Experiencing Blues at the Crossroads: A Place-Based Method for Teaching the Geography of Blues Culture

Abstract

This article offers a pedagogical module that explores the geography of blues culture across the Mississippi Delta. By focusing on blues culture, rather than simply blues music itself, this project provides a forum for understanding the broader geographical conditions from which this musical form emerged. This module utilizes place-based methodologies and musical expressions as lenses to understand the influences that migration and cultural diffusion have had on the evolution of Delta blues. The impacts these processes had on diffusing African cultural legacies and setting the stage for the evolution of the civil rights movement are considered.

Key Words:

• Mississippi Delta
• cultural geography
• migration
• music
• cultural diffusion

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

The author thanks anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. The author acknowledges the assistance of Dr. Luther Brown and Lee Aylward of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning, whose selfless efforts to promote the heritage of the Mississippi Delta continue to facilitate the educational endeavors that drive this work. The author also offers sincere thanks to Dr. Wally Barnes, Dr. Alan Marcus, David Strait, and all other Delta colleagues for their friendship and for their assistance in the field. Finally, the author is extremely grateful to Ava Fujimoto-Strait, Prezley Earle Strait, Memphis Rei Strait, and Booker T. Strait for all of the insights and support they provide.

Notes

1. These teaching modules broadly focus upon a variety of blues-influenced musical forms. Designating music blues-influenced is somewhat of an arbitrary exercise, but these modules primarily emphasize the following musical genres: rural blues, urban blues, gospel, rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm & blues, soul, rock, and country music.

2. The Mississippi Delta responsible for Delta blues is technically not a true delta in the geomorphic sense—meaning the region is not a depositional feature formed where a river flows into a larger body of water. Thus, the region should not be confused with the Mississippi River Delta, some 300 miles south where the Mississippi river runs into the Gulf of Mexico. The Delta discussed here refers to the distinct northwest section of the Mississippi that represents the alluvial plain that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. At times this article follows the Mississippi tradition by simply referring to the region as the Delta.

3. Field excursions are either scheduled in the summer, prior to the fall semester, or during spring break. Given the extensive contact time associated with field excursions, classroom meeting are either scheduled over a ten-week semester, or involve weekly meetings of two hours during a fifteen-week semester. Students are financially responsible for room and board during the field excursion, and are also expected to financially contribute to the costs associated with scheduled musical performances. The university typically pays transportation expenses and any museum fees associated with the field experience. Assistance with the field excursion is provided by the Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. The Delta Center is particularly helpful when it comes to scheduling visiting lecturers and providing classroom space and facilities needed during the field experience.

4. “Cross Road Blues” is a song written and originally played by Delta blues singer Robert Johnson. It was released on a 78 rpm record by Vocalion Records in 1937. Eric Clapton and his band Eric Clapton's Powerhouse also recorded a version of the song in 1966. The most famous version of the song, “Crossroads,” was recorded live by Clapton's band Cream in 1968 at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, California. In arranging this version of the song, Eric Clapton also borrowed and incorporated two lines from Johnson's “Traveling Riverside Blues,” a song originally recorded in 1937.

5. Somewhat of a competition exists in the Delta among different communities claiming possession of the crossroads made famous by the Johnson myth. A popular tourist destination is located in Clarksdale at the intersection of the Delta's two major highways, 49 and 61. Yet the town of Rosedale hosts the annual Crossroad Blues Festival, an event organized by the community's Crossroad Blues Society (Cheseborough 2009). Interestingly, Rosedale's claim is partially based on the fact the town is mentioned in the lyrics of “Crossroads,” Cream's cover version, rather than Johnson's original song.

6. Dockery Plantation itself receives considerable attention during group visits to the region. This plantation is introduced as a cultural icon of the Delta, as it vividly symbolizes the significant role that cotton has played in the region. Aside from Charlie Patton, the list of blues musicians who stayed or played here at some point in their life include Eddie “Son” House, Robert Johnson, Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, Roebuck “Pops” Staples, Chester “Howlin’ Wolf” Burnett, and David “Honeyboy” Edwards. As described by B. B. King, the man acknowledged as the contemporary King of the Blues, “if you had to choose one place as the birthplace of the blues, you might say that it started right here” (Good Morning Blues1979).

7. When Alan Lomax and John Work first met Waters on Stovall Plantation in 1941 they recorded a song entitled “I Be's Troubled” for the Library of Congress. Following his migration to Chicago Waters recut the song in 1948 for Aristocrat Records and it was renamed “I Can’t Be Satisfied.” In 1965 the English rock band the Rolling Stones released their own song for Decca that was strongly influenced by this Waters tune, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” In 2000 this Rolling Stones song was listed number 1 on VH1's list of its “Top 100 Greatest Rock Songs.” That same year the song was listed number 2 in a similar list jointly compiled by Rolling Stone Magazine and MTV.

8. “Hoochie Coochie Man” was written by Willie Dixon and was first released by Chess Records in 1954. “Louisiana Blues” was written by Waters himself and released by Chess Records in 1950.

9. “Rollin’ Stone” was written and recorded by Waters for Chess in 1950, and is the song that inspired the name for the British rock group the Rolling Stones.

10. The Beatles, the British band that influenced America more than any other, were not as musically influenced by Muddy Waters as were other British bands. However, during an interview when they first came to America they told reporters that one of the first things they wanted to do was see Muddy Waters. When one reporter asked: “Muddy Waters …Where's that?,” Paul McCartney laughed and said, “Don’t you know who your own famous people are here?” (Hall 1998, 561).

11. The song “The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll. Pt. 2” was cowritten and recorded by Muddy and Brownie McGhee for the album Hard Again, which was released on the Blue Sky label in 1977.

12. The phrase “kin to can’t” refers to the long working hours required of sharecroppers and field hands employed on cotton plantations. In the Mississippi Delta the actual picking season typically lasts from late August through early November. During this time of year landowners have always had strong economic incentives to pick the cotton crop as quickly as possible. Thus, historically the entire plantation labor force was engaged in picking the crop from sunrise—when there was enough light to see—until sunset.