Blues in Yazoo County
As I traveled along the Mississippi Blues Trail, learning the role the state’s musicians have played in developing the soulful sounds of the Blues, my visit to the Delta region checked all the boxes: soul-stirring music, mouth-watering food, and a rich, interesting history.
Run by the Mississippi Blues Foundation, the Mississippi Blues Trail leads through the birthplace of, as they call it, “the single most important root source of modern popular music.” The Delta region on the west side of the state, was home to many of the pioneers of the Blues.
Yazoo
My first stop in Yazoo was the marker for Tommy McClennen, located between the Amtrak station and P-Reaux's Cajun Mudbugs & Shrimp. The native Yazooan (1908–1961) was known in the area as “Bottle Up,” after his most popular song, “Bottle It Up and Go.” McClennen, who sang in a rough, energetic style, was one of the country’s most successfully Blues recording artists at the time, laying down 20 singles for the Bluebird label. In addition to “Bottle It Up and Go,” his other well-known songs included “Cross Cut Saw,” “Travelin’ Highway Man,” and “Highway 51,” which was later covered by Bob Dylan. While in Yazoo, he lived at the Sligh plantation and hung out at the Cotton Club on Champlin Avenue and on Water Street at the Ren Theater, the next-door bar, and a pool hall.
From McClennen’s marker, I ventured over to P-Reus’s for a scrumptious lunch of traditional Delta seafood—a platter heaping with fried shrimp, oysters, catfish, and stuffed crab. I could barely finish everything, but the house sauce was so delicious, I couldn’t stop until every last bite was gone.
The next day, I stopped at another marker that commemorates one of the country’s most popular Blues singers in the 1940s, Arnold Dwight “Gatemouth” Moore. Born in Topeka, Kansas in 1913, Moore spent his career in Memphis, Kansas City, and Chicago, before settling in Yazoo, where he died in 2004. His illustrious music career influenced blues legends B. B. King and Rufus Thomas, with both not only covering Moore’s songs but also becoming close friends. Some of his most famous songs include “I Ain’t Mad at You Pretty Baby,” “Did You Ever Love a Woman,” and “Somebody’s Got to Go.”
Though successful in the music world, Moore was later called to preach, where he used his flair for performance into the ministry, as a gospel singer, and radio and TV host. He received a brass note on Memphis’s Beale Street Walk of Fame in 1996, and the Mississippi Senate presented his widow with a resolution in his honor in 2004.
The tempting aroma wafting out of Ubon’s Barbeque, next to the marker, lured me in for another round of hearty Southern cooking. Run by the father-daughter team of Garry Roark and Leslie Roark Scott, Ubon’s serves up plentiful dishes that feature the family’s barbeque sauce, a recipe that goes back five generations. I decided upon a grilled pork chop with sides of turnip greens and hushpuppies—a great choice! On my way out, I picked up a bottle of their barbeque sauce to take home, as well as a bottle of their house made Bloody Mary mix—it’s sure to be spicy!
Bentonia
To reach the next markers, I drove down Route 49 to Bentonia. The first commemorated musician Nehemiah “Skip” James, born in 1902, who grew up at the Woodbine Plantation, taking up both piano and guitar as a youth. His songs featured a distinctive approach common to other Bentonia Blues musicians of ethereal sounds, gloomy themes, falsetto melodies, and lyrics that bemoan the work of the devil. James turned to the ministry, though he returned to Bentonia in the later 1940s to play for locals. He later returned to performing for wider audiences during the 1960s blues revival. He died in Philadelphia in 1969, and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1992.
Ready for some more South delicacies, I walked next door to Bentonia Bugs. A full bowl of steamed crawfish with a side of fried oysters hit the spot. My hunger sated, I walked a little further down the street to the Blue Front Cafe, the oldest juke joint in Mississippi, run by Bentonia Blues legend Jimmy “Duck” Holmes. Holmes’s parents opened the spot in 1948, and it quickly became famous for its buffalo fish, blues performances, and moonshine.
Taking Route 433 a little farther out of town, I found Jack Owen’s marker. Born in either 1904 or 1906, Owen spent his life as a farmer, not performing outside of Mississippi until 1988. He released his first record in 1971 and rose to celebrity, yet his day-to-day life remained much the same. This hold on an old-fashioned way of life despite his fame intrigued filmmakers, and Owen appeared in several documentaries about the Delta Blues. He did finally perform nationally and internationally in his 90s, and was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1993, four years before his death in 1997.
With my belly and soul filled with hearty Southern Blues and cuisines, I eagerly await my next journey along the Mississippi Blues Trail.
