CLARKSDALE: Dirt Poor Mississippi City Is Rich In Musical History - The Birthplace Of The Blues

all right everybody i am in clarksdale mississippi a city rich in history deep in the heart of the mississippi delta now a little bit about the delta it is a flood plain that runs alongside the mississippi river it's about 200 miles long it goes from memphis south down to vicksburg it's very rich in agriculture the mississippi and its uh tributaries the streams and creeks at times will overflow into this low low-lying area and deposit silt and nutrients and when they recede what you have left is some of the most fertile ground on earth now was primarily used for cotton in the uh late 1700s early 1800s a lot of slaves from africa were brought here to pick the cotton it was a tough life um even after they were freed a lot of uh barriers were put in place for the former slaves to buy land or own land they ended up basically just uh being hired to pick cotton it was a hard life a rough life and uh something beautiful came out of it blues the blues music they would um they would express their frustration and hardship in the music and blues was born and many considered this town clarksdale to be the birthplace of it some legendary blues musicians came from this town and um we're going to check that out over the next few days right now i'm driving directly into downtown clarksdale so i'm going to explore it and tell you a little bit about it get out on foot then as usual i will check out some of the neighborhoods in the area and then later i will bring my wife in and we're going to see some of the sites together and listen to some blues music but i am driving down downtown clarksdale right now [Music] uh tremendous amount of history already seeing a lot of artwork it's pretty amazing i believe yeah here it is the ground zero blues club this is considered one of the finest blues facilities in the united states it's co-owned by morgan freeman so we will be going here later today hopefully to hear some really good blues music it is saturday so we expect to and uh really looking forward to it but right now i'm gonna park somewhere and take a look of the city center on foot all right so uh yeah i'm on delta avenue now i'm going to explore it in depth the artwork is just everywhere it's very quiet it's uh 9 45 a.m on a saturday it will be busy later today there are a lot of people in town it was pretty tough to get a hotel room [Music] but yeah i'm seeing a lot of artwork already it's pretty striking it's all over the city or at least the downtown i'm going to take a look at it here and there the city of clarksdale has 14 400 people so it's not a huge city yeah now you'll notice the city is overwhelmingly run down it's kind of uh what gives us its charm uh kind of like new orleans you know you go into the french quarter but a lot of music is played here especially on the weekends some of the greatest musicians and blues came from here mighty waters sam cook ike turner robert johnson just to name a few a lot of the great musicians in our history elvis presley of course hank williams johnny cash you listen to some early beatles and rolling stones you will hear the blues in their music rock and roll uh is basically just where white artists reinterpreted blues and um well the rolling stones for instance took their name from a muddy water song called rolling stone it's kind of fascinating being here read so much about it in history anyway i'm going to uh explore a little further show you some more here's some of the really interesting artwork that you see just everywhere here dicks mississippi saxophones and blues emporium yeah we'll visit here later oh wait a minute oh that's not good you hate to see that [Music] yes more of the artwork recently uh usa today published an article listing what they considered to be the 10 most historic towns and cities in the united states clarksdale was ranked number seven and i'll put a link to that article in the field below but yeah a lot of history here this is um widely regarded as one of the top blues venues in the entire world so i'll be bringing my wife in later today and we're gonna go check it out it is a saturday so we expect to hear some good music later today yeah best blues club ranks ground zero the number one blues club in america voters travel guide ranks clarksdale home of ground zero number one music city that is at nashville so i guess that means it's number two [Music] but you can see the vibe of the building is very much in line with the rest of the city the look of it anyway yeah look at it while it's quiet we'll be coming here later it'll probably have tons of people then anyway right across the street here see a couple of cadillacs that i don't think operate huge mural and they got the delta blues alley cafe which is itself legendary known for this uh this cadillac that's parked in front of it you can see a million pictures of it delta blues alley blues blues land okay yeah how about that huh i might try to check this place out too it's not open yet now my street off delta avenue and i'm on yazoo avenue now look at this great old clock here real old