tiny bathroom with the hot shower running. I spent most of the hot part of the day in my shack, with the little window AC running and all the doors shut. This gave me a chance to sit down and scroll through the hundreds of photos that I have taken during my trip. This whole area is just beautiful. There are areas that are rural and vibrant green and other areas that are full of beautiful faded colors.  Everywhere I go I see something that begs for me to stop, pull over and get out the camera... even if it means getting back to the car, drenched in sweat.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. Please let me know your favorite.

Bottle tree - these are all over Mississippi

I see a lot of pretty brick and much of it is covered in vines. They tell me if you stand still long enough,
the ivy or honey-suckle will grow right over you

It was on blocks, but it sure was pretty

This is definitely the land of cotton

Young cotton rows

Cross on a pumphouse door

This was an old door on one of the shacks. I think this is my fav pic.

I leave for home tomorrow. I've sho' had a lot of fun, but I sho' am homesick!

Day 8 Mississippi, Rawge plays live at WAGB Radio, 860 on your AM dial

Momma Don't Allow No Saggin' Around Here
I had a great drive back towards Greenwood. I had lunch at Sanders Grocery in Minder City. The sign on the door said, "If Your Pants Aint Pulled All The Way Up, Don't Come In here".  I was hungry, so I pulled my pants way up, Steve Erckle style just in case, and went in. The place was ran by Miss Charletta and Miss Susan. I had a Hickory sausage sandwich, fried okra and sweet tea. I asked if I could get it to go. She said yes, but we'd be happier if you ate it "right here with us".  So I did and got to talk a while. These ladies reminded me that today was Jun 3, the day Billie Jo MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie bridge .
 

Ode To Billy Joe
I decided to drive down to the Tallahatchie bridge and have a look around, since it was June 3. I sat around in the sweltering heat, pondering the sad and mysterious lyrics of a southern Gothic tale about a young man's suicide at this very spot and on this very day, about 40 years ago.

It was the third of June,
another sleepy, dusty Delta day.
I was out choppin' cotton
and my brother was balin' hay.
And at dinner time we stopped,
and we walked back to the house to eat.
And mama hollered at the back door
"y'all remember to wipe your feet."
And then she said she got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge
Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Papa said to mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas,
"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense,
pass the biscuits, please."
"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow."
Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow.
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge,
And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billy Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.
And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right.
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge,
And now you tell me Billy Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."

Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?
I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite.
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today,
Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday. Oh, by the way,
He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge
And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge."

A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe.
Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo.
There was a virus going 'round, papa caught it and he died last spring,
And now mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything.
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge,
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.


Rawge Live at WABG radio!

On the way back to my shack,  I saw a car parked at the WABG radio station, so I went up to the door to see if I could have a look at the inside. It was tiny, and looks identical to the little station where the Soggy Bottom Boys got paid to sing into a can. I was greeted by Mr. Poe, the owner of the station. He invited me in and told me all about the station. As we talked, he would cut over and introduce the next record. He asked me if I would do a live interview about my trip through the Delta. Of course I jumped at the chance. He asked all about my trip, what I do for a living, what all I've seen, etc. Then it happened... he asked me to get my guitar and play a song. I tried to say no, that I was way too scared for something like that, but he insisted. Something kept flashing in the back of my head about you only live once. So, I went out and got the $50 piece of junk guitar I had bought a couple of days earlier and sat down. With no practice or warming up, I was playing and singing (actually murmering) "I'll Fly Away".  I can say with no hesitation, it was the worst that I have ever played or sang. I was so nervous my leg was bouncing and my throat felt like someone had a grip around it. But I muddled through it. We chatted a little more and finished up and he went started another record. Dang! I may be the only person in California that has played a gospel song live on WABG in Greenwood Mississippi. :) He is having an evengalist host on Sunday morning and Mr. Poe asked my to stop by and perhaps he can play some songs from our Holy Road CD. You can listen via the web at www.awsomeam.com

I'm going to try to make that happen if I can fit in in before or after church. I've been invited to attend church service at the Jones Temple Missionary Baptist church outside of Greenville. How could I pass that up?

