Walking into Clarksdale

THE Crossroads

If you walk into Clarksdale along the highway 49 you will come to a crossroad with what used to be highway 61. Today highway 61 goes around the bypass but it was here when one day Robert Johnson came to the crossroads one night with his guitar on his arm. He met the Big Black Man, who said in unearthly voice: “Gimme your guitar Robert, I'll tune it for you”. The Big Black Man turned a few keys, gave it back and said: “Now no woman can resist you, man. See you again at The Three Forks.” Then he vanished in thin air, one could only smell something like burning brimstone and hear barking of hounds, very deep as if from underground.

These days you are much more likely to drive into Clarksdale, even if you are just a musical pilgrim wanting to see the place. There is a monument made up of guitars on that famous crossroads. And if you have a car and are a blues pilgrim there, you can also visit Dockery Farm, where an information board says that it is there that blues music was born. Charlie Patton – its earlies recorded performer – worked here for some time. Charlie Patton taught Willie Brown how to play and Willie Brown taught Robert Johnson, who, as is well known (to some) was THE blues singer.

Nobody knows exactly when the blues was born but it is assumed that it was sometime at the beginning of the 20^th century. Nobody before that time had written this kind of music in musical score (clearly nobody thought music of the black ghettos was worthy of that honour) and the earliest recordings date from 1920ties. It soon turned out that there is some demand for those recordings and there is some money to be made there. Consequently quite a number of them were made and not for any ethnographic collection but for a real audience. There are recordings of the blues in Dixie jazz style, like those of Louis Armstrong, there are so called “classic blues” recordings, which meant a voice (often female, like that of Bessie Smith) accompanied only by a piano, there also are recordings of the so called “country blues”, which meant a voice (this time usually male) accompanied only by a guitar. The guitar on those recordings is played in a most unusual way, which didn't have much in common with the way the white men played it. It was played with a bottleneck, which was a metal or glass tube (sometimes a real neck knocked out of a bottle) put on a little finger of the left hand, which made possible the characteristic blues glissando. It was played with the strings tuned “out of tune”, or rather in tunings different to that of the classic guitar. In 1920ties a resonator steel guitar was invented and used by the blues bottleneck players and in 1930 first electric guitars appeared. The electric guitar was quickly picked up by blues players from Chicago and Memphis, who developed the style known as “city blues”. It was usually played by a four-piece band: drums, bass guitar, electric slide guitar and a harmonica. In the 1950ties a young musician from Memphis (a non-Black, which was important) picked up this style, sped up the tempo, called it “rock and roll” and sold it to non-Black audience. From then on the blues started to conquer the world.

Birthplace of the blues?

The new music quickly became fashionable on the other side of the ocean, especially in London (from where mentally is much closer to New York, which after all is only “over the pond”, than to Paris, which is “overseas”). In the 1960ties completely white blues bands were created in London, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, The Rolling Stones, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. These musicians wanted to get to the source so they travelled “over the pond” to visit the places where the country blues was played, to listen to the tales of the old musicians, to collect the old records.

It soon turned out that among those old scratchy records there are some that had some unusual qualities. One could listen to them and never get bored, like listening to Bach. They had one thing in common: they were all recorded by one Robert Johnson. Some people started looking for him. Perhaps he still played in an old tavern forgotten by everybody? Or perhaps he stopped playing and occupied himself with something else buy could be persuaded to do some recordings? The search ended when people who knew him well were found and the story of Robert Johnson came to light.

Robert Johnson was brought up in the area known as Mississippi Delta. The name is misleading because this is not the actual delta of the great River but the flat area on its left side between cities of Memphis and Vicksburg. It is a fertile plain where cotton is grown. It is here that the country blues was played. His white enthusiasts nick named Robert Johnson “King of the Delta Blues”, but he was actually more than this. All of his track (only 29 of them are known) have been recorded like “country blues”, with an acoustic guitar as the only accompaniment, but in his style all elements of Chicago “city blues” are present. One can almost say that this musician brought up among cotton fields is the grandfather of all rhythm and blues and rock and roll. And scores of guitarists from all over the world making pilgrimages to the famous crossroads seem to confirm that this is the source.

Mural of Robert Johnson in Clarksdale

Robert Johnson lived for some time in Clarksdale but The Three Forks used to stand outside the town of Greenwood, some distance away. Since the fateful meeting at the crossroads he had a lightning career, travelled around the Delta and sometimes beyond. People say that his music was enchanting, that indeed no woman could resist him. In some songs he bragged about having a woman in every town from Vicksburg to Tennessee. Indeed when he eyed a woman in The Tree Forks, where he played together with Honeyboy Edwards and Sunny Boy Williamson, it seemed that she wouldn't resist either. However, she happened to be the woman of the tavern owner. Both musicians that were there at the time recall the event. Somebody gave Robert an opened bottle of whisky but Sunny Boy sensed something suspicious and knocked this bottle out of his hand saying: “Never drink from an open bottle!” Robert got very angry with Sunny Boy, somebody gave him another bottle. The next day Robert Johnson was dead.

Today many guitarists travel to Clarksdale just to see the crossroads. Some of those guitarists are quite famous, like Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, who even recorded an album entitled “Walking into Clarksdale”. Some of those musical pilgrims also go to Dockery Farm, where next to the board informing about the birthplace of the blues there is a button, pressing of which will cause some recordings of Charlie Patton to be played. Nobody goes to The Tree Forks, though. Some people tried to find the place but couldn't. Honeyboy Edwards in his autobiography explains why this is so: sometime after the famous event a tornado came and took the whole building, so that nothing remains today.

Cigar box guitar

You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".