Where the Southern Cross the Dog

Memphis, TN - Clarksdale, MS

Miles: 76.8
This particular leg begins the real down-home roots portion of the drive. We left Memphis in the morning, heading down Highway 61 towards Clarksdale, Mississippi and the center of Blues folklore. And let me say that the Delta is nothing if it's not flat. About two miles after we crossed the border into Mississippi there was a slight dip in the road, and we didn't go uphill ever again after that. Clarksdale is where Route 61 and Route 49 cross, and supposedly where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil for his guitar talent. As with most legend, there is disagreement about the 'facts' surrounding this bit of music history. Dad says the real crossroads are where the 'Southern cross the Dog', as sang the unnamed bluesman that WC Handy encountered at a rail station in Mississippi. The Southern and the Yellow Dog were rail lines in the early part of the 20th century.

We arrived in front of the Blues Museum about an hour and a half later, after driving through part of Clarksdale that looked like a time warp. The signs that are still in tact are in 1950s and 1960s lettering, and the storefronts are rundown versions of what you see in old movies. Clarksdale is not on the road to anywhere, so our being from Rhode Island and DC was taken with a small amount of shock. The Blues Museum is a pilgrimage. People go there from as far as we came to be in the company of the inspirations of the great bluesmen. There are no restaurants, no hotels, only the blues. Had we stayed longer, I would have gone to Sarah's Kitchen or Red's Lounge, where locals still play sometimes or at least the bartenders can tell you what it was like growing up when the blues was the pulse of this little town. What is left of Clarksdale is an example of the many forgotten corners of America, but from what I could tell, the people are proud to live in the cradle of the Delta blues.

Photography was not allowed inside the museum and there were no postcards of any of its famed items so you will have to take my word for what was there. I suppose this is an appropriate way to tell a story that is steeped in its own legend. Muddy Waters was the museum's focus; his cabin dominated the end of the long room. Also housed there was a guitar which he once broke over the head of a man in a bar fight and then sold to get out of town quickly. The guitar found its way back home. Another guitar was fashioned from boards of Muddy's cabin that was partially destroyed by a tornado. ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons had the guitar made and it travels the country to raise money for the museum. Rather than paint it blue, for the Blues, he had it painted white with a winding blue line down the neck and around the body, representing the Mighty Mississippi.