2023 Sep 15, Trip to The Movie town of Canton, MS

We rode through Russellville, AL stopping at Jack's Restaurant for breakfast gravy and biscuits and Diet Coke. 

We stopped at McDonald's in Louisville, MS for a restroom break and a couple of cookies and cream pies. 

After a four-and-a-half-hour drive through several small towns, we arrived in Canton, MS. 

We were greeted by our guide Billy Joe Wells at the Visitors Center in Canton also known as the Trolio Hotel. 

A Time to Kill stars Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey, Kevin Spacey, and many others were in this film.

Most of the filming took place around the Madison County Courthouse, the old jail, and a Sound stage was built in the city's park. Much of the stage props were in Canton's Museum.

My Dog Skip was principally photography in Canton props also located in Canton's Museums.

O'Brother, Where Art Thou? Was shot in the Spring in Canton, MS props, and New Paper Articles in the Museums. 

The Hotel Trolio had Memorabilia from the movies. O' Brother and A Time to Kill.

Cast from A Time to Kill 

Lawyers Office from A Time To Kill 

By George Mississippians Think he's got it.
Fans flock to see Clooney filming a movie the latest effort in his move from TV to Big Screen. 
O'Brother, Where Art Thou? George Clooney 

Restaurant/Cafe where the scene of A Time to Kill was filmed. 

A scene from "A Time to Kill" was shot at the table in this restaurant. 

Also located up a flight of stairs in the Trolio Hotel was more Memorabilia from both movies. 

Willie Morris & My Dog Skip Movie Museum

Willie Morris & My Dog Skip Movie Museum.

Every community needs a Willie. 

This museum is lovingly dedicated to the ineffable spirit of Willie Morris. 

Because he turned south toward home, My Dog Skip became a reality. 

Our many thanks to Alcon Entrainment and Warner Bros 

February 12, 2000 

A Glimpse of Willie Morris 

The Canton Convention & Visitor Bureau and Film Office 

5 & 10 cent Store Est. 1935

The General Store was where scenes from My Dog Skip was shot. 

Bone tired and Weary in a country Cemetery
John Wayne Blough Sr. steers a team of horses through the streets of Canton during the filming of the "Ponder Heart" based on an Eudora Welty novella, for PBS.  

Billy took us to several locked museums loaded with memorabilia and did a very good job of explaining about the props and the movies. 

We had not seen the movies for some time so nothing was familiar. 

We thanked Billy for the tour and walked around the historic Courthouse Square taking pictures of several of the historic stores, courthouse, and markers. 

We stopped at the thrift shop where I purchased several Halloween figurines.

Canton Madison County Courthouse is also used in several movies. 

2023 April 25-28, AMTRAK Trip to New Orleans, LA. from Tuscaloosa, Al (4 days)

Day 1:Travel  Tuesday, April 25, 

We dropped off our bags at the Amtrak station, parked the car in the public parking, and walked several blocks back to the Amtrak Station. 

At 2:00 p.m., we loaded onto the train and began our trip.

 We took the Amtrak in Tuscaloosa and traveled through several cities stopping in Laurel, Hattiesburg, and Meridian, Mississippi picking up or letting off passengers.

I did not buy any food on the trip to New Orleans. I had brought a Sprite Zero and a couple of Granola bars. 

We arrived around 10:00PM and took the local taxi to The Marque Hotel 144 ELK PL., New Orleans. Room 1910. Reservation #380VR.

Our room had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, 2 balconies, and a window in my bedroom to see the City of New Orleans, located on the fourteen floors. 

It was late I took a shower and went to bed. 

Day 2: Wednesday, April 26, 

We walked down Canal Street stopping at IHOP for breakfast. Our waiter was new and I ordered a Belgian waffle it was cold and plain. 

We decided to buy a day pass to ride the Trollies. 

We saw the Mortuary Haunted Mansion and walked around in several Cemeteries. (St Patrick Cemetery)

We saw people loading onto the Ferry Boat and the Riverboat.

We shopped at Riverwalk Mall and ate lunch at Pei Wei Asian Restaurant. I ordered two egg rolls, shrimp, chicken, and noodles. 

Could not eat it all I took the rest with me.

We walked through the park at Riverfront where we saw the Holocaust Memorial. 

We saw Woldenberg Riverfront Park a dedicated memorial to Malcolm Wolodenberg who prospered in New Orleans and left a Legacy of caring and of confidence to the City of New Orleans. 

