Three cemeteries claim to be the final resting place of bluesman Robert Johnson. More than a half-dozen places in the Delta claim to be the birthplace of the blues.
Clarksdale, Dockery, Rosedale, and Cleveland claim to be THE place. Robinsonville kinda-sorta does. WC Handy first heard it at Tutwiler in a song about Moorhead. University of Memphis ethnomusicologist Dr. David Evans says that blues as we know it today originated with what he calls the “Drew School” in and around Drew, Mississippi.
If Johnson can be buried in three places, the music he played could easily have been born in more than one.
The Mississippi Delta was one of the last frontiers of the United States. Much of it was swamp until the railroads were built in the early 20th Century. It’s famous for being a land of mosquitoes and malaria. The Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878 killed thousands, but the people came back with the railroads, in search of fortunes built on land and cotton. Greenville native David Cohn described it as a place where families and communities “leaped from cypress to Cezanne in one generation.”
The Delta is the home of Ole Miss and NFL quarterback legends Archie Manning and Charlie Conerly. It’s where Teddy Roosevelt didn’t shoot the bear that borrowed his name.
In some Delta counties 90% of the population originated in Africa, and kept African cultural and musical traditions through the generation.
It's the home of music legends BB King, Albert King, John Lee Hooker, Charlie Patton, Son House, Roebuck Staples, and hundreds of old blues artists as well as younger ones like Eden Brent and Kingfish Ingram. In the grand Delta tradition of never letting fact get in the way of a good story, it’s where Robert Johnson supposedly made a deal with the Devil at a mythical Crossroads. At least a half dozen places are reputed to be the real crossroads. That’s OK, Johnson is also reported to be buried in three different cemeteries.
Why did blues develop in the Delta? David Cohn wrote that “Solitary men started the great religions of the world. Moses and David were shepherds. Jesus and John the Baptist both fasted in the wilderness for forty days and nights. John the Divine (John the Revelator) was exiled to the Isle of Patmos. Mohammed was a merchant who spent a great deal of time riding through the deserts of Arabia. The Buddha sat under a bo tree and contemplated the world. All of them were men left alone with a great deal of time to reflect on things beyond the comprehension of most people. It isn’t surprising that the solitary men who followed mules along endless rows of Delta bottomland were the same ones who developed a new form of music from ancient traditions.”
The late Cleveland, Mississippi musician Charlie Jacobs put it a lot simpler. “There ain’t s*** else to do.”
That story is now told to the world in blues museums and tourist centers in Robinsonville, Clarksdale, Indianola, Cleveland, Dockery, Leland and a dozen other places in the Delta. Millions of dollars have been invested and are bringing even more millions back in tourist dollars. I’ve met blues tourists from all over the US at blues sites and events. One day I got to introduce the Norwegians to the Germans at a blues show.
Meanwhile, an older, much older, fife and drum music derived in a straight historical line from Africa and the West Indies was being played in Tate and Panola Counties, just a few miles east and 100 feet up the bluff from the Delta. Othar Turner, Napolian Strickland, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Abe Young, and others continued that tradition. Today, Sharde’ Thomas and Chris Mallory travel from Coldwater to the whole world playing fife and drums. Their children, nieces and nephews are learning.
Who’s telling their stories?
At the same time another type of blues was being born, mostly in Tate, Marshall, and Panola counties. RL Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Jessie Mae Hemphill and others played a different music. Their style used many of the same rhythms as the fife and drum bands and has become known as North Mississippi Hill Country blues. Jessie Mae Hemphill learned that music from her father, Sid Hemphill who played everything from blues to Appalachian fiddle reels. Who’s telling their stories?
Maybe it’s time somebody did that.
