Missisipi Delta Blues

From Memphis to New Orleans we followed the Highway 61, the route that blues followed to go from its birthplace, the Mississippi Delta, to Memphis. This emblematic road is full of tales and legends and it has been subject of many songs and movies. The cotton fields where the slaves worked and created the music, the extremely poverty that we have seen, the impossibly flat landscape for miles and miles... that was the most amazing thing I have seen in the US.

And the feeling. The feeling that you are where everything happened. No words.

The Delta is the place where WC Handy, considered by himself the father of the blues, listened the Blues for the first time. He listened first, according to his records, on a train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi. Tutwiler nowadays is extremely poor. One can still see the foundations of the train station, where everything happens.

The lyrics of the first Blues were: "I will meet you when the southern crosses the yellow dog", referring to a junction between the main railways of the region. We went there as well.

We visited the two graves where Robert Johnson is believed to be buried, as well as the crossroad where he sold his soul to the devil, to be able to play the blues like no other.

The hospital where Bessie Smith died after a car crash is nowadays the most interesting Hotel I have ever seen.

Finally, as the end of the trip trough the Delta, we visited the Dockery plantations, the very first birthplace of the Blues. Here Charlie Patton, considered the first delta bluesman, learned the Blues.


I could describe you the location, but I will fail in describing you the atmosphere, the feelings, the legend... so I will stop here.