Alongside was his statue with a young boy.

On Canal Street, we saw many murals depicting the City. 

We saw the Shops and Canal Place with Mardi Gras statues in front.

Dr. John's statue in front of "The Shops and Canal Place" 

We took the Trolley up St. Charles Street where we saw historic homes, stores, The Auduban, the Zoo, and the Loyola College.

We saw a lot of homeless people, and trash everywhere, at the overpasses and sidewalks. 

We stopped at a chicken restaurant to use the restroom and sitting outside was a homeless young man asking me to buy him some chicken, I said we'll see. I went inside to use the restroom. I remember that I had a plate full of leftover food with me so when we went outside I gave the homeless man the food. It also had a fork inside. 

He was thankful for the food. I was glad that I had helped one of the homeless. I had heard a man on the trolley say the government had sent money to help the homeless but the money was not used for that.

We rode two different trollies most of the trolley workers were jolly and friendly.    

We headed back to the hotel. 

We had spent the day hopping off and hopping on the trolley, and we walked several miles.

Day 3: Thursday, April 27, 

We walked down to Canal Street and bought a day pass to ride the trolley. We rode to the French Quarters.

We walked to Cafe Biegnite, where we both ordered Beignets. (A square of fried dough eaten hot and sprinkled with powdered Sugar). They come with 3 Beignets and mine was drizzled with Chocolate.

Beignets with Chocolate 

It came up a thunderstorm while we were eating and people flooded inside. They had a large roll-up door opened and when the rain started to blow inside they closed it. It was blowing hard and several of the employees got wet.

After the rain subsided but was still sprinkling we left and walked toward the Riverfront Mall. 

We heard several Laughing Gulls and we rode the ferry across the Mississippi.

We walked to the Riverwalk Mall and shopped. I bought a shirt and a pair of shorts at Gap. 

I returned a top I had bought the day before. It was too small and swapped for a larger size. 

The cashier/manager said all their clothes were coming in smaller. 

We walked back to Canal Street and took the trolley up St Charles Street.

Meet a family from Vermont a journalist from Denmark and a couple of women looking for the Military Museum. We also met a couple looking for the French Quarters and I told them they would have to take the red trolley # 49 to get to the French Quarters.

There were a lot of people taking the trolleys today. 

We got off the trolley and walked along St. Charles Street looking at old homes.

Historic Home on St Charles St

We ate lunch at New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood LLC.

New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood Restaurant 

I ordered Shrimp Tacos with Onion Rings. My friend ordered a shrimp Poor-Boy with fries.

We also ate a complimentary Vanilla Ice Cream in a cone.

 We rode the trolley back to Canal Street and stopped at CVS for a couple of Sprite Zeros and a bag of candy.

There were no Diet Cokes or Sprite Zeros in the cooler so I asked the manager if they had any.

We walked to the back of the store and the manager loaded several Sprite Zero and Diet Cokes into the cooler. 

I paid for my merchandise and walked back to the hotel.

We packed our bags for tomorrow we will be leaving.

Day 4: Friday, April 28,  Travel Home

Finished packing and ate my last Beignet called the Taxi and said he would be there around 8AM.

We walked downstairs and my friend got a cup of hot coffee and we waited for our taxi.

Selfie Station at The Marque Hotel 

We arrived at the train terminal and waited to load the train at 9:00 AM.

It was going to be a full train so we were told if we were traveling with someone to sit with them.

Went they announced the dining car was open we walked down. 

I ordered a bagel and drank my Sprite Zero. My friend ate her leftover Poor-boy.

We arrive at the train depot around 5PM.

Walked inside the depot to use the restroom and put everything inside our luggage.

We began our walk to the parking deck.

It was a lot harder walking uphill pulling our luggage. We finally arrived at the parking deck.

Loaded our luggage inside and began our trip home. 

We stopped at Jacks for supper and after we finished I bumped my right hand and it tore the skin. 

It would not stop bleeding so one of the workers placed a couple of bandages on my hand.

We stopped again at CVS to use the restrooms and get more bandages.

We arrived at my friend's home and my husband picked me up.

Pharr Indian Mounds Natchez Trace

Trade from Afar
Around 2,000 to 1,800 years ago native people built Pharr Mounds, a complex of eight dome-shaped mounds, spread over 90 acres.
One of the largest Middle Woodland era mound sites in the region, Pharr Mounds was near a sizable village. The people there attracted a trade for everyday items and ceremonial objects. 

