Clarksdale and the Blues Highway

Remember Ronnie and Tammy from the “King Biscuit” entry (if not, go read that first)? Well, their friendship and generosity extended beyond the days leading up to and including the festival. On Monday following the fest, Ronnie called me to suggest I come over to their place to see if there was room to park my house and stick around for a while. As you can see, not only was there room, but I lived like a king on my own city lot for a week or so!

This put me right near the downtown, blues section of Clarksdale, MS, which if you’ve been keeping up, you realize is the center of a lot of the blues tourism in Mississippi. Now, I’m not saying that I wanted to hang out in “blues tourism”, but once you realize that besides the location, Ronnie was also a source of knowledge about many of the Delta’s artists and attractions, you’ll understand why I was so fortunate to be there! I was able to use this as my base for motorcycle rides and other adventures.

Here are a few pictures I snapped of some of the better known sites.




















On Friday, Ronnie and I went back to Helena and sat in on “Sunshine” Sonny Payne’s, King Biscuit Time, on KFFA! It’s the longest running blues show in the country, and Sonny’s been doing it for the past 54 years! We then stuck around the Delta Cultural Center’s studio for Terry Buckalew’s blues show, where Sunny guests. I’m not sure if it was an honor or not when Terry introduced me on the show as saying “Ronnie and Lon are here in the studio today. Lon showed up for the festival and still hasn’t left.” Yeah, well, like the rest of my friend’s, they’ll learn that an offer to “stay a bit” will be well taken advantage of! (8-)

Of course while in Clarksdale, I caught as much music as I could, including Bill Abel’s show at Ground Zero. Again, Ronnie knows these guys, so was a good source of recommendations of who to see. Here’s Bert Deivert from Sweden on the mandolin and Bill on the guitar.

Here’s Stan Street on the Sax and Mr. Tater joining them for a couple of his songs.





This is Po' Monkey's, one of the last remaining true juke joints in the Delta. The day this picture was taken, as well as the night we went are stories in themself and will have to be a future entry. Lets just say that the inside of the place is just as 'rustic' as the outside, but the people were warm and welcoming.

I enjoyed touring the Delta and again, I can’t thank Ronnie and Tammy and their ‘kids’, Biscuit and Delta, enough for putting up with Coffey and I!
Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Ronnie and Tammy together. This was Ronnie at Po' Monkeys. He was our designated driver, so could only have 1 drink that night.

And here's Tammy, second from the left, at Hopson's Plantation during the Pinetop Perkins Homecoming, along with Deb, Jennifer and Terry, some of their other blues friends they introduced me to.


Life is Good,
New friends are great!
Lon