Delta Blues Odyssey . . . Oddments and Miscellaneous, Part 1

Cozy Corner Cafe in Indianola, Mississippi.

Two cotton headed ninny mugginses . . .

Mrs. Crump’s house in Nitta Yuma, Mississippi.

It was here in Tutwiler that W.C. Handy heard:

A lean, loose-jointed Negro [who] had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of a guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable. His song, too, struck me instantly. ‘Goin’ where the Southern cross’ the Dog.’ The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I ever heard.

I guess the rest is history.

Happy Faces Only! . . . Helena, Arkansas.

Where the Southern crosses the Yellow Dog . . . Moorhead, Mississippi.

Abandoned mill in Hollandale, Mississippi. I think Sam Chatmon worked here.


The Jigger & Jug (Greenville, Mississippi), the first legal liquor store in Mississippi following prohibition . . . it opened in 1966!!!

Yuck's Food Market in Indianola.

Along the road to B.B. King's birthplace near Blue Lake.