buildings not sure if they're even being used kind of looks like they're closed walk down the street here a little bit [Music] that doesn't look open does it paramount glass knocked out up here this is not a rich town i'll talk about that later or let us say it's not rich economically terms of history culture and music though this is a very wealthy town yeah sam cook legendary musician was born here in this town [Music] across the street here is the hooker hotel it's not named for what you might think initially it's named after john lee hooker one of the legends and blues music in the rock and roll hall of fame very influential musician now um clarksdale is uh built on the banks of the sunflower river i think we can see it right up here i'm gonna walk over here and check it out all right sunflower river walk yeah i can see the river here this is actually fourth of july weekend and it's hot it's about 10 in the morning and i'm already overheating a little bit so i'm gonna have to get in the car pretty quick get another look here though it's really quiet still now there's ground zero there now they got a sign here set up for pictures i'm guessing instagram and the like this is the back of it there keeping with the vibe of the town basically being run down but recognizing the beauty in it which i very much do [Music] yeah for me there is a beauty in this it's almost as good of you this way isn't it looks like an old theater huh looks like they play some live music there and there too buster's down home blues interesting i am uh going to head into some neighborhoods next just taking a look at some of the city here it's really interesting isn't it all right this is the devil's crossroads the story is that legendary bluesman robert johnson early in his career was playing some guitar at a juke joint near here in clarksdale and uh another one of the great bluesmans of the time sun house heard him play and said he's got some ability but his guitar plane is not that good so robert johnson embarrassed left town and later around midnight found himself at this spot which at the time was well there was nothing here certainly not a church fried chicken but while he was here at midnight in a place where there was no one else suddenly a man walked up to him a mysterious man asked for the guitar he tuned it played a few tunes handed it back to robert johnson and from that day forward robert johnson's guitar playing was legendary and it is said that he made a deal with the devil to become so good at playing guitar and to this day the circumstances of his death are mysterious and no one knows exactly where his body is he has three tombstones in three different cemeteries in three different towns and uh of course that just all adds to the legend now i'm showing you abe's barbecue it's supposed to be some of the best food in town but anyway yeah i had to come here of course a lot of business has sprung up in this once quiet corner crossroads but yeah there it is the legend of the devil's crossroads is a a poor city um the poverty rate is almost 39 38.7 that is astonishingly high uh the u.s average is around 11 so what is that two and a half times the u.s average the median household income here is thirty thousand six hundred the u.s average is sixty seven thousand a little over so uh the average income here is half of what it is on average in the united states the per capita income is 17 900 versus 35 800 on average in the us um so again about half this is a very poor town very poor but as i said earlier it's wealthy in other ways culture musical history when you look at those things this is a really uh really wealthy city small city so i'm just going to drive around a little bit and see what we see okay so yeah i'm just going to drive around a little bit here get you a feel of the town yeah i see a lot of this very much in the deep south wow huh we're right in the city an old beat up street with the trees the canopy of the trees it's kind of beautiful isn't it wow at the railroad tracks here to the right it's about 95 degrees yeah i am in the deep south this is it i'm just driving down the street a couple of the neighborhoods here wow that house is going back to nature isn't it this is pretty cool huh looks like a little impromptu flea market people selling some goods right out of their car yeah this is everywhere that's downtown up that direction now while there are a lot of pockets of poverty there are some beautiful homes here too i'm driving right into them old classic homes now look at that that is something and this one too very southern with the big porches yeah these are some beautiful houses holy cow look at that it's gorgeous so clarksdale does have its beauty too as far as homes are concerned not to say that clarksville doesn't have its own style of beauty which i believe it does even the uh areas of poverty have a certain kind of beauty to them okay so i haven't been on the other side of the sunflower river yet so i'll go take a look let's get a view of the river itself and there it is it's beautiful isn't it that's really beautiful let's see what we can see over here looks like we've got some