Post by FPM on Apr 18th, 2012 at 6:22pm
I just had a great experience. I went to Clarksdale MS with Rotten
Belly Blues. I'm sure some of you remember Rotten Belly from
all of the razzing we received from Starbuck for having too many
percussionists.
I think just the fact that I was in Clarksdale gives this post an SSC status. Clarksdale was the original stomping
ground of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters pre-Chicago, Sonny Boy Williamson, and a raft of other blues legends,
and it's one of the last connections to the pre-war Juke culture which gave birth to the loud blues that eventually
became rock and roll. Although Muddy recorded "Rollin' Stone" in Chicago, it was recorded in the style he brought
from Clarksdale.
On Friday the 13th, I was at Red's Juke Joint in Clarksdale MS, where my blues brother Dave Groninger
(standing, with the hat) was backing up Cadillac John on his 85th birthday. I was accompanied by my
girlfriend Missy, my son Michael, and the 7 other members of Rotten Belly Blues, in town for a festival
set the next day. It was unbelievable - steamy, packed with ecstatic people; the beer was cheap and
went down fast. The music was loud, broke down, real, timeless. It made us all wish we were playing
too. We were getting ready for a midnight pilgrimage down to the Crossroads of 61 and 49 to make
our own personal deals with the Devil.
Instead, stepping out of Red's for a smoke break, we met Clarksdale guitar
legend Terry "Big T" Williams, who had a dilemma - he had just opened a
new juke joint and his band didn't show up. Minutes later we were in his
bullet-scarred purple suburban being escorted to his club, and shortly
afterwards, we were playing the first of two nights of unscheduled gigs
on the Rotten Belly 2012 Tour of the Deep South.
http://youtu.be/TaiPUJccGmc
All sorts of guest stars joined us, including the proprietor, Big T (above, playing my bass!) Later on Watermelon
Slim (left) was on stage playing harp alongside a Swedish guy blowing tenor and our keyboard player on an oboe. Whoo hoo!
The night stretched on into dawn. Finally I sneaked all the members of the band into my hotel room and we crashed for awhile.
Next day at 3 we played our scheduled set at the Delta Furniture Stage on issaquena St. It went down great! The
weather was gorgeous, with a brisk wind keeping the temperature ideal. It was PERFECT.
http://youtu.be/1n216T52Pms
Was SS there? Hell yeah!
That night we played at Big T's again. The crowd was small but WE WERE PLAYING IN A JUKE JOINT
IN CLARKSDALE. I mean, holy shit. The people who were there, locals and tourists, loved us. We
made a lot of new friends. Not many vacations end up like this.
On Sunday we caught Robert "Wolfman" Balfour, Watermelon Slim,
and Big George Brock (above, top to bottom) at the Cat Head Mini-
Fest, a Sunday Juke Fest tradition, and then sadly departed Clarksdale,
heading north on Highway 61.
It was an unreal experience. I'm so glad my son lived it with me...it's certainly a vacation we'll always remember!
There's some talk about Rotten Belly playing the Sunflower Festival in August. I guess we were invited
at some fuzzy point on Saturday. Robert Plant is headlining. No matter what, we'll be at the 10th Annual
Juke Joint Festival in April 2013. If any of you love the blues, you should consider it too. You will not
regret it!
http://www.jukejointfestival.com/
