It's Time for the King Bisquit Flour Hour!

Let's see......time to play catch up. 

Loved Memphis.  Beale St., music - everywhere. 

We went to Graceland, Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.  Paid our respects to Elvis.  It was awesome and moving.  Tour was great - we loved it.  Could feel Elvis all around us - made him more real.  However, there were no sightings. 

There was a riverboat tour on the Mississippi and finished the afternoon with a walk down the street where  Martin Luther King led his last march that took him to the Lorraine Hotel.  This is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum.  Although we didn't go into the museum, the site where he was assassinated was sobering. 

Monday AM we were on the road again, this time to Helena, Arkansas.  The main street is like a trip back in time.  They were preparing for a big blues festival this coming weekend - expecting 100,000 people!  In this little town!!!  Some festival goers were already arriving and beginning to set up campsites around the area.  There are big headliners expected - BB King, Dr. John, Taj Mahal.  And - the concert is free!  Making plans to get back for next years' festivities.  Memphis, Helena, Clarksdale.  Yeah baby!

While in Helena we paid a visit to the King Bisquit Flour Hour Blues Show.  This show has been on the radio for the past 60 years with the same dj.  He had great stories to tell about Riley (aka BB King) and some of the old blues singers.  We sat with another couple from Woodstock, NY.  He told everyone he had visitors that day, read our names off, asked us questions on the air and then had me read an advertisement.  It was wicked fun! 

Moving along........back across the Mississippi and on the road through the Delta once again.  Stops were made at Dockery Farm which is thought to be the birthplace of the blues and a place where Charlie Patton played on a regular basis, and then the old site of the Peavine Railroad.  The Peavine is the vehicle with which many of the early blues dudes and dudettes moved around the Delta. 

The Delta is a flat, open, desolate place.  But, having experienced it, we now understand how the Blues was born.  I heard someone say in a video the other day while at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale that the blues was the reward for the sacrifices the people made after toiling so hard out in the fields.  We've seen those cotton fields.  Can't even imagine.....

I don't think P and I will ever listen to the Blues again without having an "attitude".  There is something rich, deep and emotionally moving about being here.   We have met  people - like Mary Shephard at the BBKing Museum who was the queen of the jukes, or the woman sitting around the campfire at Tallahatchie Flats who went to Chico State (P's alma mater), or the woman in the shop in Helena who told us Bill Clinton stories (she knew him), or Sunshine Bob at the radio show.............  At times it has been deeply moving and humbling.  Feeling the struggle of the southern blacks and what they have endured - and continue to endure - although it is better - but only a little.  Hearing stories from the waitress in a restaurant in Greenwood about how she lives in a town where blacks are not welcome, and sends her children to a private school (as most whites do) because public schools are black schools.  Standing in front of where Martin Luther King was shot.  Coming out of BB King's museum tour and feeling so emotional about his story that I sat with Mary Shepard and cried.  People here - black and white - have welcomed us, been friendly and kind.  And don't forget - we are clearly northerners.  They still flying the Confederate flag.

I dare say that our time here will stay with us for a very long time.  No regrets about this trip - except maybe that it would have been nice to have one more day in Memphis!

And ok - can't leave the Delta without saying that, although our cholesterol levels may be up or we have added a pound or two, we freakin' love that barbecue!!!!!!!!  Everyday I've been grateful that I was not a vegetarian at this moment in time!

Today is a rest day in Vicksburg.........tomorrow IT'S ON TO LAFAYETTE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peace, Love and Barbecue
(now I know why Marcia Ball sings this song!)

Barbecue is becoming a religious experience

On the move today. Destination Clarksdale - and Abe's barbecue. Now we thought this trip was about music. Yeah right. P is on to the tamales. My thing is the barbecue. Good thing neither of us is a vegetarian.

Will be looking to detox after this trip.

We left Greenwood learning that Robert Johnson probably expired in one of the neighboring cabins. Some previous travellers had sightings of people who were not paying visitors. I laid awake all night. Good thing we ht the road.

We are happy to be in Clarke

standin at the crossroads of rts 49 and 61. Visited the Delta Blues Museum. Tonight music at Ground Zero Blues Club and this wicked funky place called Red's. We feel like our trip so far this week has laid the groundwork to appreciate the music. The blues has taken on a new meaning. It has become way more than just music.

P is feeling much better today. We found coffee!

Tomorrow we have a date with Elvis! It's on to Memphis and Beale St.

Peace, Love and Elvis Presley

Now we know why they moved to Chicago

Well here we are deeeeep in the Delta. All I can see in front are miles of cotton fields. Robert Johnson is lying in rest several hundred yards. One of his graves anyway. There are two more. this one is supposed to be the real one. Today we visited BB King museum in Indianola. At the same it was entertaining, it was also sobering. I get now why this music was so packed with emotion. The black people here have struggled for a long time - and even though it is better, there is still a long way to go. There is a lot of poverty. It is also desolate, dry, flat and the energy is flat.

There has not been any music which we are both disappointed about. Tomorrow we move on to Clarksdale and tomorrow night Ground Zero Blues Club.

This has, however, been a foodie trip. Tamales, sweet tea, hushpuppies, catfish,barbeque. But - no coffee to be found. They just don't drink it. This has been a challenge for P creating the nasty caffeine withdrawal headache. I also think she might be getting of dragging her through cemetaries to visit dead people. Too bad they can' play a little when you drop a trinket on the headstone!

Anyway, hopefully the verizon techie helped me work out the bugs with this bberry and some photos will show up. So until next we will sign off as the bluesin, dancin, foodin northern belles.



Peace, love and robert johnson

S and P

"Maam, are yawl both ovah fifty faahv?"

While experiencing some "technical difficulty" with the Crackberry - I mean Blackberry - this will have to be a a checkin minus the exquisite photos.  In lieu of that I will make an attempt to define our first day. 

P tells me that this is a music trip - and not a foodie trip - but, we are in the land of cotton - and old times here are not forgotten.  Having lived briefly in South Carolina, hushpuppies, grits, catfish, sweet tea and cornbread have already hit the plate.  Moving on.......

Quick stop in New Orleans to celebrate our arrival.  Delish beingets (may have butchered this) and coffee at Cafe DuMonde and then it was back to the car.  (Insert imaginary pic here - parking ticket).  Evidently we parked in a handicap zone (which we did not see - maybe because our handicap is our age?).  After this surprise we hit the road driving on to Mississippi.  When we saw the sign (insert photo here) which read "welcome to Mississippi" - someone told them we were coming and wrote "we've been warned about you two.  Every hoochie coochie man with no teeth (have you ever seen those old blues singers?) is on the lookout and ready to run fast!" 

After a check between the matress for bedbugs (not here) it was off to snoring for P and another two hours of figuring out how to get the Blackberry to work, it was off to sleep. 

Today, Greenwood and our search for the real grave of Robert Johnson.  Time to hit the road..........................

almost!

Making piles, checking weather forecasts. Looks like Greenwood will be around 80. Goodbye autumn. Hello summer! 

Books and DVD's have been examined closely.  We've done our homework for this adventure.  After months of planning, we (Susan and Phyllis - hereinafter known as S & P) are almost ready to board the plane - destination New Orleans.  Route - New Orleans to Rt. 61 - The Blues Trail - through Mississippi, into Memphis and then back to Louisiana for dancing, gumbo and drive-thru diaquiri bars.  Stay tuned...........