"We Heard You On The Radio"

About an hour later, I was sitting in my shack, still a little shaky, when I got a knock on my door. Of course, I don't know anyone here, so it was a bit of a surprise. I answered the door and the guy standing there said, "Hey man, we heard you on the radio a wall-a-go. We got a bunch of guitar players over in the other shack, come on over and hang out with us." I went over and met about a half dozen musicians and we all had a pretty good laugh at my shaky live and impromptu performance

They're playing here for their 40 year class reunion. They had been playing together since the 1960's and had recorded a few albums. These guys had played with everyone you could think of, from Tom Petty to the Yardbirds. They had a room full of nice guitars. The leader of the group, Sid Herring, has a band called The Gants (http://www.thegants.com/1stpage.html). These are a cool bunch of guys and now every time I walk out side, Chad hollers, "Rawge! Come on over man!" I sat out all evening on their porch and listened to them talk about all their playing. Someone would say, "Hey remember that one song we played at so-and-so...." Then he'd grab a guitar and pound out a song.  They made a run into town and came back with a barrel full of genuine Mississippi Hot Tamales. We had a nice evening, playing music, eating Hot tamales, and talking about the south.

Day 7 Mississippi - Looking for the Biggest river in America

Oh great Mississippi, I long to see you...

I've been here a week and hadn't seen the Mississippi River. I knew it was west of here, so all I had to do was drive west and I would run into it. You can't miss it, right? If you did you would drive into it. I took off on a little road and headed west. The problem was that once you get close, there is so much flooding that you have to turn back before you get to the river. I drove and turned and drove and backed up for about 3 hours. I drove through tiny towns like New Hope and Rena Lara. I was pretty sure I was almost at the river when I drove through Beulah land, but still I got turned back. I ended up in a little town called Jonestown.... how cool is that?

Uptown Brown's - Home of the original Chicago's Jewtown style polish

I stopped for lunch at Uptown Brown's - Home of the original Chicago's Jewtown style polish. I talked for a while with Mr. and Mrs Brown. Mr. Brown's daddy opened the joint in 1964. He recommended the hot polish dog and cool-aid. I went for the dog but passed on the cool-aid for obvious reasons. The dawg was big and smothered in onions, jalapenos and some other green pepper that about made me cry. It was nothing short of delicious!

Rest In Peace, We'll see you in the morning

The cool thing about sight-seeing in this area is that there is a pretty cemetery, church, or both about every mile or so. I stopped at a couple and noticed that ladies around here have some pretty names.
Lugene J Mitchell, Jasmine Earlenisha, Virda Lee Williams, Lilly Colle, Applonia Louise, Gestra Lontarzar and Mrs. Viola "Fennie" Bates.

The birth and death dates are listed as Sunrise and Sunset.

There were phrases scattered all about to remind us that death is not the end

There is rest in heaven
      Rest In Peace, We'll see you in the morning
            Singing in God's heavenly choir
                   and my favorite was, Death is a new life

Cemetery rules prohibit taking flowers from others graves for use on your grave site. Oh, and also no visiting at night.

So half a day is gone and I still havn't found the river. I've driven almost 100 miles and the river was only 15 miles away. I talked to a guy that was standing on the side of the road with a gallon milk jug full of water. He told me it was 100 degrees today. He said I couldn't get to the river, because all the roads were flooded, but if all I wanted was to see it, I could drive to Rogers Arkansas and drive over the bridge. He gave me directions to the highway and in about 20 mins, I was driving over the Mississippi river!!!

OK this river is huge. It is about 100 times the size of the Sacramento river. I may never be able to refer to the Sacramento as a river again. The river had barges traveling on it that were bigger than football fields. It was mud-colored and flowed pretty fast. It was interesting to see and I'm glad I made my way here.

I drove around Rogers Arkansas and saw the first person on the trip that was wearing over-alls. They were the cool osh-kosh type that my grandpa (from Arkansas) wore every day of his life. He would put on a dress coat over them for Sunday. This brought back some fond memories,

While I was sitting in a parking lot in Arkansas, I saw a cop looking at me. Oh no! I forgot that I had signed a paper with the rental car company that I would not be leaving the state of Mississippi.  Dang! They probably already had a BOLO out for me.... possibly even a dragnet. I played it cool and slowly drove off. I hit the road, dropped the Charger's shifter into low, sprayed gravel and shot back for the Mississippi river bridge. In 3 minutes I was crossing the state line...... Ha Ha Arkansas State Troopers! You'll never catch this old boy!

After I was safely back into Mississippi and my heart rate slowed back down from my brush with the law, I headed back to the Hopson Plantation. Unfortunately, I'm a sucker for any sign that even hints of something quaint - "Delta Museum" was just such a sign. I headed in that direction and in about 10 minutes, I was driving through Friar's Point. Now this was a cool town. I saw a filling station with a guy leanin' back on a chair against the front of the building. I parked in front of an antique/junk shop. I saw a little bank and went in to use the ATM. There was only one person in the place, a lady at the teller window, and she told me there were no ATM's in town. I still had a little cash so I walked over to the antique shop. The place was locked up so I walked to the filling station to get an RC cola. The man called the owner of the antique shop to let her know there was a man from California that wanted to buy some stuff. She said she was closed because she had to take her grand-daughter to the dentist. Bummer. He did point me to the museum.