A vast trading network stretched from the southeastern US to the shores of Lake Ontario. Over hundreds of linked trails, objects of copper, mica, greenstone, and shell found their way to Pharr Mounds. People from smaller local villages then came here to obtain exotic goods. 
Natchez Trace ParkwayAll natural and cultural resources along the Natchez Trace Parkway are protected by federal laws.

Objects and Ideas
Mounds Along the Natchez Trace Parkway 
200 BCE
Middle Woodland Period
Bynum Mounds
Pharr Mounds 
Late Woodland Period 800 CE
Boyd Mounds 
Mangum Mounds
Early Mississippian Period 1000CE 1200CE 
Bear Creek Mounds
Late Mississippian Period 1400CE 1600CE 
Emerald Mound

People from the Woodland era created some of the finest crafts and artwork in North America. For inspiration, they turned to the natural world and their understanding of the universe. The objects they created in metal, stone, and shell were prized from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

Since many of the traded objects had a spiritual meaning or were linked to religious ceremonies, it is clear that ideas traveled with the trade. Though there were local variations, American Indians throughout today's eastern US understood and related to the imagery skillfully applied to pipes, jewelry, fabric, and pottery.

Coming Home 

Coming Home
Like the native peoples who lived near Pharr Mounds cultures around the world and across time built monuments and lasting memorials. Mounds like these are some of the earliest remaining monuments in North America.

Skillfully designed and built, these mounds are a source of wonder and pride, Spiritually enduring, they become the cornerstone of civic and religious ceremonies and rituals.

Modern Chickasaw feels a strong bond with Pharr Mounds and considers them sacred. Many return here as a part of a pilgrimage to their ancestral homeland.

"I am astounded by the levels of the science of spirituality, and community and organization evident in the creation and existence of Pharr Mounds and how it related to the larger region. I am proud of my ancestors."

Kirk Perry
Executive Officer for Historic Preservation
Chickasaw Nation

Pharr Indian Mounds Markers

Pharr Indian Mounds

John Lee Hooker - Vance MISS US 61 Blues Trail South Haven, MS

MISS US 61 John Lee Hooker - Vance

John Lee Hooker (c. 1917-2001), one of the most famous and successful of all blues singers, had his musical roots here in the Delta, where he learned to play guitar in the style of his stepfather, Will Moore.  Hooker spent many of his early years with his family in the cotton fields around Vance and Lambert before he moved to Detroit in the 1940s. He became an international celebrity after recording hits  such as “Boogie Chillen,” “I’m in the Mood,” and “Boom Boom.”

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was at once one of the most influential yet inimitable artists in blues history.  His distinctive “boogie” style harked back to the early days of blues, but his mixture of down-home sounds and urban sensibilities resounded with many Southerners who, like him, migrated north seeking work and a better life.  Hooker, one of eleven children, often gave vague and contradictory details about his early life, later professing little desire to return to Mississippi. He often cited August 22, 1917, as his birth date, although census records, showing the family near Tutwiler in 1920 and 1930, indicate he was several years older. He said he was born between Clarksdale and Vance; Social Security files list his birthplace as Glendora. His father, William Hooker, at one time a sharecropper on the Fewell plantation near Vance, was a preacher who frowned upon the blues. John Lee preferred living with his stepfather, blues guitarist Will Moore and claimed that his idiosyncratic style was “identical” to Moore’s. Hooker was also influenced by his sister Alice’s boyfriend, Tony Hollins (1910-c.1959), who gave Hooker his first guitar. Hooker’s song “When My First Wife Left Me” was based on a 1941 Hollins recording. Hollins once lived north of Vance in Longstreet (so named for its long street of stores, houses, and dance halls).

Following stays in Memphis and Cincinnati and returns to the Vance/Lambert area, Hooker settled in Detroit, where he made his first recordings in 1948. In 1949 his single “Boogie Chillen” reached No. 1 on the R&B charts; “I’m in the Mood” achieved the same feat in 1951. Hooker, famed for his ability to improvise new songs in the studio, recorded prolifically for many different labels, often under pseudonyms to avoid contractual problems. He later crossed over to rock ‘n’ roll and folk audiences and enjoyed a remarkable resurgence beginning in 1989 with the release of The Healer, one of several Hooker albums that featured collaborations with leading rock artists. Hooker received four Grammy® Awards, a Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (as well as the one in Clarksdale). He was inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Blues Hall of Fame. Hooker moved to California in the late 1960s and later owned a club, the Boom Boom Room, in San Francisco. He died at his home in Los Altos on June 21, 2001.

