That's about it

I've now arrived in Gainesville, FL, having spent a couple of days scouting the territory around Panacea, FL.  Glad I stopped in Panacea.  Google can tell you what a place looks like, but it's only going there that tells you what a place feels like.
That idea that you have to go to a place to get a feel for it was really the impetus for the trip down the Blues Highway.  I don't know that I'll be a better player for it, but the pictures in my mind will be different.
Along the way, I learned some things. 
First, and most happily, the blues legacy does live.  The state of Mississippi has belatedly realized that the music is a thing of value.  Mississippi is now the Birthplace of American Music.  Louisiana might take issue with that, but it's good that Mississippi values the history. 
Second, the language of the blues is alive, surviving mass media and other challenges, in people like the owner of the Riverside Hotel and many other people I listened to and talked with.
Third, I knew about the mechanization of agriculture and its effect on the rural population, but I had to go to Mississippi to understand its effects on the people and the music.  In Helena, Arkansas, I was talking to the owner of the Blues Corner.  Looking down the nearly empty street, he said, "Back then, on Saturday, the streets would be so crowded you could hardly get through.  Down here, Cherry Street, it was all white; the next street over, Walnut, all black."  In the small towns, like Tutwiler and Lula and Avalon, I got used to the fact that about 2/3 of the buildings are unoccupied.  Ghost towns.  But, the population back in the blues days was five or even ten times what it is today.  The cotton gin had made cotton the king of crops, but harvesting was done by hand until the mid-'30's.  That population shift made me understand why there could be many, many small jooks out in the country.
Fourth, when you see history being lost, look to local politicians.  Whether it's leveling Storyville or building large casinos right over the top of Tunica, the local folks lean toward 'development' over history.  I guess that's a good thing?
Fifth, there is one and only one breakfast food a national chain motel can't ruin:  sausage.
Thanks so much for traveling with me.  I will keep this blog open for an occasional update.  Sign up for an e-mail 'poke' if you want to continue...

Location:Gainesville FL

Almost the end of the road ... and an admission

A trip with a purpose
I've just finished the first draft of a novel.  It's not precisely about music, but music threads through it. 
I always used to think it a little affected that novelists would say that the characters of a story take it over and tell their own story, but that really is how it happens.  And, at least for me, the characters can't live in a world that I don't understand.  Thus, the trip down the blues highway.
My main character, Joe Mayfield, is drawn to travel the same roads I have just passed over.   He has lost his wife, Cynthia, to cancer.  She loved blues and jazz, and they had always promised each other that they would take some time to follow the blues highway. Now Joe's making the journey alone.  He comes to New Orleans to a little B&B called L'home Joli.  Yesterday, I got a chance to walk the neighborhoods Joe would have been in, and I found a couple of places that are key to the story.
On the Internet, L’home Joli looked just right for Joe’s purpose.  Nine rooms, near the Quarter, but not so near as to be too expensive.  Hard up beside the Storyville district, where so much of the music Cynthia loved came from. Pretty picture of gables, wrought iron, bougainvillea.  However, the Internet had not captured it chief asset, which is its owner, Francine Bilodeau.  Everyone calls her Billie.
“Y’all stayin’ a while?” she said to Joe as he signed the register.
Joe smiled. “Well, a week at least.  Depends on the music.”
“Y’all goin’ to be stayin’ the summer at least if you’re usin’ that measure.” 
Billie is big, amply supplied with all the external aspects that bespeak womanhood.  Some would say oversupplied, but Joe understands from Billie’s confident stance that she would not put much value in such opinions.  She is quite possibly on the far side of 50, hard to tell.  She is, by the precise but never discussed racial accountancy of New Orleans, an octoroon.  She’s wearing a maroon shift with splashes of bright color that almost seem as they’re laughing at you.  Cynthia would have loved it.

