The great names of Clarksdale
Muddy Waters lived and worked at Stovall Farms, north-west of town. Alan Lomax recorded him there in 1941 for the Library of Congress. He went north, plugged in, and the Chicago blues followed.
John Lee Hooker was born in the Delta and built a career on one stamping foot and a single chord held longer than anyone else dared.
Son House preached before he played, and played the slide guitar that Muddy Waters learned from.
Ike Turner grew up here and bought his first instruments at Levine's Music Center on Sunflower Avenue — the building that is now Red's Lounge. At twenty he cut « Rocket 88 » with his Kings of Rhythm; the record went out under the name of his saxophonist, Jackie Brenston, and is routinely called the first rock'n'roll record.
Sam Cooke was born on Seventh Street in 1931 before his family moved to Chicago.
W. C. Handy was waiting at Tutwiler station, a few miles away, when he heard a man playing slide guitar with a knife blade. He wrote it down. That note is where written blues begins.
Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, died in Clarksdale in 1937 after a road accident, at the building that is now the Riverside Hotel.
Junior Parker and Big Jack Johnson both came out of this county — Johnson born here, buried here, one of the Jelly Roll Kings.
And the line has not stopped. Super Chikan builds his own guitars out of gas cans and ceiling fans. Christone « Kingfish » Ingram came through the Delta Blues Museum's education programme and was on a Hollywood screen before he was thirty.
Nine of these names are on the ballot to rename a street: see name the street.
The great names of Clarksdale
Muddy Waters lived and worked at Stovall Farms, north-west of town. Alan Lomax recorded him there in 1941 for the Library of Congress. He went north, plugged in, and the Chicago blues followed.
John Lee Hooker was born in the Delta and built a career on one stamping foot and a single chord held longer than anyone else dared.
Son House preached before he played, and played the slide guitar that Muddy Waters learned from.
Ike Turner grew up here and bought his first instruments at Levine's Music Center on Sunflower Avenue — the building that is now Red's Lounge. At twenty he cut « Rocket 88 » with his Kings of Rhythm; the record went out under the name of his saxophonist, Jackie Brenston, and is routinely called the first rock'n'roll record.
Sam Cooke was born on Seventh Street in 1931 before his family moved to Chicago.
W. C. Handy was waiting at Tutwiler station, a few miles away, when he heard a man playing slide guitar with a knife blade. He wrote it down. That note is where written blues begins.
Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, died in Clarksdale in 1937 after a road accident, at the building that is now the Riverside Hotel.
Junior Parker and Big Jack Johnson both came out of this county — Johnson born here, buried here, one of the Jelly Roll Kings.
And the line has not stopped. Super Chikan builds his own guitars out of gas cans and ceiling fans. Christone « Kingfish » Ingram came through the Delta Blues Museum's education programme and was on a Hollywood screen before he was thirty.
Nine of these names are on the ballot to rename a street: see name the street.