Day Three (Or: "Highway 61 Revisited")

Aloha from (relatively) balmy Little Rock, Arkansas, land of the newly-slim Mike Huckabee, the very dead General Douglas MacArthur and non-dead, noted publisher Helen Gurley Brown!

When I was planning this trip, I read the blogs of many other people who had traveled across the country and from what they had to say, I surmised that the worst thing to do was to preplan the whole trip and etch my whole route in stone.

Vindication! I can turn on a dime! Mwahahaha! OK, enough back-patting. It's snowing right now in Saint Louis, so I'm safe here in Little Rock, Arkansas. Tomorrow it's going to be 58 here! That's practically 60! Which is only 20 degrees away from 80. So really, it might as well be summer here.

This morning, I awoke in one of the cushiest hotel room I'd ever been in (goosedown everything!) in Nashville and got some breakfast before heading out on I-40.

Then, a happy accident: signs started appearing on the side of the road for Loretta Lynn's Kitchen, and her ranch. I was ecstatic; I LOOOOOOVE Loretta Lynn and have sometimes wished that I could be alternately a Coal Miner's Daughter or the Van Lear Rose (either would have been acceptable). So, anyway, I pulled off of 40 and stopped at the Kitchen for a more in-depth breakfast--real biscuits and gravy! I'd never tried that before. Next stop: grits. Maybe not. The idea of the lard in grits puts me off a little.

The memorabilia was overwhelming, and engrossing. I could have stayed there all day. I went for a quick tour around the ranch--generally, most times of the year, you can tour her house, too, but not in December (crap!). She was home, though, and just being that close was enough. Oh! Also, I drank my milk with my breakfast out of a--swear it's true--"drinking jar." Totally.

While I was tucking in (Translation in Northern: "As I started to eat...") to my food, "Burning Love" came on the jukebox and I was like, "OK Universe, I get it. I'll keep moving." Because the next stop was Memphis and all things Elvis.

Memphis! OK, full disclosure, I got turned around. Don't blame me or the map. Memphis has a grid system, but the grid system is insane. Like all of a sudden, a road that was two ways is sudden one. Maddening! I caved and bought a map. After that, it was gravy.

Speaking of gravy (beat THAT transition sentence), lunch was fried catfish, taters, greens, Texas toast and "marinated" salad at the Blues City Cafe on Beale Street ("The Best Meal on Beale"--Dear me, I love the south). Also, the finest BBQ sauce I'd ever tasted, so I bought a bottle. Pop, wait until you taste this stuff. It'll make KC Masterpiece taste like ketchup (it already does taste like ketchup to me). Then I went souvenir shoppin' at some very eclectic and weird stores and finally headed for Graceland (I passed Sun Studios, but didn't stop).

I didn't take any pictures at Graceland because, honestly, I found it depressing. There are two tours you can take--one is cheaper and lets you in to the grounds and some of the house. I found myself just kind of staring at his grave, reading the famous missprint (Aaron, instead of Aron like on his birth certificate), and thinking how lonely and ultimately empty his life actually was. How could I take a photo of that?

I think if I had taken a photo, I'd be stuck in an infinite loop where whenever Memphis would be mentioned, I'd think of that moment, standing there, wondering. (Will my kids be doing the same thing at Britney Spears' grave someday? Kinda cheapens the whole Presley mystique when you compare it to the inimitable train wreck that is Britney Spears--doesn't it feel like she could go the Elvis route?)

So I actually said a little prayer, something I haven't done in a long, long time, and got back in the car to head for the destination I've been looking forward to since I left New York: Clarksdale.

To get to Clarksdale, you have to get on Highway 61, which is infamous. Here's a quick rundown, courtesy Wikipedia: Highway 61, sometimes called the "Blues Highway," stretched from New Orleans through Memphis and from Iowa through Duluth (Bob Dylan's city of birth; His sixth album is titled "Highway 61 Revisited") to the Canadian border. It was regularly featured in blues songs, notably Mississippi Fred McDowell's "61 Highway" and James "Son" Thomas's "Highway 61." Bessie Smith met her death in an automobile accident on that roadway; Robert Johnson was said to have sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads of Highway 61 and Highway 49 (itself the subject of a Howlin' Wolf song); Elvis Presley grew up in the housing projects built along it; and Martin Luther King, Jr. would be murdered at a motel just off Highway 61.

So, OK. There's a quick background. It's that point right in the middle of that section that I was most interested in. While not the first bluesman (Charley Patton, Son House and Tommy Johnson predate him), Robert Johnson is without a doubt the most important, which is amazing, considering that there are only 41 known recordings of his 29 compositions. Without him, there wouldn't be a basis for Led Zeppelin or Johnny Winter or Eric Clapton or The White Stripes, and so really, where would I be? I'd be another schlub bopping along to Maroon 5 (OK, sometimes I do that).

The crossroads at which Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil for his unparalleled talent is right in Clarksdale. 61 goes through the Mississippi Delta--cross that off the life list, for I've now driven through it. The flatness was the first thing I noticed, and then the ditches everywhere. On either side of the highway were cleared cotton fields, the last strings of cotton clinging to the grass on the side of the road, carried their by the wind.