Hooker’s cousin Earl Hooker (1929-1970), who also hailed from the Vance area, was widely regarded by his peers as the best guitarist in the blues.  A versatile and innovative performer, Hooker was especially celebrated for his slide guitar skills. As a teenager, Hooker performed on the King Biscuit Time radio show in Helena and later played and recorded with Ike Turner, Junior Wells, and many others, including his own Chicago-based group, the Roadmasters.

Modern Hollywood Records
“Boogie Chillin'”
 John Lee Hooker & His guitar 

Far left, Shaw Artists photo, the 1950s let Hooker during an interview for Living Blues Magazine, Chicago 1977.
Hooker was a headliner on the "chitlin circuit" when he appeared at the Lyric Theater in Louisville, Ky advertised here in the March 1, 1952 issue of the Louisville Defender.
Cousin John Lee and Earl Hooker followed separate career paths but came together to record the album If You Miss I got im in 1969.
Eddie Barns, who once lived in nearby Dublin teamed up with John Lee Hooker to perform and record in Detroit in the 1950s and 50s. Barns (b.1928) knew the Hooker family here, although John Lee had already moved north at the time. Hooker's first wife, Alma Pope was also from Dublin.
Hooker, "King of the Boogie" at a California performance in 1981 with fellow Mississippi native Charlie Musselwhite on hardware. 

Welcome to one of the many sites on the Mississippi Blues Trail  Visit us online at www.MSBluesTrail.org 

Muddy Waters Miss US 61 Blues Trail South Haven, MS

MISS. US 61

Muddy Waters 

Muddy Waters lived most of his first thirty years in a house on this site that was part of the Stovall Plantation. In 1996 the restored house was put on display at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale. Muddy Waters was first recorded here in 1941 by Alan Lomax, who was a complaining song for the Library of Congress.
Muddy Waters is known as the king of Chicago Blues. 

Muddy Waters 

Muddy Waters 

Muddy Waters 

Muddy Waters African American Music on the Stovall plantation was documented as early as 1901 when a Harvard archeologist heard local workers singing what he later described as “autochthonous music” and strains of apparently genius African music. 

Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield, 1913-1983) moved to Stovall with his grandmother from Rolling Fork, Mississippi c1915. The Stovall plantation remained his primary base until he moved to Chicago in 1943. 

In August 1941, on a field recording expedition sponsored by the Library of Congress and Fisk University, Alan Lomax and John Work set up portable equipment in Water’s house to record Muddy and other local musicians, including fiddler Henry “Son” Simmons. Lomax returned with Lewis Jones in 1942 for the second series of recordings. Two of Water’s recordings, “Burr Clover Farm Blues” and “Burr Clover Blues” paid tribute to plantation owner Colonel William Howard Stovall (1895-1970) and his crop. The Stovalls, one of the Delta’s most successful cotton-farming families, were pioneers of agricultural technology, and Colonel Stovall invented the burr clover seed harvester in 1935. Waters told Lomax that he wrote “Burr Clover Blues” at Stovall’s request. Waters entertained field hands at his house which serves as a juke joint and also played at social functions for the Stovalls, as did the Mississippi Sheiks, a popular black string band that Waters admired. 

Water’s cousin, The Reverend Willie Morganfield (1927-2003), was born on the Stovall plantation and turned down offers to sing the blues and devoted his talent to the church, becoming a popular gospel recording artist in the 1960s. He was the pastor of the Bell Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Clarksdale. Blues singer-pianist Eddie Boyd (1914-1994), who wrote the classic “Five Long Years,” a NO. 1 rhythm & blues in 1952, was also born on Stovall. Stovall resident and blues basis David “Pecan” Porter (1943-2003) later lived in the house that Muddy Waters had earlier occupied. Porter was active on the Clarksdale blues scene from the 1960s through the 1990s. 

Only in the 1980s after the vacant house was in disrepair, did tourists begin visiting it as a Muddy Waters shrine. In 1987m guitarist, Billy Gibbson of the rock group ZZ Top had “Muddywood” guitars crafted from plans of the house. ZZ Top subsequently used the guitars to promote a fund-fund-raising drive to benefit the Delta Blues Museum.

