Note: This post is the latest in a series of my holiday to the US. Worry not – I will be back on-topic shortly.
Leland
Leland is home to the Highway 61 Blues Museum. It is also, we discovered, the birth place of Jim Henson, creator of that talking frog. Noticing a small, quirky looking museum to the frog’s honour, we dropped in. It was run by a kindly and enthusiastic woman who spoke passionately about Jim and Kermit and we both learnt more than we could ever have imagined about the Muppets. We also posed for photos with a frighteningly life-sized version of the frog himself. I wonder what Skip James would have made of the place.
After the muppet business, we made no further detours before the Highway 61 Blues Museum. As we were browsing around it, contentedly reading about the local musicians–as if by magic–the real life Pat Thomas appeared beside a painting and bio of himself. He stuck out a hand and took us over to show us an exhibit about his father (James “Son” Thomas) and himself. Son Thomas worked as a gravedigger (somewhere between a shepherd and a lighthouse keeper in the iconic job stakes) and became an expert at skull sculpting, as well as music. He passed both pursuits onto his son and Pat is now keeping the flame burning in Leland. The sculptures are memorably disturbing and the blues are great (he played us one of his father’s compositions and Rock Me Baby). This was without doubt the friendliest and best sounding museum in the region (apologies to BB King).
Rosedale
Rosedale had never been anything more than an exotic place name to me, but a place name with dark and unsettling connotations. Whether it was Charley Patton singing about it being under water or Robert Johnson travelling there with his rider by his side, it sounded interesting. Throw in Son House’s adamant assertion that this was the real spot at which RJ conducted that famous transaction and it was a must visit.
Rosedale really does feel like the deep south – the surrounding area is rural and poor. The roadside is lined by enormous fields, shacks and baptist churches. We arrived on a swelteringly hot day (the temperature was in the 90s) and nothing was moving anywhere. We did move, or potter, around a plaque and lazily took a few pictures before wandering back to the main street where I was delighted to come across a “Hot Tamales” shack. As I was still in full Robert Johnson mode this truly was manna from heaven. 25-years of wondering what hot tamales were was brought to an end as we sat down to a plate of boiled, spicy beef wrapped in corn.
The proprietor told us that she has been running the place for 14-years, taking over from her brother who had had it for a full 40 years before that. We spoke for a time about Rosedale and one thing she told me will stay with me: apparently after integration, the population fell quite sharply because a lot of the inhabitants choose to move out rather than send their kids to a mixed school. This had a very negative impact on the economy but, now that many of the original fleers are of retirement age and have chosen to move back to Rosedale, the local economy is picking up again. Hopefully attitudes have changed as the years have passed.