Saturday, 10 April 2010

At the Crossroads



The Crossroad where Robert Johnson sold his soul in Clarksdale

Last night I recommended Morgan Freeman’s club, Ground Zero. It is a great place but our appreciation of the blues was notched up a number of levels later in that night. We ate at the club and listened to some proficient electric blues for about an hour. Tim was exhausted and went to bed. Hugh and I moved on to an authentic Juke Joint a few blocks away. I can honestly say that it was the most exciting blues night of my life. What the previous band lacked in energy, Robert “Bilbo” Walker made up for it with high-tension buzzing blues. Red’s Blues Club can easily be missed if it wasn’t for the music. The place is falling down with tiles dropping off the ceiling and water leaking when it rains. We just had a ball of a time and poor Tim was awoken by two excited drunken yobs at 2.00 telling him in graphic detail what he missed. The good news is that we have decided to stay another night to see another local blues legend “T Model Ford” at Reds and Hugh and I have hopefully booked Bilbo Walker to come and play at Montgomery Town Hall. Hugh tells me that he could never bring Gill here because of the toilets, as they are quite some feat of medieval plumbing.


Red's Blues Club: an authentic Juke Joint


Robert "Bilbo" Walker at Reds


Bilbo is the handsome one in the middle

Clarksdale is home to 2 excellent Blues Museums that are well worth a visit. Everywhere you go there are hidden memories of the blues. Some are signposted but most are only discovered after talking with those who lived through it all.


Clarksdale's Art Deco Movie House


Sitting outside Ground Zero

The Riverside Inn on 615 Sunflower Inn is just one of these places. Frank Ratliff’s mother bought the Riverside in 1940 and converted it from a Black Hospital to a guesthouse. During its time as a hospital it was renowned as it was here, that the great blues singer Bessie Smith died in 1937. Smith was one of America’s foremost black musical stars at the time. She was injured nearby in a motor accident and brought to the hospital where she died later that night. The room that she died in has been converted to a shrine. Frank (known to all as Rat) who is not in good health has seen the history of modern popular music unfold within his guesthouse. His mother brought up Ike Turner as a young man (He wrote the first rock and roll song “Rocket 88” in the basement), Muddy Waters (a native of Clarksdale) lived there for a while. Howling Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke and many more stayed there on a regular basis and Rat knew them all. Blues aficionados and famous musicians from around the world stay with Rat and his wife and the guesthouse is a sought after place to stay. Rat invited the 3 of us in and spent the next hour telling us his memories and showing artefacts. We saw the rooms that Bessie Smith (not for long), Muddy Waters and others stayed in.

Rat remembers Ike coming back with Tina for the first time and he feels that history has not treated his reputation fairly.

We met a number of people through the day who either played with some of these great names or knew them in other capacities. I fear that memories are disappearing fast and America is not doing enough to defend and preserve its heritage, especially as they have a black president now. There are few blues tourists on this road and one feels that we are part of an unfolding but disappearing story.


The Riverside Hotel with Rat sitting outside

We are off to see T Model Ford this evening. He is in his 80s, Hugh met him today at the Blues and Rock & Roll Museum. On to see Elvis tomorrow in Memphis.

Elvis is alive but now lives in Vagas

1. Robert Bilbo Walker and his amazing Bass player
2. David Dunavent, local DJ playing with Tim



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