Warning: Still on holiday and so still off-topic.
Vicksburg
Vicksburg has a strong whiff of picture postcard tourism about it. A woman in one of the shops summed this up when, after I said something complimentary, she replied “Well, after you’ve seen it once…” She then went on to talk–at great length–about the casinos in the neighbourhood and the importance of identifying early which machines are ready to pay out.
As well as being the birthplace of Willie Dixon, the town is also, as I am sure all Coca-Cola shareholders know, the site of the first bottling plant (previously Coke was only available from fountains). This was undertaken by Joe Biedenharn in 1894 and there is a small museum there to honour his accomplishments. The most interesting part for me was reading the historical advertising slogans used by Coke–for example:
More than just a drink (1933 – intriguing)
The most asked-for soft drink in the world (1954 – cumbersome)
The national family drink (1927 – pompous)
Pause and refresh yourself (1924 – makes me thirsty)
But the main reason we went to Vicksburg was to see the Highway 61 plaque. Highway 61 is the route that winds its way North from New Orleans all the way up to Wyoming in Minnesota. The river runs along side the Mississippi for long stretches and, assuming they didn’t have the time for a steamboat, was undoubtedly the route by which numerous southerners migrated north in search of better job prospects. It has been name checked by numerous singers through the decades, perhaps most notably by Dylan in his masterpiece Highway 61 Revisited.
We took a few photos, ate a blackened catfish salad with strawberry dressing (Delicious and Refreshing, as Coke would say), and breathed some of the air before continuing our own little journey north.
Holly Ridge
Holly Ridge is an isolated plantation just outside Indianola. It was the spot where the gravel-voiced Charley Patton lived his last year and is now buried. You have to wonder how much music he could have been performing at that time – nothing, I expect. He was probably just labouring on the huge farm in sweltering heat.
His grave is not easy to find. Our first effort led us to drive straight into what turned out to be simply a field. A field with very soft, damp soil. Indeed we came perilously close to losing control of our 4×4 in the soft soil as my long-suffering other half (and driver) attempted against all the odds to execute a U-turn to extricate us from the soft mud. I dread to think what our car hire company would have made of us if they had been called to tow us out of a huge field in Mississippi. It would have been the end of our journey, I fear.
But after several false turns, and then twenty minutes of wandering around a mosquito-filled, soggy graveyard we did find the great man’s tombstone and paused to pay our respects (although we didn’t add to the small pile of empty whisky bottles there).
Indianola
Indianola (I am still not sure how to pronounce this) is the hometown of BB King and Albert King – not a bad yield there for a tiny little spot. It is also home to the BB King museum, which claims to be the best museum in the region (something that I would dispute, although it is undoubtedly the best BB King museum). It definitely looks slick and features all the modern museum touches (interactive features, touch screens, not too much to read etc), but it does rather push the Ambassador of the Blues stuff a bit too much for my taste. While I enjoy some of BB King’s music, I don’t put him at the top of my favourites list and so my interest here was limited. That said, it is well worth a visit and it was nice to see the spot nearby where the young BB learnt his trade busking. Sadly, no one seems to busk there any more.