Goin north from Jackson you don't really get out on the road 'til you clear Canton which is about 20 miles from the city limits. Then it's another 20-30 miles to the Lexington/Pickens exit where I take my first smoke break at an old truck-stop...
oooops.
It's a cryin' shame too...one of the few honest truck-stops left on the road. The kinda place that sells bumper stickers and t-shirts, that say "I spent most of my money on women and booze..the rest I just wasted" or "It's not a Belly it's a Gas-Tank for a Love Machine"...little cedar boxes with a picture of Robert E. Lee on the lid...ashtrays and shot glasses decorated with Battle Flags, cut-glass figurines and dream catchers...rubber-band guns with clothes-pins for a firing mechanisms..
The bathrooms were down a long wood paneled hall...at the corner was one of those old cylindrical ashtrays, gun metal grey with a chrome top, under a pay phone...not much call for either of those these days. The bathrooms had cinder block walls and cement floors...no automated anything and it wasn't uncommon to find a bottle of dish-washing soap on the sink when the hand soap had run out.
Now it's gone. I'm sure to be replaced with another Love's or Flying J...fresh deli sandwiches, a mocachino machine, a Red Box and clean bathrooms. Yawn.
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Como Mississippi is a tidy little town just South of Senatobia and not too far from Southaven.
It was the home of Mississippi Fred McDowell and Othar Turner...both legends of Hill Country Blues...a more rythmic, driving, get-down form than the kind that comes out of the Delta. McDowell is the undisputed king of the slide (Womm?) while Turner led the Drum and Fife tradition.
That's from the Square at Holly Springs...another Hill Country Blues town. It's the home of Fat Possum Records, Junior Kimbrough and the irreplaceable, gigantic R.L. Burnside.
A man that looms larger in my own mind than William Faulkner and Elvis...both from the area.
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Those with a map may have noticed that we've skipped over Southaven and are half way to Tupelo.
Southaven is the Mississippi part of Memphis...there's lots of manufacturing and shipping because taxes are much lower in Mississippi. It's a pleasant livable place...there just isn't much to tell. There was work to be done and once I finished it I headed out...stopped in Holly Springs. Then on through New Albany to Tupelo.
Tupelo, Mississippi the birthplace of Elvis Presely.
That's the house where it all started...and they've turned it and a couple of acres around into a park. There's a gift shop and a museum, a chapel. Recently they brought over the Pentecostal Church he attended as a child. It's a lovely quiet spot in the same working class neighborhood where he was born.
Tupelo is also the home of...
There was trouble at the mall
And trouble with the internet connection in my room...
That's my perplexed to the point of irritation face...with shrapnel.
Y'all already know what happened the next day on the way back.
Flippin' Cops.
"A man that looms larger in my own mind than William Faulkner and Elvis"
ReplyDeleteAlright, dude. We get the idea that the feller's important, but please, let's not exaggerate. Faulkner? Really?
Are you accusing me of exaggerating something in my own mind Doc?*
ReplyDeleteThat's dirty pool man.
Music will always trump literature anyway..one tries to make the mundane transcendent...the other is pure transcendence.
Besides what's greater...the author's description of a subject...or the subject itself.
That's the question here.
*Are you the one that left the door unlocked and the alarm unset the last time you were in there?
I love road trips and I have a weird fascination with shitty buildings. I stared at that old truck stop picture for a bit too long.
ReplyDeleteLorraine
I've got some pictures of an old cotton gin I'm gonna post later..oughta be dilapidated enough for you...stay tuned.
ReplyDeletei love dirty pool.
ReplyDeleteby the way, i've a proposition for you as regards college football. give me a call soon as you can.
If it involves a wager...forget it.
ReplyDeleteMartha cleaned me out again this year.
"Music will always trump literature anyway..one tries to make the mundane transcendent...the other is pure transcendence."
ReplyDeleteNice. I like that. It sums up something I've thought (and banged on about at great length) in a very succinct manner.
And yeah, Fred McDowell was a genius, he managed to marry the more melodic sensibility of the Delta with that Hill Country drive and power, and when he was on form, on acoustic or electric, he's pretty much untouchable in that sphere. There's an edge to his playing, like with Burnside et al, that you just don't get from the Delta tradition, and his country gospel recordings are equally full of fire and passion as Blind Willie Johnson or The Rev. Charlie Jackson. Magnificent stuff. My mum and dad saw Fred McDowell in the 60s, sitting about 4 foot away, and my dad got to have a drink with him after. Jealous ain't the word.
Thinking about Fred McDowell reminds me, ever heard a Japanese guy called the Fujii? Check his myspace here:
http://www.myspace.com/thefujii
He's an old mate and a killer bottleneck player, and worships Fred McDowell, his first album has a picture of his bottleneck next to Fred McDowell's grave, and like I say, boy can he play. Plus, weirdly enough, Japanese turns out to be a really good language to shout the blues in.
Allan never tires of my brilliance. Hahaha
ReplyDeleteJealous indeed...not only was he Mississippi Fred McDowell, but he was the mentor to Burnside...who's greatness needs no further explanation.
I'll definitely be checking that out...a little slice of heaven on a Friday night would be monkey bread and a Samuri/Blues movie...maybe it's possible after all.