mississippi – Page 2 – Bluescentric

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Founded in the early 1960s, Po’ Monkeys’ Juke Joint outside of Merigold, Mississippi was famously known as the last of the first authentic delta juke joints, and carried on the tradition until the death of the owner, Willie Seaberry in 2016.

Until the death of its owner Willy Seaberry in 2016, Music pilgrims traveled from across the world to visit Po’ Monkeys’, the last of the first Mississippi Delta juke joints, leaving tributes in the form of stuffed monkeys & local currency stapled to the low-hanging ceilings.

The Grammy Foundation felt the Mississippi Delta was so important to popular music that they built the first satellite Grammy Museum in Cleveland, Mississippi — a 28,000 sq. ft center just off of Highway 61.

Mississippi has produced more GRAMMY winners than any other state, the list includes B.B. King, Elvis & Robert Johnson.

The music video for The Black Keys’ “Crawlin’ Kingsnake” song was filmed at Jimmy “Duck” Holmes famous Blue Front Cafe juke joint in Bentonia, Mississippi.

The title of The Black Keys’ 2006 album “Chulahoma” is a reference to the town where Hill Country Blues great Junior Kimbrough owned & operated a juke joint in rural northern Mississippi.

Morgan Freeman opened & has co-owned a blues bar called Ground Zero Blues Club for over twenty years in Clarksdale, Mississippi — a town affectionately known as “Ground Zero for the Blues” due to the number of popular musicians it generated.

Elmore James recorded the proto-rock n roll hit “Dust My Broom” in the back of a furniture store on Farish Street in Jackson, Mississippi in 1951. The building still (barely) stands.

Coincidentally, the first Rock n Roll song, “Rocket 88” by Ike Turner & Jackie Brenston was first recorded in the same building that Bessie Smith died in — now the Riverside Motel in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Bukka White’s “Shake Em On Down” has been covered by Mississippi Fred McDowell, Led Zeppelin, R.L. Burnside, North Mississippi Allstars, Savoy Brown and Black Crowes, to name a few.

There is an annual parade in Shreveport, Mississippi in honor of Leadbelly that ends with a jam at the blues musician’s grave.

After Muddy Waters first heard himself sing on an acetone record that Alan Lomax mailed to him from the Library of Congress, he said he went straight to the Clarksdale, Mississippi Greyhound bus station and moved to Chicago to pursue music.

Just after Bukka White recorded “Shake ‘Em On Down”, which became a fast hit, he was locked up in Mississippi’s notorious Parchman Farm Penitentiary, where he was reportedly a celebrity — the guards contributed funds to buy Bukka a guitar; the Governor came to see him.

Delta Airlines was born on the same Mississippi farm that Charley Patton, Son House and a young Howlin’ Wolf worked & played music — at around the same time, 1930.

Fresh off “Karate Kid” stardom, Ralph Macchio starred in the 1986 movie “Crossroads” as a young guitar prodigy, who searches Mississippi with an aging delta bluesman to find Robert Johnson’s “missing song”. He guitar dueled with Steve Vai and Sonny Terry had a harmonica cameo.

Son House was born in Lyon, (Clarksdale) Mississippi in 1902.

Trains can be heard in Son House’s Library of Congress music because it was recorded beside rail lines in a Mississippi general store — the closest place with electricity.

As a teenager, Muddy Waters opened a juke joint in his home on Stovall Plantation in Mississippi.

There is a statue of Bo Diddley at the “Bo Diddley Pavilion” in his hometown of McComb, Mississippi.

Blues guitarist Muddy Waters claimed he was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi in 1915. Scarce records have mad the actual circumstances of his birth unclear.

The Delta Blues Museum is located in Clarksdale, Mississippi’s former train station. Among other artifacts, the museum houses the one-room sharecropper shack that Muddy Waters abandoned when he left for Chicago.

Musicologist Alan Lomax and Mr. John Work were the first to record Muddy Waters — on his front porch in Stovall Plantation in Mississippi. The recordings are in the Library of Congress.

Jim Dickinson, father of The North Mississippi Allstars’ Luther and Cody Dickinson, played the piano on The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses”

Lillian McMurry founded the fabled Trumpet Records in Jackson, Mississippi in 1951.

Soul legend Sam Cooke was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

There is a statue of Howlin’ Wolf in his hometown of West Point, Mississippi.

Blues legend Bessie Smith died on September 26, 1937 in Clarksdale, Mississippi after a car accident on Highway 61 outside of down.

The original 1-room shack that Muddy Waters lived in can be found in the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

B.B. King is buried at The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in his hometown of Indianola, Mississippi.

W.C. Handy was the first to document “the blues”, saying he heard it on a train platform in Tutwiler, Mississippi.

Buddy Guy’s landmark 2001 album “Sweet Tea” was recorded at Sweet Tea Studio in Mississippi and was largely Junior Kimbrough covers.

The Mississippi Blues Trail has over 100 locations commemorating sites important to the blues.

The Black Keys have called Mississippi bluesmen T-Model Ford and Junior Kimbrough their biggest influences.

The Mississippi Sheiks’ 1930 blues song “Sitting on Top of the World” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.

Delta Airlines, named for the Mississippi Delta, got its start crop dusting Dockery Farms, where blues legends Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson and Charley Patton lived.