Clarksdale, Mississippi — blues, tickets and stays
Clarksdale
One town, one be-BOP: its museum, its clubs, its artists, its cabs and its causes.
Where Highway 61 crosses Highway 49, a town of fourteen thousand people carries a disproportionate share of American music. Muddy Waters was recorded here. Sam Cooke was born here. Ike Turner bought his first instruments here. Bessie Smith died here.
This be-BOP holds the whole town: the museum's tickets, the clubs' evenings, the artists' records, the rooms above the juke joint, the cabs that bring you from Memphis, and the causes the town is raising money for. One checkout, no middleman.
See & doWhere it happensThe museum, the two juke joints, the festival and the cab that gets you between them.Read →
TonightLive music, seven nights a weekWhich room has music tonight, who is playing, and what it costs at the door.Read →
SleepWhere to sleepLofts above the juke joint, a sharecropper shack, and the hotel where Bessie Smith died.Read →
ShopThe shopRecords, downloads, books, tickets and passes — everything the town sells, by counter.Read →Agenda
Tonight and this week
Town Hall clock — restoration fund
Ends at
Recorded at Stovall Farms in 1941, then electrified Chicago.
Bought his first instruments at Levine's, cut Rocket 88 at twenty.
Born on Seventh Street in 1931, and gone too soon.
Preacher turned bluesman, taught Muddy Waters the slide.
Clarksdale born and Clarksdale buried, one of the Jelly Roll Kings.
Born in the Delta, one foot and one chord, forever.
The Empress of the Blues died here in 1937.
The founder, from Dockery Farms up the road.
Heard the future at Tutwiler station and wrote it down.
Bluesman Residency — 1 month
Crossroads Weekend — 4 days, 3 nights
Delta Immersion — 2 weeks
Magazine
Read
PortraitsThe great names of ClarksdaleBorn here, raised here, or changed here. A gallery of the people this town sent out.Read →
The townA history of ClarksdaleCotton, two highways, a railroad, and everything that followed.Read →
The musicA history of the bluesFrom field hollers to Chicago, by way of one railway platform in Tutwiler.Read →On screenCoahoma County on screenWhat was filmed here, what was only set here, and why the difference matters.Read →
The comebackThe renaissance of ClarksdaleHow a town with nothing left but its music decided the music was the economy.Read →Clarksdale, Mississippi — blues, tickets and stays
Clarksdale
One town, one be-BOP: its museum, its clubs, its artists, its cabs and its causes.
Where Highway 61 crosses Highway 49, a town of fourteen thousand people carries a disproportionate share of American music. Muddy Waters was recorded here. Sam Cooke was born here. Ike Turner bought his first instruments here. Bessie Smith died here.
This be-BOP holds the whole town: the museum's tickets, the clubs' evenings, the artists' records, the rooms above the juke joint, the cabs that bring you from Memphis, and the causes the town is raising money for. One checkout, no middleman.
See & doWhere it happensThe museum, the two juke joints, the festival and the cab that gets you between them.Read →TonightLive music, seven nights a weekWhich room has music tonight, who is playing, and what it costs at the door.Read →SleepWhere to sleepLofts above the juke joint, a sharecropper shack, and the hotel where Bessie Smith died.Read →ShopThe shopRecords, downloads, books, tickets and passes — everything the town sells, by counter.Read →Agenda
Tonight and this week
Town Hall clock — restoration fund
Ends at Recorded at Stovall Farms in 1941, then electrified Chicago.
Bought his first instruments at Levine's, cut Rocket 88 at twenty.
Born on Seventh Street in 1931, and gone too soon.
Preacher turned bluesman, taught Muddy Waters the slide.
Clarksdale born and Clarksdale buried, one of the Jelly Roll Kings.
Born in the Delta, one foot and one chord, forever.
The Empress of the Blues died here in 1937.
The founder, from Dockery Farms up the road.
Heard the future at Tutwiler station and wrote it down.
Bluesman Residency — 1 month
Crossroads Weekend — 4 days, 3 nights
Delta Immersion — 2 weeks
Magazine
Read
PortraitsThe great names of ClarksdaleBorn here, raised here, or changed here. A gallery of the people this town sent out.Read →The townA history of ClarksdaleCotton, two highways, a railroad, and everything that followed.Read →The musicA history of the bluesFrom field hollers to Chicago, by way of one railway platform in Tutwiler.Read →On screenCoahoma County on screenWhat was filmed here, what was only set here, and why the difference matters.Read →The comebackThe renaissance of ClarksdaleHow a town with nothing left but its music decided the music was the economy.Read →