There is enough to do at the Clarksdale, Mississippi Juke Joint Festival to fill up all of the four and a half days on the program schedule but we only had a day to spend this year – and we cashed it in yesterday.
The highlight of the whole day was the Birdsong Bus Tour of the area. We got on the air conditioned bus nearly twenty minutes early and it was already near capacity so the time allowed for some good eavesdropping about all the expectations of the other festival goers. Everyone was looking for real – real authentic juke joints. The outfit you wear when you are looking for real juke joints apparently is a Hawaiian shirt. Anyway, the talented tour guide Mr. Birdsong grew up in Clarksdale and had anecdotes for just about every magnolia tree-framed house and yard we drove by. It was thrilling for me to hear stories about the bold Mississippian Misses (all named fantastic things like “Gussie” and “Money”) of the past and how Tennessee Williams took revenge on one of the kids that “beat the stew out of him” by writing him into a play. Who doesn’t want that kind of information?
In addition to multiple musical performances and southern culinary treats, the festival had many many fine fashionable offerings. B wanted to hunt down the 6th grader that drew this impressive chalk portrait of Paul McCartney (featured at the Festival art show). I wanted to buy a guitar tie for every guy I knew:
Our tour let out just in time to see the last of the three o’clock pig races:
Inside the dusty WROX Museum:
Red Top Lounge from the window of the tour bus:
And in a picture at the museum:
Authentic?
I had an authentically good time.
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