L'Home Joli

Here's the house that I think will become L'Home Joli.  Right near Rampart, and truly hard up against Storyville.
In the story, which takes place in 2049 and 2050, Joe is being chased by ... well, it's complicated, and I hope you'll be able to read the story in the future.  Travel by car is less popular than today, one reason that Joe decides to evade his pursuers traveling by car.  Billie gives him instructions to go see her friend Big Al to find a vehicle.
He walks down to Rampart and turns toward Frenchmen Street, following Billie's directions.  He passes a large used car lot, then a smaller one, finally Big Al's … Everyone rides at Big Al’s.  It looks deserted.  He passes it by slowly, checking out the merchandise.  Surely, this must be the place.  But it doesn’t look open.  He walks a half block beyond the lot, trying to decide what to do next.
When he turns back, there is a very large black man leaning on the hood of a '41 Vanola at the front of the lot, sizing Joe up. 
Big Al, and there can be no doubt that this is indeed Big Al, is an imposing figure who carries 270 pounds easily on a six-foot-four frame.  Large features, big hands.  Smile punctuated by a toothpick. One of those rare human beings who can look friendly and terrifying at the same time. 
"Y'all in the market for a fine automobile, son?" 

"Everyone Rides at Big Al's"

And right in the place it would be in the story was my used car place, looking a little tidier than I envisioned, but correctly placed.   Is that luck or serendipity?

The story I'm writing ends in the Panacea, FL, and I'll write one more blog from Panacea before I quit.  Thank you for traveling with me.

Between gigs...

Guitarist at rest

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, when there's a break between sets, you just have to take a nap.  (Louis Armstrong Park, New Orleans)

Storyville, Jelly Roll and the origin of Jazz

 Storyville and Jelly Roll Morton

A former bordello in Storyville

I've always been fascinated by Storyville.  A lot of the music I play originated there, and I wanted to see what's left of it.  The problem is, they leveled it in 1920 or so.  There are only a couple of the original buildings left ... the rest is the Iberville housing project.  The story goes that New Orleans came up with a creative solution to the reality that you really could get anything you wanted ... and a variety of things that would never occur to people just emerging from the Victorian Age ... in the Big Easy.  So the city fathers studied European models and came up with a plan to limit prostitution and associated activities to a 20-block area.  Very progressive, they thought.  That lasted about 30 years, at which point the whole idea of legalized prostitution embarrassed the city powers-that-were, so they shut it down.  (I've noticed throughout this trip that the greatest danger to blues history seems to be tight-sphinctered local politicians.)
Jelly Roll Morton and the origin of jazz

Jelly Roll Morton's childhood home

Ferdinand LaMothe liked to be called Jelly Roll Morton.  He was born in a prosperous neighborhood and was, according to the precise racial accounting then prevalent, a creole.  His house still exists in the 7th ward, surrounded by several structures still unreconstituted after Katrina and a couple that Habitat for Humanity is rebuilding.
Jelly Roll began playing piano in Storyville when he was in his teens and became successful.  He was a dandy, always dressed to the nines, and a self promoter.  He went a little overboard by claiming that he invented Jazz in 1902.  He wasn't far off on the time or the place, just on the claim that it was he who originated the form.
It's impossible to say where exactly the blues was born, but that's not true about the music we call Jazz.  It did originate around the turn of the century, and it was born right in Jelly Roll's neighborhood.
Congo Square

A corner of Storyville that fronts on Rampart Street was called Congo Square.  It was a small park where the black community was free to congregate.  Jazz probably started with the drumming traditions imported from Africa, added instruments as ingenuity and finances permitted.  In a nod to Louis' fame and later 20th Century sensibilities, Congo Square was renamed the Louis Armstrong Park, and it now includes some wonderful artwork celebrating the epicenter of Jazz.

Everything you need

Now, THIS is one-stop living!

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Music

When I first got to New Orleans, I went out on Bourbon Street.   As a result, I was all set to go on a rant about how electricity is going to destroy real music.

 This little clip was taken in the middle of Bourbon Street. There were three bands playing simultaneously, each apparently trying to outdo the other. Two bands up against each other at max volume is cacophony.  Three is just noise. There may be a lot of great musicians in New Orleans, but it's hard to tell on Bourbon Street.

But, then I was glad I held back on the rant the next morning.  For breakfast, I had this gypsy jazz.

By evening, I had a sampling of jazz (with a fine gentleman playing a 7-string bass), zydeco, rock, folk and a wonderful brass band I wish I had a recording of.  Then, for a musical dessert, some Delta Funk like this.  A full and satisfying day.

Jambalaya and the P-word

 I had dinner last night at a little restaurant in New Orleans.  I had the jambalaya, which was delicious, and it got me thinking about politics. 

