When we travel, we rarely have a “theme” for our trips. Usually, we simply show up in a country or region and explore everything it has to offer. But in summer 2008, we drove through three southern U.S. states (Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana), exploring sites associated with rock-n-roll, blues, and jazz. The U.S. South—known for its warm hospitality, hearty food, and complicated history—has undeniably influenced and defined global music. And we were excited to discover it all.
“Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll!” screamed Julia from the top of her lungs while sticking her head out as our rental car pulled up to the Graceland gates. We kicked off our southern sojourn in Memphis, at the residence and resting place of the king of rock. Neither of us is a big fan of Elvis, but we wanted to learn more about his life, music, and legacy and joined scores of other tourists who roamed Graceland that day. Unlike us, most visitors were fervent Elvis fans and walked around the mansion excitedly pointing at various pieces of displayed memorabilia and Presley’s private jet and limousine. We maintained a healthy dose of curiosity but certainly didn’t lose our minds there. At some point, we even had a brief debate about who had more popularity, fame, and imprint on global music: Elvis or Michael Jackson. Not much of a debate, as we both agreed that Jackson was a clear winner. We also wondered out loud whether Elvis even deserves all the credit, as historians, again and again, point out that he either borrowed or outright stole his style from black musicians. I'm just glad that we were not overheard by Presley’s rabid fans roaming Graceland that day.
Walking through the mansion and looking at all the photos, concert outfits, and golden and platinum records on the walls was interesting, but I couldn't get rid of the feeling of vanity about human life. The mansion was lifeless and like a mausoleum, albeit without the star's body on display. The Bob Marley house that we visited years later in Kingston, despite its austerity and simplicity, had more life than this cold museum of a deceased idol.
The strangest part of the visit was saved for the end when we saw Presley’s grave ... in the backyard of his mansion. It wasn't Presley’s desire or weird fantasy to be buried in his backyard the same way Vietnamese farmers in the Mekong River Delta bury their dead. As we learned, after Elvis was laid to rest in a local cemetery, grieving fans constantly vandalized his grave trying to score a souvenir, and the decision was made to move his remains to Graceland. Also, it's simply convenient for the fans to pay their tribute here, at Graceland, and not aimlessly search for Presley’s grave at a cemetery. I'm looking at you, Jim Morrison (whose grave we couldn't locate even after hours spent at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris).
We finished our day at the legendary Beale Street. Back in the day, it was what Broadway Street in Nashville, on the other side of Tennessee, is now—a place where aspiring musicians come to start their careers. B.B. King performed on Beale Street, as well as Elvis Presley, Robert Johnson, and many, many others. Located at the northern tip of the Mississippi Delta, Memphis was naturally a jumping point for many Delta musicians traveling up north to Chicago, St. Louis, or Kansas City during the Great Migration. Getting success on Beale Street meant commercial success, including potentially signing with the Sun Records Studio, located a few blocks away.
These days, Beale Street is a collection of blues clubs and BBQ restaurants with bright neon signs. Several blues clubs still retain the atmosphere of gritty Southern juke joints, where songs are frequently interrupted by “tip, tip the band” chants from musicians collecting tips. We spent the evening bouncing between clubs, listening to blues, and munching on Memphis-style BBQ.
The following day took us to one of the most enigmatic places in all the United States—the Mississippi Delta. The diamond-shaped region with its natural boundaries in the Mississippi River in the west and the Yazoo River in the east, and with Memphis as the northernmost point and Vicksburg as the southernmost point, is a fascinating place with a distinctive racial and cultural history. Before the Civil War, this fertile region was all cotton fields, the same way cornfields now dominate the infinite horizons of Midwestern states. Here, slaves worked from sunrise to sunset doing backbreaking labor and sang a mix of black spirituals, hymns, and country. The sad music of cotton fields, later transformed and performed mainly with a guitar and harmonica, became known as Delta blues, the earliest form of blues.
Eating a continental breakfast at our motel in Memphis, I closely examined the map of the Delta and every name screamed so much blues history: Indianola (birthplace of B.B. King), Tutwiler (birthplace of John Lee Hooker), Greenwood (where Robert Johnson tragically died of poisoning at the age of 27), and many others.
We then left Memphis and drove to Clarksdale, Mississippi. Those who love blues know the name associated with this little dusty town in the northern part of the Mississippi Delta—McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters. Mr. Waters was born and spent his early years here. He later moved to Chicago, and in the concrete jungles of the Windy City, transformed Delta blues into electric blues, obtaining stardom and influencing musicians across the world, from the Rolling Stones to Jimi Hendrix. Unfortunately, the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale was closed due to a national holiday. But making a pilgrimage to this rarely visited hometown of the father of the Chicago blues was still worth it.
Clarksdale is also the place where one of the most mysterious transactions of all time took place. According to a legend, on a hot Mississippi night, at a crossroad near Dockery Plantation, a young man named Robert Johnson met the Devil. Johnson wanted to be a blues musician, and the Devil gave him guitar lessons here at the crossroads that made Johnson one of the greatest blues musicians of his time. In return, the Devil only asked for Johnson’s soul. This deal is a variation of the Faust legend and an interpretation of African fables that Mississippi slaves had passed from one generation to another. The exact location of the deal is disputed, but nowadays the intersection of Highways 61 and 49, right outside of Clarksdale, is known as the “Crossroads”.
We stopped at the Crossroads. The day was getting unbelievably hot. We got out of the car but could barely breathe. The heat was so intense that it felt like we were already in hell and that the Devil would appear any minute to tell us in person about the deal he made with Johnson here. We quickly snapped a picture of the iconic place decorated with a column with intersecting guitars and continued driving down the Mississippi Delta. As we approached Louisiana, Julia asked me if the transaction was even valid.
“Could Robert Johnson claim duress or an unequal bargaining position to avoid giving up his soul?” Julia asked.
“I don’t know. Everything looks legit to me. Nobody forced Johnson to go to that intersection to make the deal. The transaction was also negotiated at arm’s length. Johnson wanted to be the best blues musician around, and the Devil lived up to his contractual promises. Also, …”
“You realize you are LITERALLY playing a Devil’s advocate right now!”
The last stop on our itinerary was New Orleans. Although we visited it on the Fourth of July holiday, New Orleans is not quite your typical American city. Sitting atop swamps with the colonial architecture of the French Quarter, it hardly feels American. Yet, it gave the world the most American of all music genres—jazz. Jazz is a true embodiment of America. Unlike European classical music with its rigid canons and rules, jazz is all about freedom and improvisation.
Fueled by Hurricane cocktails (another creation of New Orleans), we spent the evening in the French Quarter joyously walking on Bourbon Street in a festive crowd of fellow Americans celebrating the nation’s independence. Instead of bar hopping, we did the most appropriate thing in New Orleans—jazz club hopping. With holiday fireworks loudly exploding in the sky, we simply followed the sound of a trumpet from club to club, taking in wild notes and the atmosphere of each venue. I made a mental note to return to this city for its famous Jazz Festival.
As much appreciation as we discovered for the music scene in the South, one interesting side effect of this trip was the admiration we gained for our home city of Chicago, the current U.S. hotspot for blues and jazz. Many musicians and musical genres that started in the South migrated and flourished in Chicago and became part of our default weekend plans at home. We traveled a thousand miles to learn how special our own home was.
