Clarksdale

Clarksdale doesn’t look like much, an ordinary town in the Mississippi state but that tells only half the truth.
This town has a remarkable place in the history of blues and is part of Mississippi Blues Trail. The marker is on Stovall Road at the alleged cabin site of famed bluesman McKinley Morganfield aka Muddy Waters. Clarksdale also houses the Delta Blues Museum. Along with holdings of significant blues-related memorabilia, the museum also exhibits and collects art portraying the blues tradition, including works by sculptor Floyd Shaman and photographer Birney Imes. Opposite the Delta Blues Musuem you can find Ground Zero Blues Club, co-owned by Morgan Freeman. You can enjoy good gigs in a friendly and chilled-out (for real, air conditioning to freezing temperature!!) atmosphere, while tasting southern food.We’ve been staying at one of the most unique and characteristic places I’ve ever been or seen in my life, The Shack Up Inn.
It’s sort of a compound built around a central building (the “lobby”) surrounded by several shotgun shacks (the “rooms”) which could easily be used as a movie set.
The entire site is dotted with vintage memorabilia and rusted farming paraphernalia, adding to the time-suspending atmosphere in which this place dwells. We had a great time there and slept in two different gunshot shacks, one for each night.

The first night we went to Ground Zero Blues Club but unfortunately the band was not playing what we had expected, that is delta blues. Besides the temperature inside was right for penguins but not for humans, so we left right after having dinner.The following night we had a better look at the Lonely Planet and ended up at Reds. As usual, the Lonely Planet’s tip was absolutely spot on.
Reds is a very intimate, dark and smokey club (and really messy!) as you can expect a proper blues club to be. A big room with a bar serving just beers, old chairs and sofas and musicians playing raw delta blues, that’s Reds, no sophisitication, no pretentiousness, just the real thing. We had a few beers and enjoyed the blues band that was playing that night, while making friends in the audience. A Californian couple invited us to their place in northern California…we might take on their invitation sooner than they think.

OK, time to hit the road again and drive south to Natchez.
See you there.