Specifically, I’d like our congressional representatives to have to have a serving of this excellent dish and to reflect on its composition.  It must have started with the paella that the Spanish brought with them.  The French came later and added their jambon.  But, and here’s the important part for those who represent us in Washington, neither the French nor the Spanish could acquire all of the spices and ingredients they were used to, so they substituted native vegetables and spices. The result was entirely different than what they started with but oh, so delicious.  Even the name, both accurate and artful, combines Spanish, French and (I think) Creole

I’d hope that, in eating the dish, our representatives would contemplate the fact that if the little restaurant I ate in was running like government is today, the proprietor would offer white rice or a slab of ham steak, certainly not both together.  Surely, he would be out of business in short order.  Surely, our representatives would see that the artful combination of diverse elements is the best choice in politics, as in cuisine.  Wouldn’t they?

OK, enough on politics.  Back to the blues ....

Coffee in New Orleans

The Delta has so many good things.  The music, the history, the friendliness of the people.  One thing it does not have is coffee.  I finally descended into the second level of coffee hell and went to McDonald's for my coffee.

Now it's morning, and I'm in New Orleans.

Coffee.
Reach up and slap you mouth coffee
Make a Starbucks barista shed tears of shame coffee
Coffee!

A jook in Tchula

There are a few


of the old jook joints left. Here's one.

Given how et up with anxiety we are here in the US of A about our sovereign right to carry a gun anywhere we please, it's nice to know there are places where we can be free of such cares.


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Parchman Farm

Parchman main gate

Between Clarksdale and Greenwood lies Parchman Farm, part of the Mississippi State Penetentiary.  18,000 acres of prime farmland.  That's a lot of land.  I tried to approach Parchman from the west side and ended up driving about 15 miles to get around to the front gate.

Parchman was established in 1901 and operates today.  In its prime, Parchman was run as a cotton plantation at a profit ... an enormous profit ... for the State.  That may be the reason that it was so very easy to get sent to Parchman if you happened to be an able-bodied black man.  Parchman is important to the blues because it is the source of Library of Congress recordings of the work songs that are part and parcel of the blues.

Greenwood -- Robert Johnson's last gig and John Hurt's home

I went to two grave sites today, two blues legends, both resting appropriately, it seems to me.

Robert Johnson grave

Robert Johnson's last gig was at the Three Forks, a jook on the west side of town.  The jook was destroyed when a tornado hit 60 years ago, but the story of Robert's death lives on in many variations.  Shortly after playing, Robert collapsed and died several days later.  The coroner said syphillis, but the story that survives is that the club owner, whose wife had taken more than a shine to Robert, poisoned him.  There are three Robert Johnson grave sites, but the one likely to be the final resting place is just north of Greenwood.  A modern stone includes a tortured note Robert wrote when he knew he was dying.  If he speaks from the grave, it is a story of torment and of brilliance.

I also visited Avalon, just north and east of Greenwood.  John Hurt lived most of his life in Avalon, farming and playing at parties around the area.  You can hear his love of place in his song Avalon

Avalon is my hometown, always on my mind
Avalon is my hometown, always on my mind
Pretty mama's in Avalon want me there all the time

John Hurt's grave

 John's resting place is not easy to find.  Several miles up a rutted dirt road, in a beautiful private glade. It seems to me an appropriate place for a man who was kind, gentle and private.  And the place is tight, too.  Just on the very edge of the hill country, where the Piedmont begins its rise.  Maybe it's the place that influenced John to play in the the Piedmont style, so dramatically different from the Delta style of the flat land to the west of the hill country.

Anyway, getting there was a worthwhile challenge, as the Element attests

Tutwiler, The Father of the Blues and Railroads

The former Tutwiler train station, including blues murals

The Southern Railroad System, 1921

W.C. Handy was waiting for a train just outside of Clarksdale in Tutwiler in 1903 when he heard a man running a knife along the strings of a guitar and singing about where the Southern crosses the Yellow Dog (the Yazoo and Delta line).  He noted that this music was ‘primitive,’ but his musician’s ear remembered its power.  Because he had musical training, he was able to write in the blues form.  Because the sheet music was only way to sell music before recording was popular, and because Handy was classically trained, he was able to publish the blues form to a wider audience.  Memphis Blues was followed by the more popular St. Louis Blues and Beale Street Blues.

In Handy's time, a person could travel by train within a few miles of almost any destination throughout the South.  Handy was waiting to go over to Arkansas on the day he heard the blues.

