Clarksdale to Greenville via the Crossroads

Day 6 - Monday, September 15

It was so nice sitting in the rocking chairs on our porch in the warm morning sun with coffee and doughnuts that we stayed quite a while before checking out and heading into Cllarksdale.

On the way in we came to the junction of highway 61 and highway 49 which is claimed to be the famous "crossroads" of Robert Johnson fame, and the town marks it like this......

The location of the actual crossroads is not definite so there are a number of competing claims.

Quite close to it, this amused us....

In the centre of town we came across a visitor centre which was housed in a lovely old Greyhound bus terminal.

It was staffed by a very friendly couple of elderly guys who were very interested in talking about our trip. One of them had been in the US air force and enjoyed telling us about time he had spent in one of the bases in East Anglia.

We then visited the Delta Blues Museum - a glorious collection of memorabilia, photographs and information about the blues, its origins and its most celebrated exponents. 

We were a bit put out by the notice on the door ......

I chided the girl at the ticket desk, but that didn't stop us taking advantage of the discount.........

At the back was the original cabin where Muddy Waters lived as a boy - moved intact from the nearby Stovall Plantation. There was also a big section on Charlie Musselwhite who we'd seen play a fantastic set at the Colne Festival a couple of years ago. 

Apparently the museum has benefitted greatly from the support of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and Robert Plant, among others, who have done a lot of fundraising on its behalf.

On display was a guitar Gibbons had had made out of a plank of wood from the Muddy Waters cabin.

After several hours there we went, at the recommendation of the guys from the Greyhound building, to the Delta Attractions Cafe nearby for some lunch. A real local dive - one group of guys was playing poker during their lunch break. We thought that it must be a regular game because theirs was the only table with a tablecloth. There were various interesting bits and pieces on the walls - this is the one I liked best....

After lunch we had a wander around downtown Clarksdale. It's sadly run down now with lots of closed business pemises - all the business activity has moved to the long strip-malls along the main roads which now go around the town. In the old days traffic would have gone through the centre.

Having said that, partly due to the efforts of the aforementioned rock glitterati, much more is being made of the region's blues heritage and there are a number of blues-related businesses evident - so maybe things will improve.

We went back to Red's Blues bar to get a photo of the outside in daylight. This was it...

Classy, huh .....

At the end of the block was a blues trail marker for local bluesman Big Jack Johnson

and as I was reading the detail on the back I noticed the reference to Cornelius "Red" Paden who is the guy who owned the bar. Just then he came out - putting out the garbage - and said "hi" and we got talking. He said that Big Jack had been a good friend and a regular at the bar. He recognised me from last night and asked if I'd seen his photo with Robert Plant - I hadn't, so he took me into the bar to proudly show me. He claimed that Plant had been there several times. The bar was even more dingy in the light of day..........

Other markers in town were for Sam Cooke and Ike Turner (another name which kept cropping up in various places - he seems to have been quite influential) and this one for Wade Walton. 

It was outside the barber shop and blues bar mentioned on the marker....

Leaving Clarksdale we continued south on Highway 61 heading for Greenville but making various detours on the way. One was to see a legendary country juke joint called Po' Monkeys which is in the middle of nowhere. 

Apparently there is only live music on about once a week and sadly tonight wasn't the night so the place was all closed up.

But I particularly like the men's room..........

Another detour was to Rosedale - I've known the name since the 60s because of the lyric in Cream's "Crossroads", which was taken from Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues", but never really had much of an idea as to where it was. But it was great to visit - even if only briefly because it's a tiny place and there's not much there. Just going to a place makes it very special very time you hear the song in future.

Years ago we were heading for Flagstaff on Route 66, now sadly combined with Interstate 40, and we detoured off to visit Winslow Arizona, just to "stand on the corner" as in the Eagles "Take it Easy" - brings a smile every time I hear it.

Rosedale also has a claim to being the location of "the" crossroads - the junction of Highway 1 and Highway 8. Who knows ?

Stopped in Greenville for the night at the Holiday Inn Express - a sign at reception warned us that the town's water supply came from an aquifer whose water had filtered down through the roots of a forest of cypress trees from which it acquired a brownish tinge which it was not economic to remove. The notice assured us that the water drinking quality was fine. A basin full of it looked distinctly off-putting.

Before sunset we went down to the Greenville waterfront which had been on the river but was now on an oxbow. The levee was very high with parking on it for a lot of cars - it looked like people used it for water activities.

But again, there was nowhere to have a drink or dinner overlooking the water.

We'd been recommended a restaurant called Doe's Eat Place and as we pulled up we were aware that it was not the best part of town.

The doorway took us into a kitchen area with a huge ancient grill and on into an unappetising preparation area. We were shown into the dining room which was a bit like a transport cafe and a waitress with quite a brusque manner asked what we wanted. We asked to see a menu - there wasn't one and she recited a list of various steaks - no indication of prices.

We all chose medium rare fillet - I guess our thought was that in a place like that how expensive could it be ?

When it came it was probably the best meat we'd ever had - the texture was like sashimi.

But, surprisingly for USA, they skimped on the chips so we had to ask for more.

And the bill was high given the surroundings - the steaks were $39 each. But we couldn't quibble - the meat was sensational.

After dinner we looked for a bar with live music but couldn't even find an open bar without. Monday evening.

So we went to a liquor store to get a couple of bottles of wine to take back to the hotel.

It was so huge we asked for help with the layout and got talking to the owner who asked where we were from. He then asked his wife about a friend of theirs who was originally from England - "where was she from". The wife didn't know but immediately called the friend to find out -- and then put her on speakerphone so that we could talk to her................

a weird conversation followed.

The wine was poor.