I Sold My Soul to the Devil…And all I Got Was this T-Shirt

Abe’s Bar-B-Q
616 State Street
Clarksdale, MS





“I went to the crossroad
Fell down on my knees”
  -- Robert Johnson, Cross Road Blues


From Robert Johnson to Led Zeppelin to Eric Clapton, the image of a drifter standing in the moonlight at the crossing of two lonely roads has been elevated to an iconic symbolism.

Clarksdale, Mississippi and Abe’s Bar-B-Q, literally standing at the crossing of the state’s two “Blues Highways”, are both inextricably linked to the legend of “The Crossroads”.

Of course the most famous crossroads story of all is tied to Robert Johnson himself, that pioneer of Mississippi Delta blues.

Johnson grew up on the Abbay and Leatherman Plantation, which still operates today about 30 miles north of here.

Interested in music at a young age, Johnson would bug blues-playing share croppers on the plantation like Son House to show him licks on harmonica and guitar.

There was just one problem.

Basically, young Robert Johnson sucked.

Around 1930, Johnson moved away.

When he returned a few years later, Robert Johnson had transformed into the greatest blues guitarist on earth.

To the Folks around the Abbay and Leatherman Plantation there could be but one explanation for Johnson’s newfound proficiency…

…he must have sold his soul at some Delta crossroads in a late night deal with the devil.

Of course. What else could it be?

I guess it never occurred to these folks that combining God-given talent with lots and lots of hard work and practice might be a more logical conclusion.

You can see the roots of collectivism in this thinking: your successes in life can’t possibly be legitimately earned, so therefore the rest of us have a rightful claim on the fruits of your labor.

But I digress.

Besides, the whole “sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads” thing sounds a whole lot cooler.

Apparently, the Clarksdale Chamber of Congress agrees.

They have erected a gaudy monument of cris-crossing blue guitars in the middle of a median at the center of town where Highways 61 and 49 intersect, commemorating the spot where Johnson did his supposed soul bartering.

In a way I understand the logic.

Highway 61, “The Blues Highway”, has been immortalized in countless blues songs from Mississippi Fred McDowell to Bob Dylan.

Same with Highway 49, as sung by everyone from Big Joe Williams to Mick Jagger.

These two iconic roads cut straight through the heart of the Mississippi Delta where the blues was born and intersect here in Clarksdale.

In front of Mid-South Farm Supply, Krosstown Pawn Shop and Church’s Chicken.

Somehow, I doubt this is where Robert Johnson would actually choose to sell his soul to the devil.

All I know is if I were going to do some dealin’ with the devil, I’d want a bit more privacy, like on some lonely crossroads out in the country.

But then again, maybe the devil was hungry.

If so, this urban crossroads in the heart of Clarksdale wouldn’t be such a bad place to hang out.

Even in Robert Johnson’s day, Abe Davis, a Lebanese immigrant, was smoking and slicing pork right here in Clarksdale.

Now run by Abe’s sons and literally sitting under the shadow of the Chamber’s “Crossroads” Monument, Abe’s Bar-B-Q remains one of Mississippi’s top roadside culinary destinations.

The pork here is smoked over hickory for six hours, which is just long enough to melt the fat and cartilage into the meat, but not long enough to achieve that pull apart tenderness most barbeque masters seek.

But Abe’s solves that issue by slicing the smoked pork shoulders super thin and grilling the pork shavings on the flat top.

The result is crispy, delicate barbeque topped with a vinegary/ketchupy sauce.

Delicious. Especially as a sandwich.

The barbeque sandwich is a double-decker, kinda like a Big Mac, with alternating layers of bread, pork, sauce and cole slaw.

The sauce adds a zesty tang. The slaw a crunchy, cool bite. The squooshy fresh buns hold it all together.

But man cannot live on barbeque alone.

You can’t visit the Mississippi Delta without trying some local tamales.

Tamales? In Mississippi?