The train station at Tutwiler is a memory today.  Dozens of small spur lines like Tutwiler's have been shut down since the ’30’s.  But it was in Tutwiler that the blues form met a musician who could and would introduce it to the rest of the world.

Bessie Smith and the RIverside

Story Telling

Rat sits back and says, "I can tell you the real story of Bessie Smith.  They say she was refused service at the white hospital.  That's not true, because she was brought directly to the black hospital, right where we're sitting now.  Nobody from here would have taken her to the white hospital.  She was hurt bad in the accident, and a doctor came along right after it happened and took care of her best he could.  The doctor's friend went lookin' for a phone, but you know, they were out there near Lula, and it was all sharecroppers at that time.  Very few phones.  So he finally got to a phone, called up the funeral home.  Ambulance didn't go for black folks then, only the hearse.  That way, if they died, only had to make one trip, 'cause they normally didn't have a fancy funeral.  It was a Sunday, so it took a while, and when they got her here, well, there wasn't much they could do."
Rat waves at a neighbor across the street.  I think he knows everyone in Clarksdale.
"Dr. Smith, that found her, was a good doctor.  My Mama's doctor (JR:  not sure whether it was Smith or not, but you don't interrupt a good stream of consciousness)  was a good man, a practical man.  He stuck by that Hippocratic oath, yes sir. Treated every one, no matter what color.  But he was a practical man.  Had a black waiting room on one side, a white waiting room on the other.  But he saw everyone in the same office."
He grips my hand tightly when I say it's time for me to leave.  "You come on back, now.  I'll be here."

The Riverside Robert Nighthawk's suitcase

The Riverside Hotel is full of history.  You don't get your own bath.  You don't get working TV ( the owner, Frank Ratcliff, says "They wanted to charge me $400 per month for cable.  I told 'em to keep their cable and I'll keep my 400.  Nobody comes here to watch TV."  He's right.)  You do get a comfortable bed in a room that's been slept in by Sam Cooke or Muddy Waters or Howlin Wolf or John Lee Hooker. But mainly, you get the historian of the blues, the man who knows how to
spin the facts into stories, Frank, "just call me Rat" Ratcliff.
Ike Turner wrote 'Rocket 88' in the Riverside, and Rat remembers listening to so many greats practicing in the lower level of the hotel.  "I never did play," Rat says, "But I know all the songs."
In the picture, Rat's showing us (me and 4 Harley-riding dudes from the Netherlands) Robert Nighthawk's suitcase.
Rat's mother bought the place in 1944.  Until 1938, it had been the 'blacks only' hospital in Clarksdale.  Rat doesn't know why they closed it, although the false publicity about Bessie Smith's death may have had something to do with the closing.  After its closing, black people had to travel 50 miles to the nearest 'blacks only' hospital.  Rat pondered that for a minute, then said, "Well, segregation wasn't so bad for Mama.  The only hotel that would have all those great musicians was the Riverside, and I met 'em all as a kid."

Jooks

JOOKS          

As a 20th Century city boy, it took me coming here to realize how different the world was in 1920 in the Delta.  In the first place, there were probably five to ten times the number of people in the rural areas.  The gin made cotton profitable, but machinery hadn't yet collapsed the population.  Though sparsely-populated today, the Delta would have been teeming with people then, almost all black sharecroppers. Second, very little of what passes as entertainment to us now or even to city-dwellers back then was available to the rural communities.  That helped me understand why there were dozens, perhaps several hundred small jook joints.  Almost always run by a single family … small places.  The  Poor Monkey is a survivor (though without live music).  It’s about a mile and a half down a rutted gravel road.  But in the 20’s, there were probably plenty of people to make Saturday night profitable, enough money to attract traveling musicians.

If you assume that posted rules and regulations are a result of prior experience that made them a necessity, it's apparent that you can have a pretty good time at the Poor Monkey.

Location:Clarksdale, ms

The Crossroads

The story that Robert Johnson went to the crossroads, met the devil, gave up his soul and became the best guitarist around is so compelling, such a stew of recollection, African tradition, Christian religion and magic, that it is impossible not be fascinated with it.  The story has been aided and abetted by Hollywood (to say nothing of the Chambers of Commerce of several Delta communities) and has become firmly woven into the Delta's fabric.