businesses over here yeah looks like it's just mostly residential i think these homes are all empty here all right um i'm going to end this part of the video here i'm going to go back to the hotel pick up the wife and we are going to come back into town and check out some of the sites listen to some music hopefully just getting an eye full of everything and this is the other side of morgan freeman's club anyway okay yeah so i'm gonna go get her we're gonna check out some music etc show you some more uh in the meantime i've gotten a drone shot of the city so uh take a look at that first and then uh the part of the video where we're together we'll be coming up right after that [Applause] [Music] well we're at the uh hopson commissary it's supposed to be a cool place to come to commissionery oh commissary okay hopson commissary doesn't look like it's open though does comments there it says commission hold on that's commissary i would just say commissary sorry yeah i've read something else on here i guess we're not going to go here then yeah we'll head into uh on into clarksdale looks like it would be kind of cool if it were open yeah we'll head into clarksdale and go check out some of the uh places there on delta avenue but yeah i want to take a look at these these are hotel rooms it's little shacks isn't that cool looks like some people stay in long term in them but yeah all these little shacks out here wow it looks like the uh what do you call those uh silos little mini silos or hotel rooms too i just asked you that well i didn't see them i see them now i guess you rent these obviously i don't think you rent them long term i think it's basically like a hotel room they're pretty cool though aren't they no this is good that's scary yeah not that one yeah look see that funny yeah i i bet you that the poor people actually live around here they get a big chuckle out of the fact that people like to pretend to be poor and pay for it yeah that's what it looks like isn't it come on it's supposed to be pretty cool though jeez wow all right well we're gonna head on into town and uh see if we can find some cool blues music for the night's over okay we're here on delta avenue in clarksdale i'm going to take another look around we went to the delta blues museum and they don't allow photography so not going to be able to see that in this video can't really do a video if you can't show pictures and and video can you suppose not so yeah cat head delta blues folk art so let's go in there i'll just follow you [Music] i hope it's open i think it isn't that that was going to be that scared me for a second it's not open yeah it's not open saturday 11 to 5. wow it's like 5 30. well that's two things we missed okay well that sucks didn't see this earlier though huh leaves this guitar setting out here well i guess we'll go to ground zero right up the street there is morgan freeman's club blues club let's go hear some music huh okay cool are we gonna go in ground zero blues club clarksdale this is the uh place to be here one of the top rated blues venues in the world and i can let's go in so you have a drink [Music] but [Music] this [Music] [Music] i'm in the bathroom now i normally don't feel the insides of bathrooms but look at this wow people have written everywhere that is something you can't even see in the mirror that's covered with stuff wow yeah that's pretty awesome you're gonna eat some boston butt yeah that's what i was thinking [Music] boston uh barbecue butter [Music] okay we're outside of ground zero now they don't have a band playing for another hour or so so we're going to take a look around i mean there's a cat here don't let her walk in front of us hey meow she's friendly hey blacky oh don't let her walk in front of you oh you got bad luck now oh my god you're in trouble now you're such a dork that cat does not look hungry though all right we're going to go into red's lounge across the street here [Music] for real juke joint i'm gonna check it out well that was an interesting place the red's juke joint had a cold beer and uh it's pretty good music but we're gonna head back to morgan freeman's place now now look morgan freeman has this little placard here cool all right so we're gonna be here the rest of the night i'm gonna hear some live blues music [Music] all right we are uh leaving the blues club had a good time we did it was fun yeah it's about uh it's almost nine o'clock at night while it's still not super busy here it's still a fun place really like clarksdale mississippi i want to ride in that car yeah this place finally opened look at that yes anyway let's get out of the road honey somebody trying to back up anyway uh we enjoyed clarksdale this is the end of the video while it's nobel street i mean look in memphis it's still a lot of fun and uh morgan freeman's club there is awesome you see it right there so uh that's it be looking for the next video shortly good night yeah [Music] you

Channel: Joe & Nic's Road Trip

Views: 161,480

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Id: f_SIHWJTyuY

Length: 33min 50sec (2030 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 04 2022