the Blues
You can listen to the blues anywhere, but in the Delta, you can experience the blues with your whole being. The sound of live music drifting out from the front porch of a roadhouse into a wide Delta sky. The heat of a juke joint crowded with people dancing. The crunch of dirt under your feet at the grave of Robert Johnson. The feel of vintage vinyl under your fingers at Cathead Records.
In the Delta, the blues is everywhere, not just in your headphones or your car stereo. Sure, that's a great place to start, but let the blues inside you and you'll feel the roots of American music, not just hear it.
BLUES MUSIC IN THE DELTA
The blues is a sound that’s about more than just catchy rhymes and rhythm. It’s a language all its own. A confession, a plea, an outcry, a raw style of conversation born from cotton fields, poverty, hard lifestyles and hope.
For more than a century, the Mississippi Delta has been the emotional heart of it all. More famous blues musicians have come from this area than any other region (or state for that matter) combined. Today, you can still feel that authentic vibe of Mississippi Delta blues history.
From birthplace homes to the gravestones of legends, a road trip through the Delta will open your eyes to the people, places and energy that inspired the sounds of rock n' roll, soul, jazz, country music and some of the most famous blues musicians known to man.
Download the Mississippi Blues Trail app and make your trip down the trail even more memorable. The Blues Trail app points you to markers, helps you create a custom itinerary with turn-by-turn directions, and lets you download blues classics via iTunes as you stand knee-deep in the cotton fields where the songs were born. The app even connects you with films and recordings that bring the blues to colorful life.
Once again, the guitars moan and the voices croon, staging a private concert for you as you travel the trail.
BLUES TRAIL
For more than a century, the Mississippi Delta has been the emotional heart of it all. More famous blues musicians have come from this area than any other region (or state for that matter) combined. Today, you can still feel the authentic vibe of Mississippi Delta blues history.
From birthplace homes to the gravestones of legends, a road trip through the Delta will open your eyes to the people, places and energy that inspired the sounds of rock n' roll, soul, jazz, country music and some of the most famous blues musicians known to man.
A marker in Clarkdale recalls Ike and Tina Turner, another in Dockery asks if this is the place where the blues was born. There are TK markers in the Delta, every one worth a stop, every one retelling the story of how the blues started right here in the Delta and change the course of American music.
Download the Blues Trail app -- it's free but you might want to check your data plan, because there's a lot of good stuff in there -- and make your trip down the trail even more memorable. The Blues Trail app points you to markers, helps you create a custom itinerary with turn-by-turn directions, and lets you download blues classics via iTunes as you stand knee-deep in the cotton fields where the songs were born. The app connects you with films and recordings that bring the blues to colorful life. Once again, the guitars moan and the voices croon, staging a private concert for you as you travel the trail.
ULTIMATE BLUES ROAD TRIPS THROUGH THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA
Even the heat of summer can't beat the coolness of the Mississippi Delta. When you embark on your backroads adventures through the Delta, you'll discover the humble beginnings from which much of American culture originated.
BRIDGING THE BLUES
"The Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg." -- David Cohn, Where I Was Born and Raised.
It makes sense that Bridging the Blues, the annual festival of Delta music, art, and more, marks it's north end in Memphis and, on the south end, in Vicksburg. In between there's Ground Zero in Clarksdale -- where maybe Robert Johnson traded his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to throw down some blues on his battered guitar.There's the King Biscuit Festival across the Mississippi in Helena, Arkansas. And there are dozens of venues in between.
It's all tied together for Bridging the Blues, a regional festival where you can see a 16 year old guitar prodigy make his guitar wail from the front porch of a roadhouse, or catch a national act on a big stage backed by the Mississippi River.
Learn all about it -- and make your plans to head to the Delta -- on the Bridging the Blues facebook page.