There aren’t any Mexicans in Mississippi!

Nope. And never have been.

Nobody knows where the Delta tradition of tamales originated. But I do know one thing.

Abe’s tamales are among the best.

Starchy corn meal filled with moist beef, Abe’s tamales are best when slathered with its signature meaty chili.

Some top-notch onion rings on the side and a cold Coors Light long neck to wash it all down, Abe’s Bar-B-Q was a highlight of my trip to the Delta.

It was so good, I thought about how I’d give ANYTHING to get a replica of the Abe’s Bar-B-Q/Crossroads t-shirt my waitress was wearing.

Well, just about anything.

I’m not saying I’d sell my soul to the devil for a t-shirt, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Jukin’ at Red’s

Red’s Lounge
395 Sunflower Ave.
Clarksdale, MS






I CRAVE authenticity. The real deal.

It’s getting harder and harder to find it in our homogenized, franchised, mass-marketed modern America.

That search for the real thing is what brought me to the corner of Sunflower and Martin Luther King Boulevard on a Sunday night in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

I love the blues.

From Chicago electric blues to the hypnotic rhythm of North Mississippi Hill Country blues to acoustic country blues played on a bottle neck slide that originated right here in Clarksdale, this authentic brand of American music is one of my favorite genres.

Virtually all modern forms of popular music, from rock n roll to hip hop to R and B, derived from black cotton pickers strumming homemade cigar box and dime store guitars here in the fertile Mississippi Delta at the turn of the last century.

While the blues originated as a black genre of music, now days if you go to a blues club anywhere in America, you’ll find yourself surrounded by middle-aged white guys sporting beer guts, beards or pony tails -- or, more than likely, all three.

In the 21st Century, the blues audience is almost completely white.

And chances are the performers are too.

Sure, there are a few black blues artists like Kenny Neal, Shemekia Copeland and Duwayne Burnside who are literally following in their fathers’ footsteps, but the majority of modern blues artists look a lot like their audience.

And I supposed that’s fine. People should be free to listen to and perform whatever type of music they want.

But whenever I’m sitting there in a strip mall blues club sipping one of my microbrews listening to some white guy play a tired version of “Sweet Home Chicago”, I can’t help but let my mind wander…

…to some smoke-filled shack hard against the railroad tracks deep in the heart of the Mississippi Delta -- where the blues started.

The real deal.

Dim lights flickering, beer bottles clanging, an old weathered black hand sliding a bottle neck across the strings, big legged women rhythmically swaying their hips to the low down dirty blues beat.

A place where Suit757 doesn’t belong.

A place where I have no business being.

A place where sketchy-looking characters could cut me with a switch blade if I look at them the wrong way.

Yeah. That’s why I’m talking about!

Okay. Some of my friends think I have an unhealthy fixation on danger.

But that’s not it. I just crave something authentic.

That’s why I came to Red’s Lounge.

I heard it was perhaps the last true juke joint left in America.

Juke joints are the down home places where blues were first performed for an audience.

They were places for hard working black people to unwind after hot days under the Mississippi sun picking cotton.

Moonshine, dice playing and felicitous companionship could all be found in theses smoky, sweaty shacks out in the country or in town on the wrong side of the tracks.

For the most part, the local white sheriffs had no interest in interfering with the goings on in black juke joints. Liquor laws, last call, fire regulations went largely unenforced.

Cuttin’ and shootin’ was an occupational hazard for blues players in juke joints.

But as the musical tastes of black folks have evolved beyond their blues roots and the casinos with their free whiskey have drawn them to their riverboats on the Mississippi River, juke joints with live blues have all but disappeared here in the Delta.

Except for Red’s.

Red Paden has been running juke joints for most of his adult life. And he loves the blues.

At his namesake blues club in the heart of Clarksdale, he still schedules live blues every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night in a run-down former music store. Whether any one shows up or not.

Walking through the front door of America’s last standing live music juke joint was the fulfillment of a life-long fantasy.