The museum seemed deserted from the outside, except I could hear some loud TV coming through the door. I walked in and up to the counter, but no one came to the old "Teller" - type window. I could hear the Montel Williams show blasting from over the tall counter. I walked around the side to get someone's attention and startled an old man watching the TV. He was about deaf and cocked his ear close toward me when he talked. He took my $4 and told me to browse around and let him know if I had any questions. I read about a local church that was burned down by Union soldiers. Someone ran into the flames to save the church's records. The Union general made him throw the records back into the fire. Later the church was rebuilt with logs, but a tornado ruined it. It was rebuilt again and burned down 30 years later. It was rebuilt one more time and has church services to this day.  That's about all I learned because the place was almost too dark to see anything and they didn't even have a fan.  It was so hot, that half way through I stepped out the back door to cool off in the outside heat. I jumped in my car and kicked on some AC!

OK, back to the Hopson Plantation. But where is it? None of the little roads were on my crappy tourist map and GPS is futile. That's ok, because I have a pretty good sense of direction. The problem was that no roads went the direction I wanted to, so I had to do a lot of drive-turn-drive-turn. I did this for a while and was getting a little nervous (and hungry) when I came up on a little hamburger shack in the middle of nothing. It was empty and the guy seemed happy to see me. He said he didn't have much left for the day, but offered to make me a couple of fried bologna sandwiches for $4, with french fries! I told him I liked my bologna fried to near black. He said "Ya, me too".
I stood in front of a fan and listened to the jukebox while he cooked -
Someone was singing...

It's hard around here....
aint no white, aint no black, just the wrong side of the tracks.
Yeah..., it's hard around here....

I got my fried bologny and he gave me some directions. He wrote on the back of a brown paper sack. He sketched in detail, including dots for each of the 4 stop signs at every intersection. He drew a school and a silo and church with Christmas tree shapes for trees. Man, this was on its way to becoming a work of art, but he drew so much the pen ran out of ink. He searched the place for another one but found nothing. He went to a back room and even out to his car, but nothing. I would have to commit the rest of the directions to memory. But he did continue with his finger on the blank area of the paper sack, just as if he were writing. I did my best to recall everything and in about 40 mins I was driving back into Clarksdale. The weird thing is that I came in from the opposite side of town than where I left. I know I drove a long ways, but all the way around the world? Wow!

Day 6 Mississippi Delta Blues Music

Today I drove into Clarksdale, the home of the Delta Blues. Everything here is about the blues - streets, shops, venues and people. I visited the Delta Blues museum and saw some great old guitars. These instruments belonged to people with names like T-model Ford, Sonny Boy Williams, Son House, Muddy Waters and T-Bone Walker. I stopped into the Cat Head and dropped Larry Grimes' name and had a long conversation with the owner,  Roger Stolle, about some of the parallels in music evolution between blues and bluegrass. He is a wealth of knowledge on blues history. Check out his books at http://www.cathead.biz/

I checked into the only guitar shop in town, Bluestown Music. I caught owner Ronnie Drew working on an old Gibson banjo. He, local drummer Trey Monty, and I sat around for over an hour talking about things like digital drum kits and how to repair loose necks on old archbacks. Ronnie had a great collection of vintage guitars and I had a chance to play some rare guitars. I played an old Silvertone that was identical to my first guitar that we ordered from the Sears catalog. He put my Reborn Guitars card on his wall and mentioned it to everyone that came through the door. Nice guys!

I met a couple on the sidewalk, Danny and Debbie Brooks, that were from Canada but were now living in Texas. Danny is a musician and was on a 3-week tour with over 50 gigs through the south, into Canada and back down the East coast. He was playing tonight at Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero blues club. They invited me there for dinner. I met them there about dark. I ate some very tasty fried green tomatoes while Big Dave and his band played some mean blues. Danny took the stage and the guy is as full of soul as a white guy can be! He played a really mean slide guitar and had a huge voice. At the end of the evening, he gave me his newest Cd and insisted I come visit them in Texas and check out their dirt-floored Cowboy church. You can check out his music at www.dannybrooksmusic.com

Big Dave

Big Dave's Slide-guitar man. They called him Doc. He is a medical student about to finish his degree

Danny Brooks

So I still haven't seeen the Mississippi River. Tomorrow, seriously!