Well, now the reason I love that
ol' Stovall's Farm so well
Well, now you know, we have
a plenty of money
And we never be raisin' hell
"Burr Clover Blues" by Muddy Waters
The remains of Muddy Water's house from this spot as it appeared in the mid-1990s. Shortly after this photo was taken the cabin was removed from this site and sent on a five-year world tour that was sponsored by to House of Blues.

Welcome to one of the many sites of the Mississippi Blues Trail
Visit us online at
www.MSBluesTrail.org

Memphis Minnie-Walls Miss US 61 Blues Trail South Have, MS

MISS US 61

Memphis Minnie - Walls

Memphis Minnie (Lizzie Douglas, 1897-1973) was one of the premier blues artists of the 1930s and ‘40s. Her singing and songwriting, spirited demeanor, and superlative guitar playing propelled her to the upper echelons of a field dominated by male guitarists and pianists. In the early 1900s, Minnie lived in Tunica and DeSoto counties, where she began performing with guitarist Willie Brown and others. She is buried here in the New Hope M.B. Church Cemetery.

Memphis Minnie 

Memphis Minnie 

Memphis Minnie 

MEMPHIS MINNIE spent most of her childhood in Mississippi, where she was known as “Kid” Douglas. U.S. Census listings of 1900 and 1910 place her in Tunica County, but she gave her birthplace as Algiers, Louisiana (June 3, 1897). When she was a teenager, her family moved to Walls, but Minnie soon struck out on her own, inspired to make a living with her voice and guitar. She reportedly joined the Ringling Brothers circus as a traveling musician and performed locally at house parties and dances with Willie Brown, Willie Moore, and other bluesmen around Lake Cormorant and Walls.

The lure of Beale Street drew her to Memphis, where she worked for the streets, cafes, clubs, and parties. She began performing with Joe McCoy, whom she married in 1929. After a talent scout heard the duo performing for tips in a barbershop, they made their first recordings that year, billed as “Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie.” “Bumble Bee” was their big hit, and has been recorded by many other blues singers, although in later years their most recognized song would become “When the Levee Breaks.” The couple soon relocated to Chicago and continued to perform and record together before Minnie took on a new guitar-playing husband, Ernest Lawlars (or Lawlers), a.k.a. “Little Son Joe.” Minnie recorded prolifically throughout the 1930s and ‘40s, scoring hits such as “Me and My Chauffeur Blues,” “Please Set a Date,” “In My Girlish Days,” and “Nothing in Rambling.” Her showmanship and instrumental prowess enabled her to defeat the top bluesmen of Chicago, including Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy, in blues contests. Minnie gained a reputation as a down-home diva who could handle herself, and her men, both on and off the stage. In 1958 Minnie returned to Memphis, where she died in a nursing home on August 6, 1973.

One of the rare women of her era to gain prominence as a guitarist, Minnie overcame considerable odds to achieve success, battling both racism and sexism. She has been heralded as a champion of feminist independence and empowerment. She was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in its first year of balloting (1980). The Mt. Zion Memorial Fund erected a headstone for her here in 1996. Her songs have been recorded by women such as Big Mama Thornton, Lucinda Williams, and Maria Muldaur, as well as by men, including Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and Western swing pioneer Milton Brown.

Columbia Recording Company
“When the Levee Breaks”
 Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie 

If it keeps on rainin',
Levee's goin' to break.
And the water gonna come and
You'll have no place to stay.
Oh, cryin' won't help you,
Prayin' won't do no good.
When the levee breaks, mama,
You got to move.
It's a mean old levee,
Cause me to weep and moan.
Gonna leave my baby and
My happy home.
When the Levee Breaks
Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie

When the Levee Breaks, recorded June 18, 1929, was the first release by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. McCoy was the vocalist on this song and many others during the years of his partnership with Minnie. Led Zeppelin brought the song to rock audiences when they recorded it in 1971, and its lyrics carried its renewed prominence as a theme song for documentaries about Hurricane Katrina after the levees broke in New Orleans in 2005.

In Woman with Guitar, Memphis Minnie's Blues at 1922 Da Capo Press book. Paula and Beth Garon documented Minnie's life and music analyzing her work from sociological, political, and surrealist perspectives.