I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous -- for all the aforementioned reasons.

Plus I had talked to a guy in Memphis who told me Red sometimes “has an attitude” about white people coming to his place to soak up the black juke joint atmosphere. “Although he’ll happily take your money,” he quickly added.

Another guy said when he tried to videotape one of the performers, Red threatened “to cut him”. The opinion of the regulars was divided on whether Red was kidding -- or not.

But that which made me nervous was exactly what made me so excited as I parked my rental car on Sunflower Avenue and slowly walked toward the low rumbling blues pouring out of Red’s door.

As I pushed on the weathered handle and paid my $7 cover to the friendly lady at the front, my apprehension eased a bit.

I pulled up a battered stool near the front door and ordered a beer from Red. Three bucks for a 12 ounce bottle of Miller High Life (I wasn’t about to ask Red for a beer list).

Plus I tipped Red a buck. He seemed to appreciate it.

No sign of a switch blade. That’s a relief.

As it turned out, I didn’t have anything to be nervous about.

The crowd was almost entirely white, except for a few folks who seemed to be kin to the band.

Right up front was a table of five 20-something white girls downing 18 ounce bottles of Bud. I figured they must be European (as was much of the crowd). American chicks would never walk into a place like Red’s by themselves.

It was close to a packed house. That’s a couple dozen people in this cozy joint.

Every last one of them seemed to be damn glad to be there, soaking up the authentic divey charm and the kick ass blues band.

The real deal.

These adventurous blues lovers were just like me!

The band was in the midst of a full blown scorching set of electric blues when I walked in.

Taking the lead was a 14 year old kid named “King Fish”.

Yes. You read that right. Fourteen years old!

Maybe there is hope after all for the future of black blues.

The kid was amazing, playing scalding guitar riffs behind is back and with his teeth, ala Jimmy Hendrix. He belted out blues with a voice way beyond his years.

On keyboard and occasional vocals was David “Space Cowboy” Isaac.

Perhaps most entertaining of all was Space Cowboy’s nephew on drums, aptly named, “Hollywood”.

Hollywood looked like he was twelve at the most, but spent the entire evening effortlessly banging out the blues beat with a charismatic smile plastered on his face.

While Red’s Lounge wasn’t quite as scary as I had feared/hoped, it was plenty authentic.

Years old posters haphazardly tacked to the walls.

Various flotsam and jetsam piled high against the windows.

A tapestry of plastic trash bags staplegunned to the ceiling to minimize the leaking rainwater from the roof.

A soft glow of red snake lights shaped into musical notes.

Most authentic of all was Red himself, stumbling around behind the bar, drinking his own profits and soaking up the kick ass blues unfolding in front of him in his own place.

Red wore a tattered holey Red’s Lounge t-shirt that read “It is what it is”.

I was jealous.

Our entire Suits in Strange Places rating system was devised with places like Red’s in mind.

Uncool touristy places make it easy to buy a t-shirt. They are ubiquitous. Exit through the t-shirt gift shop on your way out.

Think Hard Rock Café, House of Blues, B.B. King’s Blues Club.

The coolest places make it HARD to get a t-shirt. You’d feel like a loser-tourist-idiot even asking for one.

THOSE are the AWESOME places.

The harder it is to buy a shirt, the cooler it is to wear it.

That’s my Suit757 t-shirt philosophy.

I really wanted a Red’s shirt but I was too chicken to ask for one.

Roger Stolle, who owns the Cat Head Delta Blues and Folk Art store down the street, told me the next morning that Red’s does indeed sell t-shirts.

Roger said, “I keep telling Red to put up a sign or something if he wants to sell them. But he won’t do it. ‘This is a juke joint,’ he says. I guess to be an authentic juke joint, you have to have some ridiculous conversation to buy a shirt.”

Exactly.

Rating: I really, really wanted to buy the shirt…but I wimped out.

