Seniors Get The “Blues” in Clarksdale

Clarksdale, located in the Mississippi Delta region, is an agricultural center, and has been home to many blues musicians. The City of Clarksdale, is located at the intersection of Highways 61 and 49, “the crossroads”, and the surrounding Delta region is known as ”the land where the blues began”.

With a population of approximately 20,000, Clarksdale is the Mississippi Delta’s second largest city and home to many of The Delta’s cultural and historical landmarks. Ever since the 1920′s Clarksdale has been known as the hub for blues culture. With it’s economy booming, audiences for entertainment were created, thus allowing the blues culture to flourish.

Seniors who enjoy blues music might first take in the Delta Blues Museum that recently unveiled its latest exhibit “In the Belly of the Blues”. The Museum is in the historic Clarksdale freight depot, built in 1918 for the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad.

The Rock & Blues Museum is packed full of music memorabilia from the 1920s through the 1970s. Senior visitors can follow the evolution of America’s music from blues, R&B, and rockabilly to rock ‘n roll and soul and see how it influenced people all over the world.

The Riverside Hotel is another “must see”, one of many historical blues sites in town. Clarksdale received a historic marker as a site on the Mississippi Blues Trail by the Mississippi Blues Commission in recognition of its importance in the development of the blues in Mississippi. Clarksdale is called “Ground Zero Music” and for good reason. Be sure to “fire up” the video on this site to get the full effect.

Seniors Explore The Mississippi Delta

Clarksdale and Coahoma County, are a colorful mix of Delta characters and fascinating places. Few places in America are as interesting as the Mississippi Delta.  Stretching 250 miles from Memphis in the north to Vicksburg in the south, and about 80 miles wide, the delta is a pancake flat alluvial plain bordered by the Mississippi River on the west and the Mississippi hill country on the east. The majority of its residents are African Americans.

When you are traveling through Mississippi, discover a hotel where blueswoman Bessie Smith died and John F. Kennedy, Jr. slept. Eat a tamale or dine at a restaurant co-owned and frequented by Morgan Freeman. Clarksdale is the crossroads of culture and quirkiness with a heavy dose of the blues.

Make plans to take in one of several annual festivals in Clarksdale: the Juke Joint Festival in April, the Delta Jubilee in June, the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in August and the Tennessee Williams Festival in September-October. jeb