Welcome to one of the many sites on the Mississippi Blues Trail 

Visit us online at www.MSBluesTrail.org 

The Blues Foundation - Memphis Miss US 61 South Haven, MS

Bottom 

Miss US 61

The Blues Foundation - Memphis

The Blues Foundation, the world's premier organization dedicated to honoring, preserving, and promoting the blues, was founded in Memphis in 1980. Mississippi-born performers and business professionals in the Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame outnumber those from any other state, and Mississippians have also won many annual Blues Music Awards, Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, and International Blues Challenge talent competitions sponsored by the Foundation.

The Blues Foundation

The Blues Foundation

Top 

The Blues Foundation, the headquarters of an international network of blues appreciation with thousands of members, grew from a small base of Memphis supporters that presented the first W. C. Handy Blues Awards at the Orpheum Theatre on November 16, 1980. Balloting for the awards (later renamed the Blues Music Awards) and the Blues Hall of Fame was initially conducted by Living Blues magazine by polling a worldwide group of blues authorities, deejays, musicians, folklorists, record dealers, and producers. The majority of the first twenty inductees into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 were born in Mississippi: Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller), John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Son House, Otis Spann, Jimmy Reed, Charley Patton, and Memphis Minnie. By 2012, more than fifty Mississippians had been inducted. As the Foundation grew, paid members became the Blues Music Award voters, while a select committee of experts elected the Hall of Fame inductees.

Over the years, the Blues Foundation expanded its activities to include education programs, blues conferences, health care, the Handy Artists Relief Trust (HART) Fund, Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, Lifetime Achievement Awards, and the International Blues Challenge (IBC). Hundreds of blues societies and organizations around the world have affiliated with the Foundation and many have sponsored bands in the IBC competitions. While the blues has become an international phenomenon, the Blues Foundation has continued to acknowledge Mississippi for its crucial role in blues history and as the home of generations upon generations of blues musicians. More than two hundred Blues Music Awards have gone to Mississippi natives or one-time residents as Performers of the Year in various categories or for their contemporary, traditional, acoustic, soul-blues, or reissue recordings. Multiple award recipients include B. B. King, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, Pinetop Perkins, Little Milton, James Cotton, Willie Kent, Magic Slim, Albert King, Eddie Shaw, Eden Brent, Hubert Sumlin, Bobby Rush, Cedric Burnside, Honeyboy Edwards, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, R. L. Burnside, Sam Myers, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Willie Dixon, Carey Bell, Eddy Clearwater, Otis Spann, Sonny Boy Williamson (No. 2), and Snooky Pryor. Zac Harmon, Eden Brent, and Grady Champion are among the IBC winners with Mississippi roots.

Memphis has long been a major gateway to and from the Mississippi Delta, both for musicians and for blues fans worldwide. In 2010 the Blues Foundation, formerly housed in small office spaces without room for a Hall of Fame exhibit, acquired this building to make 421 South Main Street the permanent address of the Blues Hall of Fame and the “International Home of Blues Music.”

Muddy Waters, a native of Issaquena County MS received more votes than any other artist in the first Blues Hall of Fame balloting in 1980. He recorded "Gone to Main St" in 1952.

The first album elected in the Blues Hall of Fame's Classics of Blues Recordings was King of the Delta Blues Singer by Robert Johnsson who was born in Hazelnuts, MS. In the singles category "Dust my broom" bu Elmore (Elmo)James from Richland, MS let the first-year voting. 

Pinetop Perkins of Belzoni, MS won so many annual honors in the piano keyboards category as "instrumentalist of the year" that the award was renamed for him. The Blues Entertainer of the Year was renamed after BB King a native of Berclair, MS who began his professional career in Memphis. 

Among the Blues Hall of Fame inductees or Blues Music Awards winners who lived in both MS and Memphis (or West Memphis) are Rufus Thomas, Albert King, Charlie Musselwhite, Litttle Milton, Junior Parker, James Cotton, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Honeyboy Edwards, Memphis Minnie, Furry Lewis, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, Gus Caannon, WC Handy, Hubet Sumlin, Ike Turner, BB King, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sunnyland Slim, Eddie Taylor, Robert Nighthawk, Big Walter Horton, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Johnson, Sonny Boy Willaimson, No 2, Billy Gibson, George Jackson and Jessie May Hemphill. 

Chess Recording Company
“Gone to Main St”
Muddy Waters 

Welcome to one of the many sites on the Mississippi Blues Trail 

Visit us online at www.MSBluesTrail.org 

From Mississippi to Memphis Miss US 61 South Haven, MS

Bottom 

Miss US 61

From Mississippi to Memphis

The bright lights of Beale Street and the promise of musical stardom have lured blues musicians from nearby Mississippi since the early 1900s. Early Memphis blues luminaries who migrated from Mississippi include Gus Cannon, Furry Lewis, Jim Jackson, and Memphis Minnie. In the post-World War II era, many native Mississippians became blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll recording stars in Memphis, including Rufus Thomas, Junior Parker, B.B. King, and Elvis Presley.

