Vandrea Does America: Days 264 - 267 (Thu 4/11/13

With careful planning we arrived in the 'Home of the Blues' just as their annual Juke Joint Festival was beginning. Juke Joint consists of four days of almost completely free and terrific blues music with acts playing throughout Clarksdale's four downtown blocks. This festival is amazing for many reasons but most of all because Clarksdale is a tiny and economically depressed town, but that doesn't stop them from throwing a hell of a party.

Over the weekend we heard all kinds of blues; sultry woman blues, gritty old man blues, not-as-gritty young man blues and even a guy singing about skinny jean blues. On the first night we got to hear Grammy award winner Eden Brent, whose performance moved the audience (for us literally, so that we could get closer and avoid some distracting chatter behind us). While watching Blind Mississippi Morris we were treated to a 13-year-old kid (though he looked 10) playing fiery lead guitar, heard Rip Lee Pryor sing the dirtest song possible without actually swearing ("Mother-fuya" was the name of the dirty dittie) and saw LC Ulmer sing into a tin can. At times there was almost too much good music, especially Saturday when there were 12 stages going on simultaneously all day.

As if the music weren't enough of a treat there was also a petting zoo, sweet faced chefs from the high school putting out samples as fast as we could scoop them up and liberal drinking laws (so much so that I sipped a Miller while talking to an Officer riding a segway).

We will never forget the music but there were two other things that we are unlikely to forget. The first was meeting a couple who walked past our van, stopped, stared into it and started asking questions. When I responded back, they nearly fell over astonished, apparently they had been talking to the van. "Didn't see you there" the couple replied and asked us to come party with them. It was 5p and it didn't take long to see they were at the very least drunk. This would not have been so unusual except they continued to explain that they were from out of town. This too was not unusual, but then we started doing some math. They bragged about having to drive 90 mph to get into town and had only just arrived. Our math was unnecessarily when they specifically stated they were on coke and ranted about how the new MS drunk driving laws were cramping their style. They were also, if it matters, in their mid 40's. We managed to ditch them in the crowd. (They were easily distractable). They were also hyper focused and came looking for us. We got away again but not as discreetly.

The second unforgettable moment was far better. We were sitting listening to music in front of an old theater. An old man came up to us and began to talk about his history with the theater. He told us that when he was about 10 years-old the theater was segregated with "blacks upstairs and whites downstairs." He and his friends would throw popcorn down below and the white kids would throw some back up. He went on to say that later as a young man he met Martin Luther King Jr. across the street from where we stood, who told him that one day he would have the rights he deserved and that there would even be a black president. His final words to us: "And I lived to see it." It gave me chills.