Monday, April 28, 2008

Something about the Delta 2004

Something about the Delta
Originally published 6/6/2004

I’m back from a week in Charleston (South Carolina, not Mississippi) and I had a wonderful time. It’s a very historic and cultural city. Small but growing quickly, rather cosmopolitan compared with any town in Mississippi (even Jackson). Yet it’s still Southern, in the nice sense. People are friendly and barbecue is good. There’s even quite a bit of blues.

But still…there is something about this part of the South over here, the Delta. The shuttle driver, from Memphis airport to parking lot, was playing BB King on the van stereo. And in the car I turned on the radio and heard Big Joe Williams. Then a few days later I played at a blues brunch at Ground Zero, Morgan Freeman's club in Clarksdale. Morgan was not there (although I have met him there before). But lots of other interesting people were: a film crew doing a documentary on hot tamales (afterwards, out front, I played on their pre-film, the footage they’re gathering to seek funding for the real film). Gypsy, a Japanese bluesman who visits three or four times a year, and leaves his guitar at the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale between visits. He doesn’t speak much English (although he does sing in accurate but accented English), but he kept saying "I'm so lucky" when he saw that I would be playing. Sweet guy. Three charming middle-aged black women from San Francisco, who left the husbands home and came here to do the blues tour. They already had the first edition of my book as their guide but they each bought a copy of the new one from me, from the stage. I even met an artsy-hippie-biker couple who just moved here from Florida, and it turns out the guy is originally from my hometown, Rochester. Everything happens in the Delta, and everyone comes here!

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