Kitty Kat, Helena, AK

In reality, Robert died before the legend began to grow.  The Crossroads Blues doesn't mention the deal with the devil.  It is about another subject, one which is not so obvious today.  Robert was trying to make it as an itinerant musician, going from juke joint to house party to the Hirsberg drugstore front steps in Friar's Point, over to the Kitty Kat in Helena.  Most of the places are gone.  The only one I could find was the Kitty Kat.  He had no car, so he had to walk, take one of the many short line railroads that criss-cross the Delta or flag a ride.
He says,
Standin' at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride
No one seems to know him.  Everyone passes him by.  Then he gets to the point of the song:
Mmm, the sun goin' down, boy
dark gon' catch me here
Robert then sings,
You can run, you can run
tell my friend Willie Brown
Lord, that I'm standin' at the crossroad, babe
I believe I'm sinkin' down
Consider a black man standing on a lonely road after dark in the
1920's.  He's asking you to tell his best friend, Willie Brown, that he's gone, that he fears being killed.  He might well be relieved to meet the devil in a situation like
that.  At least you can bargain with the devil.
Now, as to location ...

If there was a grand bargain, it almost certainly not at the crossroad of Hwys. 49 and 61, regardless of how fervently the Chamber of Commerce in Clarksdale wishes it were so.  Too busy, and the crossing where the crossroads sign is erected wouldn't have been there when Robert was travelling the area.  (However, there's a good hot tamale place and a plenitude of souvenirs there.)  Son House thought the intersection was that of Hwy 8 and 1 in Rosedale, probably thinking of of the true meaning of the song and Robert's circuit of traveling and playing.  Finally, there's old Hwy 8 at the Dockery Farms.  This was a large farm, large enough to make a profitable crowd of a Saturday night.  Charley Patton lived there, and most delta musicians performed there.  When we think of the popular version of the crossroad story, we think of the road being a lonely one.  After all, the Devil usually arrives when we are alone with our fears, doesn't he?  Here is the likely old Hwy 8 at Dockery.  Of course, the true place is not known.

Crossroad of Old 8 and Dockery Road, approximately

Religion and older religion
There an African tradition that resonates with the crossroads story.  It is that Legba the trickster god meets you at the crossroad, which is, after all a place of choices.  Later tellings of the story of how Robert learned to play have integrated the African tradition.
Really?
The story is one of many facets, one that allows for delicious speculation.  Robert was a fatalist, and many of his own songs have dark themes.  I think the song was about the prosaic business of being an itinerant bluesman, with a fatalistic ... or in the time he was writing, a realistic ... overlay.

Location:Ruleville, ms

Friday Night in Clarksdale

Friday night.  THE night for music in the delta.  Dinner at the famous Ground Zero Club.  Fried catfish (aw, c’mon … I had a salad for lunch).  Entree course was Reba Russell, a blues shouter from Memphis with a fine, whiskey-enabled, chainsaw voice and a spectacular lead guitarist.  Then, for desert, over to Red’s Place, which was packed for T-Model Ford, probably about 90, and one of the last of the Delta generation.  His playing has suffered from a stroke that affects his right hand, but it didn’t seem to matter.  His 14-year-old great nephew played drums with a sensitivity and style many never master.  T-model started at 9:00 and was going strong at 11:00, when I left.  Old guys get tired, but I guess old bluesmen don’t.  Maybe it was the Jack Daniels that T-Model was sipping between numbers.

Location:Clarksdale ms

My home for the next two days


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Day 4: Stovall & Friars Point

Coming down toward Clarksdale from Helena. Friars Point and the Stovall plantation hold few traces of the famous people that played here. Muddy Waters' original cabin is now a grassy space, although the Stovall plantation, which started in the 1800s, still survives quite successfully is a very large farm.


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Location:Friar's Point, MS

Day 4: Helena

Helena has a great blues Museum. Used to be a wide-open, get-anything-you want kind of place. Home of the King Biscuit Show (see www.kffa.com). Sonny Paine still runs the show, and he interviewed me briefly today




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More on Tunica

Day 3:  More on the top of the Delta

The casinos have created an alternate universe around Tunica.  There is the epicenter of country blues, hiding in plain sight amongst the billboards and the modern buildings.  Out on Casino Strip Resort Blvd., there's the Tunica County Jail, looking mighty small.  Of course, most of the black men went over to Parchman Farm.







Robert Johnson grew up on the Abbay & Leatherman plantation, still a working farm, but smaller than when it supported 850 sharecropper families.  The commissary that Robert's stepfather would have used his scrip in is still there, just east of the Exxon/Checkers Drive-in and still in use.



