Lovin’ the Blues. We are one week into our Memphis to NOLA travels. We started with 3 nights in Memphis - two of which involved enjoying rock and blues at some Beale Street clubs. We did not manage to find good BBQ, but we did have two very nice dinners at some upscale restaurants, The Lobbyist and Flight. Wherever we went, Memphians were friendly and welcoming - not just in restaurants or museums, but also along the river when we strolled through Tom Lee Riverside Park
Speaking of museums, we started with the National Civil Rights Museum that incorporates the Lorraine Motel building where MLK was staying when he was killed. It’s a fine museum that shares history from the slave trade to the civil war, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement, the Memphis sanitation workers strike and beyond. We also went to both Sun Records and Stax records and saw wonderful photos and memorabilia and heard music from Jackie Bernstein and his Delta Cats’ Rocket 88 through Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Booker T and the MGs, Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes. Great fun.
From Memphis, we headed down Hiway 61 by car with a night in Clarksdale, one in Vicksburg and two in Natchez. We delved deeper into music history and the history of America’s original sin. We heard some blues in a Clarksdale dive and spent time in Clarksdale’s Delta Blues Museum and, the next day, in the BB King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola. The BB King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center has more polish and technology with its videos and interactive exhibits than Sun, Stax and the Delta Music Center, but not quite to the same level as Nashville’s National Museum of African American Music that we visited in 2024. Very glad for all that we visited so far on this trip. Each museum and each performance has enriched and reflected on the others.
All four of the music museums share a lot of music history - whether it’s tributes to fellow musicians like John Lee Hooker, Robert Lee Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson I or II, or Bessie Smith, the history of the recording industry and folks like Sam Phillips, Ike Turner, Radio WDIA and Rufus Thomas, and the history of the civil rights movement. Each reflects different facets of the same gem and the lights reflect on one another. The music and musicians reflect their times and the civil rights era.
At the BB King Museum, we saw a photo taken of the courtroom filled with journalists and spectators during the trial of Emmet Till’s slayers. We had stepped into that same, empty courtroom an hour or two earlier as we stopped along the way from Clarksdale to Indianola.
*On to Vicksburg and Natchez *
In Vicksburg, we visited a very moving, privately assembled and owned Civil War Museum. The museum was distinctive in a few ways, including that it is the product of one man’s vision and in that it presents three perspectives of the war and its causes … that of the southern, slave-owning aristocracy, that of the northern supporters of the union, and that of enslaved and formerly enslaved people. We did not make it to the National Parks’ Vicksburg National Military Park. We did see some VERY colourful art based on b&w high contrast photos of Mississippians (including some musicians) at HC Porter’s Gallery.
After Vicksburg, we managed to drive a section of the Natchez Trace Parkway, stop at an old farm and way station along the way, as well as the 500+ year old Native American mounds, and then slide into Natchez for two nights at a B&B located at a nicely restored antebellum mansion with 20+ acres of gardens. We visited a couple of other historic antebellum houses, learned a bit about the successes of Natchez’ civil rights struggles and boycotts in the mid-1960s, and ate more tasty and all-too-rich southern food.
Tomorrow we take in more Natchez Indian mounds and then head to Louisiana’s Cajun country and New Orleans’ French Quarter Festival.