It is 11 AM Thursday. I'm out on the Cotton Gin Inn porch in my t-shirt, while Syracuse is suffering below zero temps. Gloating would be totally evil.
So yesterday was mostly travelling down the Nachez Trace Pkwy. It's one of a few National Parkways, and is like a 440 mile long, 1 block wide National Park. The road is two lanes, twisty, and ultra-smooth. Speed limit is 40, or 50 in some parts. Most of the view is forest area, although you cut through a few farms in the Mississippi section. I went from the terminus in Nashville down to Tupelo, about 200 miles. It was absolutely gorgeous!
Aretha Franklin started singing "I Want to Make It With You," on my iPod when I was a mere 10 miles from Muscle Shoals Alabama. Serendipitous!
Finally I get to Clarksdale, Delta Blues Central. At the crossing of Hwy 49 and 61 is where Robert Johnson supposedy sold his soul to the devil in return for musical talent. Cream's Crossroads is based on Johnson's tune of the same name.
Lemme back up a minute. I remember vividly the first time I heard Delta Blues. I was doing some college homework and listening to The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Blues. Side 1, track 3 is Johnson doing "Hellhound on my Trail." When the first few notes played, I stopped in my tracks. Not because it was good, or that it touched something in me ... but because I thought the record player was screwed up! The notes were so oddly bent out of shape, and his singing was otherworldly. It was just so friggin' wierd!
Hellhound on My Trail is a poor place to start a blues education. Or it's perfect. It's like asking about American Cuisine, and getting Pop Rocks. Most Delta Blues shares its AAB structure and its gravitation toward the raw and ethereal. But not even Eric Clapton will cover Hellhound on My Trail because, as he says, it is too uniquely Johnson.
After listening to blues for 20 years, it's surreal to be its birthplace.
I'm staying at the Shack Up Inn, Mississippi's oldest B&B (Bed and Beer). You have two choices of rooms: a sharecropper shack, or a bin of an old cotton gin. I'm in Bin 1 of the gin. Now I don't know ... there may be other Inns built in Cotton Gins in America. But I'm sure this is the only one with DirectTV and a heated bathroom floor!
It was Abe's BBQ for dinner. (And yeah, Shelby, your bosses list and my list are remarkably similar!) Rule: always eat BBQ where the sign has a happy pig on it. They do things the Memphis way - pulled pork sandwich with vinaigrette coleslaw on it. After that, Bob the Shack-Up Inn caretaker had a fire in his yard where the locals gather and chew the fat. The big topics were:
So Red, a 55 year old black man who has seen it all, and I jawed a long time. He talked about all the blues folks who had been through - he knows Clapton and Robert Plant. (And this is absolutely true because Plant had mentioned Red's in a Rolling Stone interview!) Red's has been there thirty years, but they were selling T-Shirts to get the roof fixed. The toilets were slanted at a 30 degree angle because the edge of the building was sliding off the foundation.
The crowd at Ground Zero got kicked out at 11, so they stumbled into Red's. Someone had brought whiskey and vodka, and from then on the drinks were free. "Hey Syracuse!" Red would shout at me every five minutes, "How about another shot?" You can probably guess where this ended up. Anyway, let's just say by 3 am I was in my bed, the room spinning around me, and I was warm and content.
"There's good folks and bad folks everywhere," said Red. And maybe that's too obvious to mean anything. But one needs to see it, and hear it, and feel it every once in awhile, and that is where I am right now. See you later!
From the Mailbag
"What's in a Pink Panty Pulldown?" - Pink lemonade, vodka, and sprite. There are many variants, and I never learned what the "original" Listick Lounge version has. But the pink lemonade's the thing.
So yesterday was mostly travelling down the Nachez Trace Pkwy. It's one of a few National Parkways, and is like a 440 mile long, 1 block wide National Park. The road is two lanes, twisty, and ultra-smooth. Speed limit is 40, or 50 in some parts. Most of the view is forest area, although you cut through a few farms in the Mississippi section. I went from the terminus in Nashville down to Tupelo, about 200 miles. It was absolutely gorgeous!
Aretha Franklin started singing "I Want to Make It With You," on my iPod when I was a mere 10 miles from Muscle Shoals Alabama. Serendipitous!
Finally I get to Clarksdale, Delta Blues Central. At the crossing of Hwy 49 and 61 is where Robert Johnson supposedy sold his soul to the devil in return for musical talent. Cream's Crossroads is based on Johnson's tune of the same name.
