Day 7 - Tuesday, September 16
From Greenville to Leland - another small delta town dying on its feet because the main road no longer goes through.
A number of blues notables came from here - the most prominent is Johnny Winter, who sadly died recently.
But Leland's most famous son has nothing to do with music....
There are various markers about town but not much sign of life. But we liked these......
From Leland we made a detour via Highways 278 and 8 and stopped near Cleveland at a place called Dockery Farms which was at one time a very well-known plantation. The main claim to fame now is that it is acknowledged as possibly "the birthplace of the Blues", mainly due to the fact that blues historians have traced much of the early music back to Charley Patton who lived here on and off during the early years of the 20th century.
Just off Highway 8 is a collection of old plantation buildings set in a large grassy area. There was no-one about but you can wander around the site. Near one of the buildings is a button to press which starts a loop of early blues which plays through speakers concealed in the buildings - it made for a very atmospheric half hour.
On to Ruleville and then down Highway 49W to Indianola. This is where BB King was born and grew up. The town is very proud of this - there is BB King Park and statue........
there are markers.....
there are murals.........
there is pavement art......
there are artefacts..........
but best of all is the BB King Museum - we spent hours there - which is very well laid out and informative, with lots of archive and performance film, lots of history of his life etc.
One thing which really brought home the changes seen in this region was that in 2005 the governor of Mississippi declared a state-wide "BB King Day". It's not too many years ago (during our adult lives) that he would have had to sit at the back of the bus.
After a late pizza lunch we set off to find the trail marker at his actual birthplace, but is's among a network of back country roads and our maps weren't good enough for us to find it. Disappointing.
On to the Hampton Inn at Greenwood and dinner at the Delta Bistro in the main street downtown. A very pleasant area but, once again, very few people about.
From Greenville to Leland - another small delta town dying on its feet because the main road no longer goes through.
A number of blues notables came from here - the most prominent is Johnny Winter, who sadly died recently.
But Leland's most famous son has nothing to do with music....
There are various markers about town but not much sign of life. But we liked these......
From Leland we made a detour via Highways 278 and 8 and stopped near Cleveland at a place called Dockery Farms which was at one time a very well-known plantation. The main claim to fame now is that it is acknowledged as possibly "the birthplace of the Blues", mainly due to the fact that blues historians have traced much of the early music back to Charley Patton who lived here on and off during the early years of the 20th century.
Just off Highway 8 is a collection of old plantation buildings set in a large grassy area. There was no-one about but you can wander around the site. Near one of the buildings is a button to press which starts a loop of early blues which plays through speakers concealed in the buildings - it made for a very atmospheric half hour.
On to Ruleville and then down Highway 49W to Indianola. This is where BB King was born and grew up. The town is very proud of this - there is BB King Park and statue........
there are markers.....
there are murals.........
there is pavement art......
there are artefacts..........
but best of all is the BB King Museum - we spent hours there - which is very well laid out and informative, with lots of archive and performance film, lots of history of his life etc.
One thing which really brought home the changes seen in this region was that in 2005 the governor of Mississippi declared a state-wide "BB King Day". It's not too many years ago (during our adult lives) that he would have had to sit at the back of the bus.
After a late pizza lunch we set off to find the trail marker at his actual birthplace, but is's among a network of back country roads and our maps weren't good enough for us to find it. Disappointing.
On to the Hampton Inn at Greenwood and dinner at the Delta Bistro in the main street downtown. A very pleasant area but, once again, very few people about.
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