B.B. King 

Elvis Presley 

From Mississippi to Memphis

From Mississippi to Memphis

Top 

Memphis blues was discovered by the rest of the world largely via the works of Beale Street-based bandleader W. C. Handy, who began using blues motifs in his compositions shortly after encountering the music in the Mississippi Delta around 1903. By the 1920s many musicians from Mississippi had relocated here to perform in local theaters, cafes, and parks. The mix of rural and urban musical traditions and songs from traveling minstrel and medicine shows led to the creation of new blues styles, and record companies set up temporary studios at the Peabody Hotel and other locations to capture the sounds of Mississippians who came to town to record, such as Tommy Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt, as well as some who had settled in Memphis, including Robert Wilkins, Jim Jackson, Gus Cannon, Memphis Minnie, and Joe McCoy.

In the decade following World War II musicians from around the Mid South descended upon Memphis, and their interactions resulted in the revolutionary new sounds of R&B and rock ’n’ roll. Riley King arrived from Indianola and soon became known as the “Beale Street Blues Boy,” later shortened to “B. B.” Many of King’s first performances were at talent shows at the Palace Theater, 324 Beale, co-hosted by Rufus Thomas, a native of Cayce, Mississippi, who, like King, later worked as a deejay at WDIA. King and Thomas were among the many Mississippi-born artists who recorded at Sam Phillips’s Memphis Recording Service, where Tupelo’s Elvis Presley made his historic first recordings for Phillips’s Sun label in 1954. The soul music era arrived with the Stax and Hi labels in the 1960s, and again many Mississippians were at the forefront: Stax’s roster included Little Milton, Albert King, Rufus Thomas, and Roebuck “Pops” Staples, while Hi producer and bandleader Willie Mitchell, a native of Ashland, oversaw recordings by soul and blues artists Otis Clay, Syl Johnson, Big Lucky Carter, Big Amos (Patton), and others with Mississippi roots.

WC Handy Statue on Beale St Memphis, TN 

The revitalization of Beale Street as an entertainment district, beginning in the 1980s, resulted in new performance venues for Mississippi natives including Daddy Mack Orr, Billy Gibson, and Dr. Feelgood Potts. The Mississippi-to-Memphis blues tradition has also been promoted by the Center for Southern Folklore, radio stations WEVL and WDIA, and labels including Inside Sounds, Icehouse, Memphis Archives, Ecko, and High Water. Mississippi has been well represented in the Memphis-based Blues Foundation’s International Blues Competition and Blues Music Awards (formerly W. C. Handy Awards), and thirteen of the first twenty artists inducted into the foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 were born or raised in Mississippi.

Brunswick Recording Company “Fourth and Beal” Cannon and Woods “The Beale Street Boys

Jim Jackson, Rufus Thompson (at microphone), and Furry Lewis (right)became Memphis music icons after moving here from Mississippi. They all settled in Memphis prior to 1820.

The Handy Sheet is from 1917.
In 2003 WC Handy awards, Sam Phillips with four of the Blues legends is recorded in the early 1950s. Seated, from let are Ike Turner, BB King and Little Milton (all natives of Mississippi). Standing with Phillips is Memphian Rosco Gordon. Phillips also recorded Little Junior Parker Howlin' Wolf, James Cotton, and Doctor Ross, among others Mississippi bluesmen.
Beal Street at night the late 1930s.
WC Handy Shown at a parade held in his honor here in 1953 came to Memphis form Clarksdale, MS. The park is a block north of this marker was renamed for him in 1931.




Ecko Records, founded by Mississippian John Ward in 1995 became a leader in the soul-blues market with releases by Mississippi natives including Ollie Nightingale Sheba Potts-Wright, Denise LaSalle, OB Buchana, David Brinston, and Lee "Shot" Williams.
High Water Records under the direction of Dr. Davis Evans at the University of Memphis documented more traditional blues.

Beal Street as it appeared in the summer of 1944.

Welcome to one of the many sites on the Mississippi Blues Trail 

Visit us online at www.MSBluesTrail.org 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/146489606/b.b.-king