Greenwood to Memphis - a day of legends and history

Day 8 - Wednesday, September 17


An early start because we wanted to get back to Memphis by early afternoon and there were things to see along the way.
The first stop was at Robert Johnson's grave on a back road just north of Greenwood - an informal graveyard - just a patch of grass really - next to a small country church.

His grave is at the back, almost in the trees, and various items had been left - empty bourbon bottles, plectrums etc.

It was a lovely peaceful spot.

On via backroads to Parchman, home of the legendary Parchman Farm - the Mississippi State Penitentiary. 

On the way, we passed this

I don't think that it's the Tallahatchie Bridge but it's certainly a Tallahatchie Bridge.

Nothing much to see at Parchman other than the trail marker outside the main gate.

The next stop was Tutwiler. It was allegedly here that WC Handy heard  a street musician singing about "...Goin' where the Southern cross the Dog", was inspired by the sound and went on to develop it into the blues. His song "Yellow Dog Blues", later recorded by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong among others, apparently derived from this encounter.

Maybe.......

The line above refers to a point in nearby Moorhead where two rail lines - The Southern Railroad and the Yazoo Delta Railroad (also referred to as the "Yellow Dog" (Y.....  D....) which was then shortened to "The Dog") - crossed at right angles.

The junction is preserved as a historical site....

Near Tutwiler is another gravesite - this time that of Sonny Boy Williamson.Again an informal graveyard and again various artefacts, including harmonicas, left at the grave.

He is the first delta blues singer I remember ever seeing - on TV in about 1964/65. A number of performers were doing a tour following up the success people like the Stones, Yardbirds and John Mayall had been having in covering their music. 

The last stop on the way back to Memphis was at Vance where there is a trail marker commemorating the fact that John Lee Hooker grew up there.

When I was planning the route, I'd taken time to create playlists on Spotify, including the music of as many as possible of the people noted on the markers we would visit. It was quite special to travel through the region listening to the songs created by all these influential people.

When we arrived back in Memphis we went directly to the Civil Rights Museum (stopping first for lunch at the excellent Central BBQ restaurant next door). The museum is based in the Lorraine Motel which is where Martin Luther King was murdered in 1968. The outside of the building has been retained as it was, so the balcony is still there and readily recognisable from the news reports of the time.

The museum itself is an outstanding collection of artefacts, documents and displays covering the origins of slavery and the subsequent efforts to achieve first emancipation and then equality. There is much about the turmoil in the South in the 1960s.

Perhaps the thing most shocking/surprising to me was a recording of a telephone conversation between President Kennedy and the Governor of Mississippi when there was a huge amount of violent unrest going on as people were trying to enforce their constitutional rights to equality - Kennedy clearly wanted only for the governor to put a lid on the situation. Not at all in line with the image of Kennedy as an enlightened force for freedom.

The museum was fascinating and informative but I came away thinking that I would have liked to have learned more from the other (white) point of view. What were they thinking at the time, what do they think now in retrospect about what they did at the time, and what do they think now about the changes which have occurred in the last 40 years or so ?

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the top of Beale Street to see the Elvis statue..

Later we had dinner at McEwan's restaurant near the hotel  (very good - proper food with even some vegetables) and then went to BB King's club on Beale Street. We paid a $5 cover charge each and were there for 2 hours during which the band was on stage for only about 45 minutes (between 8.45 and 10.45 i.e. peak time !!) - and, even then, they seemed to be largely going through the motions. Not good.

So we went back to the Blues Hall where a great band was playing who sadly got hijacked after a few numbers by a girl at a table near the front who wanted to sing with them. She did but she couldn't - so we went next door to the Rum Boogie Bar where then excellent 901 Blues Band entertained us very well.

And during the evening I added another statue to my growing collection....

The inscription is not clear in the dark - it's W.C. Handy in the eponymous park on Beale Street.