Goal: Clarksdale – The Cross Roads of the Blues
We start the day by driving across the I55 bridge to Arkansas. The Arkansas side of the Mississippi is the flood plain side of the river at Memphis. Miles and Miles of flat open area, which obviously floods regularly. The municipality of West Memphis, Arkansas is 8 miles from Memphis Tennessee, and built behind a huge levee.
We turned south toward Helena, Arkansas, along the way we made a small detour to the Tom Sawyer Campground. The Tom Sawyer Campground had many recommendations, and is at waters edge of the Mississippi. We had considered staying there, however, when we made our reservations the 2nd automotive bridge across the Mississippi river, Interstate 40 was closed for repairs. The result was all the automotive traffic had to use the I55 bridge into Memphis. This one of the main motivations to our selection of the Elvis Presley Boulevard RV Park.
We continue south in Arkansas south on Arkansas route 1. There were cotton fields on both sides of the road in various states of harvest. At Walnut Corner, we turned onto US 49 and headed east to Helena, Arkansas. We drove down the center street of Helena and determined that Helena is basically a ghost town.
We climbed back up onto US 49 and crossed the Mississippi river to the Mississippi side. We passed the Isle of Capri Casino and turned south to stay on US 49. Lots of cotton, again in the process of being harvested.
We did a tour around the town of Clarksdale to see what was to see. That town was obviously still deep in poverty, however this town is still alive. Rob and I commented that Clarksdale seems to actually doing better than when we visited 11 years ago on our motorcycles. In fact there was a new Delta Blues building across the street from Ground Zero Blues Club.
Ground Zero Blues Club was originally a cotton gin. Cotton gins are where raw cotton is processed, the seeds and twigs are combed out of the boules, and the cotton combed. The seeds are separated and either sold to reseed the fields, or sent to be pressed into Cotton seed oil.
Ground Zero was founded in 2001 by Bill Luckett, in collaboration with his partners Morgan Freeman, Eric Meier, and Howard Stovall. The mission is to showcase the best of today’s Delta Blues musicians. While there are occasional national acts now performing at the club, you are more likely to find musicians who live in along the Mississippi and in the Mississippi Delta. The club also features simple “down home” cooking.
When we visited in 2010, the menu included pork chop sandwiches. A Mississippi pork chop sandwich is a delicious bone in, thin pork chop. Depending on the chef, they might be smoked, grilled, breaded and fried, or braised. The sandwich is served on plain white bread. The bread does not have to be eaten. It is simply a way to keep your fingers clean. The Ground Zero pork chop sandwiches were smoked!
With supplies limited this year as the economy recovers from Covid-19, the current entree menu included pulled pork, delta catfish, chicken tenders, and a veggie plate. There are also sandwiches and burgers.
Rob and I both selected the fried catfish dinner, and Deryl ordered the Fried Green Tomato appetizer. The breading on the catfish dinners and the Fried Green Tomatoes was finely ground corn meal based. The tomatoes had different seasonings than the catfish. Both were light and crisp coatings. The catfish was moist and tender. The tomatoes still had a little bite left, and were not cooked to mush. Rob selected the coleslaw and baked beans for his sides. Deryl chose the turnip greens, and black eyed peas (they were out of the fried Okra.)
Yum, Yum, Yum is the simple description.
At 8:00 PM a band started playing. Unfortunately, the band wasn’t particularly memorable. They were ok for an all white, old guy, band. Unfortunately, the guitar player has the Old Guitar Player bad habits. He puts his amplifiers on the stage floor, aimed at the audience, and his ankles, he then turns the amps up so that he can hear his music and blasts the audience. To make matters worse, this guy wore ear plugs to reduce what he heard, and insisted that the sound guy turn up the monitors so he could hear himself! Rob and I agreed… Take The DAMN EAR PLUGS OUT, point the guitar amps at your head, and put them on chairs!
We stayed through the first set then decided to head home. It was an hour and a half drive. About halfway back we found a gas station selling diesel at lower price than most and filled up the truck.
A good day!