Lemme back up a minute. I remember vividly the first time I heard Delta Blues. I was doing some college homework and listening to The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Blues. Side 1, track 3 is Johnson doing "Hellhound on my Trail." When the first few notes played, I stopped in my tracks. Not because it was good, or that it touched something in me ... but because I thought the record player was screwed up! The notes were so oddly bent out of shape, and his singing was otherworldly. It was just so friggin' wierd!
Hellhound on My Trail is a poor place to start a blues education. Or it's perfect. It's like asking about American Cuisine, and getting Pop Rocks. Most Delta Blues shares its AAB structure and its gravitation toward the raw and ethereal. But not even Eric Clapton will cover Hellhound on My Trail because, as he says, it is too uniquely Johnson.
After listening to blues for 20 years, it's surreal to be its birthplace.
I'm staying at the Shack Up Inn, Mississippi's oldest B&B (Bed and Beer). You have two choices of rooms: a sharecropper shack, or a bin of an old cotton gin. I'm in Bin 1 of the gin. Now I don't know ... there may be other Inns built in Cotton Gins in America. But I'm sure this is the only one with DirectTV and a heated bathroom floor!
It was Abe's BBQ for dinner. (And yeah, Shelby, your bosses list and my list are remarkably similar!) Rule: always eat BBQ where the sign has a happy pig on it. They do things the Memphis way - pulled pork sandwich with vinaigrette coleslaw on it. After that, Bob the Shack-Up Inn caretaker had a fire in his yard where the locals gather and chew the fat. The big topics were:
- Bob's niece saw the sign for Parchman Farm: "Ole Miss Penatentiary". She asked why there isn't an Ole Mister Penentiary.
- Several natives got sick from Captain D's Seafood. The consensus seems to be ... it was the coleslaw. They made it with Mayonaise. True Southerners don't do that!
- There are crossties along Hwy 49 ready for the picking, but you better be quick because snake season is coming soon.
So Red, a 55 year old black man who has seen it all, and I jawed a long time. He talked about all the blues folks who had been through - he knows Clapton and Robert Plant. (And this is absolutely true because Plant had mentioned Red's in a Rolling Stone interview!) Red's has been there thirty years, but they were selling T-Shirts to get the roof fixed. The toilets were slanted at a 30 degree angle because the edge of the building was sliding off the foundation.
The crowd at Ground Zero got kicked out at 11, so they stumbled into Red's. Someone had brought whiskey and vodka, and from then on the drinks were free. "Hey Syracuse!" Red would shout at me every five minutes, "How about another shot?" You can probably guess where this ended up. Anyway, let's just say by 3 am I was in my bed, the room spinning around me, and I was warm and content.
"There's good folks and bad folks everywhere," said Red. And maybe that's too obvious to mean anything. But one needs to see it, and hear it, and feel it every once in awhile, and that is where I am right now. See you later!
From the Mailbag
"What's in a Pink Panty Pulldown?" - Pink lemonade, vodka, and sprite. There are many variants, and I never learned what the "original" Listick Lounge version has. But the pink lemonade's the thing.
5 comments:
OK so I haven't commented in a couple of days but let me just say this trip sounds awesome.
Never in a million years would I think that my brother would say country music, line dancing, fun and good in the same breath.
What's next you taking a liking to Culture Club and doing a Boy George swagger.... It just ain't right.
But on to your most recent events. Does Alan Jackson really have a million dollar mansion?
Cameron and I spent a week in Tennessee last year for summer camp and it is the same as you described with the exception of it being 105 degrees everyday and no wind. I have never been to a place where there was no wind and when I mean no wind I mean NOOOO darn wind.
I am glad the weather is better this time of year and the snakes aren't out.
2 last comments. I bet you ate at the Captain D's just to see if it was the coleslaw. I bet you have a rail tie in your car right now.
Have fun and be good or whatever.
Bret
I never knew you were such a lush!
I can't believe Craig knows who Alan Jackson is. I think he's just repeating what he heard other people saying.
And I think I would like a Pink Panty Pulldown, sounds like the perfect ballpark beverage.
Who's Alan Jackson?
Oh yes, I have seen Craig the lush in action a couple of times. Cognac and Oreo's ring a bell? While Bret fell asleep in the before the credits rolled in the first movie we were watching?
I also seem to remember a party I had on our B-day Craig, when we all were still in Lincoln at the Chateu Le Fleur apartments (what a fancy name!!lol). Well I don't really remember much about the party, just that you and I drank a bit because of our birthday. I have pictures of this party somewhere (note to the non Rieckes: Craig and I - his sister-in-law - share the same b-day, granted that he is waaaay older than me, but still the same day).
lisa
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