Clarksdale is, I imagine, awfully similar to what it was when Johnson was alive, save the Sonic and the chain gas stations. It has a shabby, worn-in charm, but it definitely has seen better days. As I drove around, I thought about Johnson going to the pivotal San Antonio recording session, how he stood facing the corner, either out of shyness or to deepen the sound, and I realized that, in 1937, leaving Mississippi must have seemed like stepping off the edge of the Earth.

But anyhow, the next stop was Greenwood, no small jaunt, but on the way to Arkansas, so an acceptable diversion. There, in the near-darkness, I visited one of two graves that bear Johnson's name. There is dispute over where he's buried, either in the Little Zion churchyard in Greenwood, or in Morgan City. I knelt down on the ground which was littered with pecans from the trees overhead, and I hugged my arms around me, thinking about the darkness and density of his music. He was 27 when he died from the effects of strychnine poisoning.

Oh! But here's the creepy part! So, I have 8779 songs in my iPod and it has been set to shuffle since I left New York. You might imagine, I go a long time without hearing two songs from the same band. As I drove into Greenwood and pulled into the church, The White Stripes' "Stop Breaking Down" came on, which is a cover of Johnson's "Stop Breaking Down Blues." The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. Eeeerie.

Then I got back in the car and headed across the Mississippi River into Arkansas. Arkansas should be called Darkansas. I went up through a very rural area and it was pitch-freaking-black. The nice part was that since it was dark and the weather was mild, I pulled over to the side, got out and stared up at the stars, which were as clear as I've ever seen them. No cars coming from either direction, I stood there probably ten minutes.

Little Rock was further away than I thought, but it was a quick drive. What a nice city... I mean as far as I can tell in the dark. Plus, everything's kind of closed, since it's a Thursday night. I'm staying at the Peabody, which is as nice as it sounds, but is actually reasonably priced.

The thing that sold me on this place is its biggest quirk: Every morning at 11 am, the Peabody Ducks (four hens and a drake), march across a red carpet into the hotel lobby to the tune of John Phillips Sousa's King Cotton March. They go into the lobby fountain and stay there all day until 5 pm when they do the march in reverse back into their "Royal Duck Palace."

Um, I love it. Tomorrow is a HUGE driving day. I'm just going to leave here and start moving. I'd love to get to Santa Fe, but that is a loooooooong ways away, so I'll probably end up somewhere around Amarillo. Which makes me think of Angie and how much I miss her!

Misc.:

• Another day of clean bathrooms!
• I passed a sex toy store in South Memphis called Hephzibah that had a big sign that said "The Latest and the Greatest in Wangs & Thangs" and I was alternately mortified and delighted.
• "Wait, Jesus is King? I thought Elvis was the King."
• I told my tale to someone at the Blues City Cafe all blues-like: "Just passin' through in a big ol' truck with some things and a Viking hat. Pardon me, I mean thangs." OK, I didn't say the Pardon Me sentence, but I TOTALLY should have. Oh and hey, don't ever get chicken-fried chicken in Tennessee because it will ruin you for fried chicken back home.
  
• Tee shirt in Beale Street store: "I don't give a damn what y'all do up north."
  
• I was shocked when the waitress at the cafe had a faintly Russian accent.
  

Bye-bye, Nashville!

At Loretta Lynn's.

At Loretta Lynn's.

The cover of "Van Lear Rose."


Drinkin' jar!

Beale Street, Memphis.


Robert Johnson's music note on Beale Street.

Blues City Cafe, Beale Street.

Big dude on Highway 61, on the Mississippi border.

At the crossroads of 61 & 49 in Clarksdale.

Sunset on the Delta, along Highway 61.


Day Three:
Nashville, TN - Little Rock, AR (by way of Clarksdale, MS)
Mileage: 521
Total mileage: 1522

More random Bob Dylan trivia: Highway 61 Revisited was named 4th in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. "Like a Rolling Stone," from the album was named #1 in the magazine's 500 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time. And that's awesome.

Led Zeppelin trivia: After Jimmy Page & Robert Plant reunited for the Unledded performance and album, they recorded a second studio album in 1998. It was called Walking into Clarksdale. Led Zeppelin covered or reworked a number of Johnson songs including "Travelling (sic) Riverside Blues."


Cross Road Blues (take 2)
Robert Johnson

I went to the crossroad
fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad
fell down on my knees

Asked the Lord above "Have mercy, now
save poor Bob, if you please
Mmmmm, standin' at the crossroad
I tried to flag a ride
Standin' at the crossroad
I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me
everybody pass me by

Mmm, the sun goin' down, boy
dark gon' catch me here
oooo ooee eeee
boy, dark gon' catch me here
I haven't got no lovin' sweet woman that
love and feel my care

You can run, you can run
tell my friend-boy Willie Brown
You can run, you can run
tell my friend-boy Willie Brown
Lord, that I'm standin' at the crossroad, babe
I believe I'm sinkin' down