Mississippi Blues Trail — Clarksdale markers and map
The Blues Trail
Sixteen markers within an hour's drive, and one folded map that fits the glovebox.
The Mississippi Blues Trail plants a marker wherever something happened. Clarksdale has more of them per square mile than anywhere else, and the ones outside town are worth the drive.
Downtown
On foot, in town
Start at the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49, where the sign stands. Walk down to Blues Alley for the museum in the 1918 freight depot, then Sunflower Avenue for Red's Lounge — the building that was Levine's Music Center, where Ike Turner bought his first instruments. Finish at the Riverside Hotel on Sunflower, where Bessie Smith died in 1937. An hour at a slow pace.
Day trip
By car, within the hour
Stovall Farms, north-west: Alan Lomax recorded Muddy Waters here in 1941. Tutwiler, south-east: the railway platform where W. C. Handy heard a man play with a knife blade in 1903. Dockery Farms, further south: Charley Patton's plantation, and as good a candidate as any for where the blues started. Indianola: the B.B. King Museum.
Guidebook
Take the map
Every marker on one folded sheet, water-resistant, made for the glovebox. Collect it at the museum front desk with your admission.
Mississippi Blues Trail — folded map
Delta Blues Museum — Adult admission
Cab
Or let someone else drive
Crossroad Cab — ride in town
Mississippi Blues Trail — Clarksdale markers and map
The Blues Trail
Sixteen markers within an hour's drive, and one folded map that fits the glovebox.
The Mississippi Blues Trail plants a marker wherever something happened. Clarksdale has more of them per square mile than anywhere else, and the ones outside town are worth the drive.
Downtown
On foot, in town
Start at the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49, where the sign stands. Walk down to Blues Alley for the museum in the 1918 freight depot, then Sunflower Avenue for Red's Lounge — the building that was Levine's Music Center, where Ike Turner bought his first instruments. Finish at the Riverside Hotel on Sunflower, where Bessie Smith died in 1937. An hour at a slow pace.
Day trip
By car, within the hour
Stovall Farms, north-west: Alan Lomax recorded Muddy Waters here in 1941. Tutwiler, south-east: the railway platform where W. C. Handy heard a man play with a knife blade in 1903. Dockery Farms, further south: Charley Patton's plantation, and as good a candidate as any for where the blues started. Indianola: the B.B. King Museum.
Guidebook
Take the map
Every marker on one folded sheet, water-resistant, made for the glovebox. Collect it at the museum front desk with your admission.
Mississippi Blues Trail — folded map
Delta Blues Museum — Adult admission
Cab
Or let someone else drive