The casinos have brought wealth to the county.  There are some nice buildings, new schools and a museum.  Hard to tell how much the lives of the 70% of population that were once the sharecroppers have fared.

DAY 3: Memphis to Tunica ... into the Delta

Beale Street at Night

I spent last night on Beale Street.  The picture captures it... bright lights, music.  Heard some good blues/jazz at the Tap Room.  It's a special place for me, because I played there for the 2010 International Blues Challenge.

Rolled out of Memphis this morning, down 3rd street, which becomes Highway 61 south of town.  I was expecting to stop for a picture at Sun Studios.  The place was smothered in tour busses, so I just kept on going.






The Delta really begins in the southern suburbs of Memphis.  After about 15 miles on the modern Hwy 61, I turned off to find Old 61, which is the road the bluesmen traveled and sang about.  The city drops back, and the flat rich alluvial floodplain of the delta takes over.  They're setting out cotton now, tight green shoots already a foot high, reaching off to the horizon.  (Apparently, the lady that swore this was cotton had me pegged as a city boy.  When I got to Greenwood, they showed me cotton, looking more like the brown, scraggly sticks you'd expect as this time of year.)

The plantations in the delta may the first of what we would call agribusinesses today.  Beginning with the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became the staple of the delta.  Extraordinarily rich soil of the delta of the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers allowed huge plantations to rise up.  Where Jefferson and Washington, who were wealthy men, had 300 slaves working and perhaps a thousand acres, Delta plantations were 10,000 acres, land granted by the government in the 1830's by the square mile.  And, though the land was fertile, it was forested.  Big plantations had 5,000 slaves to work 10,000 acres. 
In this technological age, we city folks don’t often think about the fact that farms were the first places automation changed lives and productivity.  By the 1920's and 30's, that productivity had driven many of sharecroppers off the land.

By the 1980's Tunica county was the poorest in the United States.  Tunica came up with a solution, one which shocks the eye after experiencing the miles and miles of cotton fields.  Tunica now advertises itself as the third-largest casino area in the US, after Las Vegas and Atlantic City.  To see this rising out of the farmland is, well, amazing.

Kind of reminds me of my cousin Gamble's description of Disney World:  "A 500 million dollar juke box in the honky-tonk of life.

Blues Highway: Day 2

Day 2 -- Memphis

 WC Handy wrote the Memphis Blues, The Beale Street BLues and the St. Louis Blues in this house.  (For my demonstration of why acoustic players shouldn't use electronic effects, go here and listen to
 "W C Handy's Bad Dream").  Anyway, W C Handy is arguable the 'father of the blues' not because he was the first to play blues but before recording was common, music was sold as sheet music, and WC Handy was trained in music and could render his ideas in a musical score.  More on Handy when we get to Tutwiler.

Started -- Day 1

 Highway 61 is called the Blues Highway for the fact that it runs along the Mississippi and was the main north-south path for the musicians that traveled around the Delta.  In reality, it starts north of the twin cities, and I could have followed it down the river.  I opted for speed, and picked up Hwy 61 about 20 miles outside of Hannibal.  Tomorrow, I'll get to Memphis, the top of the Delta and the funnel through with the country blues players passed on their way North.

Getting Ready

I’m not quite started my the trip down the Blues Highway yet.  Here in Minneapolis, ‘blues’ reminds one more often of subzero temperatures (except this year) than the first true American music.  When we hear blues today, it is usually modern, electric Delta blues, incubated in the first third of the 20th Century in the 100-mile stretch of flat country running along the Mississippi from Memphis south to Vicksburg, MS and refined in Chicago.  My trip, starting Tuesday, will take me through many of the legendary towns of the delta, places like Tutwiler, Clarksdale, Greenwood, Helena, Avalon and several of the places that claim to be the crossroads where Robert Johnson tendered his soul to the Devil. In Avalon, where John Hurt lived, I’ll rub elbows with the southwestern edge of the Piedmont.  I play that Piedmont style more often than others.   Then I’ll be on to New Orleans and Storyville that gave us the more sophisticated, jazz-flavored blues of New Orleans blues that white audiences heard well before Delta blues, back in 1910 − 1920, from Ma Rainey, Jelly Roll Morton and Bessie Smith.

Anyway, I’m excited to start!  I hope you’ll join me.