Singing the Deep Fried Beale Street Burger Blues

Dyer’s Burgers
205 Beale St.
Memphis, TN




“Memphis is not what it used to be.”
      -- Texas songwriter Owen Temple from his song “Memphis”


No, Memphis is not.

I suppose most folks think that’s a good thing, especially when you hear Will Shade, leader of the legendary Memphis Jug Band describe Memphis’ infamous Beale Street about a century ago:

"You could walk down the street in the days of 1900 and like that and you could find a man wit’ throat cut from ear to ear.

"Also you could find people lyin’ dead wit’ not their throat cut, money took and everything in their pockets, took out of their pockets and thrown outside the house.

"Sometimes you find them with no clothes on, throwed out of winders here on Beale Street. Sportin’ class o’ women runnin’ up and down the street all night long."

After reading that, I suppose I grudgingly agree it’s a good thing too.

I’m not all that keen on having my throat cut.

But there is something sad about such an iconic part of America existing now as nothing but a memory -- and a 21st Century Disneyesque mockery of the blues.

At least that is what Beale Street has become.

And if you don’t think that is an indictment of all of Memphis, consider the words of the great B.B. King, whose B.B. King’s Blues Club now stands as the flagship Disneyesque attraction on Beale Street:

"I don’t think of Memphis as Memphis. I thought of Beale Street as Memphis."

Before the days of urban renewal, Beale Street was the place black people from all over the mid-South and Mississippi Delta came to live, work, party and die.

All of it to the soundtrack of the blues -- the soulful, haunting sound that gave birth to almost every form of modern popular music from rock n’ roll to R&B to hip hop.

Beale Street was a bustling, bubbling gumbo of sweaty fun.

Beale Street entertainer Rufus Thomas once said, “If you were black for one Saturday night and on Beale Street, never would you want to be white again.”

But just about all of THAT Beale Street is long gone, plowed under by progress, so called.

The black juke joints were replaced with Coyote Ugly and the Hard Rock Café.

Drunken black revelers from the Delta replaced with drunken white tourists from Des Moines and Buffalo.

Authentic, gritty, gut bucket blues replaced with what I derisively call “tourist blues” -- countless repetitions of “Mustang Sally” and “She’s a Brick…

…House”.

Gag.

But I’m happy to say there is one piece of old Memphis that survives to this day.

The grease at Dyer’s Burgers.

Yes. Dyers’ has been deep frying burgers in a cauldron of hot grease that has not been changed in over a century.

You read that right.

Dyer’s deep fries its burgers.

And Dyer’s has never changed the grease. Not once in 101 years.

Oh sure, at 4am last call, one of Dyer’s employees will strain out all the burger and fry remainders and occasionally add some fresh oil to the mix, but change the grease?

No way. It’s never been done.

In fact, the Memphis police gave Dyer’s skillet of precious grease an armed police escort across town when Dyer’s relocated to 205 Beale Street years ago.

Awesome!

And you know what makes it even more awesome?

Sticking it to nanny state Communist dictators like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg telling me how many ounces of Coke I can buy.

I feel like I’m giving the fascists trying to run my life a giant middle finger when I sink my teeth into such an unhealthy grease-laden indulgence as a Dyer’s burger.

The beef patty and cheese are submerged in Dyer’s gurgling heirloom grease for a few moments and then placed on a soft squooshy bun.

The result is hot, gooey burger bliss.

Especially at midnight after an evening of too many renditions of “Mustang Sally” and Beale Street Big Ass Beers.

Admittedly, my Suit757 palate was a bit numbed by the time it got to be Dyer’s time.

But one thing I have no doubt about -- the decadence of a Dyer’s burger standing in the middle of Beale Street at midnight is one of life’s great sinful pleasures.

Granted, no one other than Michael Bloomberg would compare this sort of sinfulness to that displayed on Beale Street in the time of Will Shade and Rufus Thomas.

But at least I won’t get my throat cut for it.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!