New Orleans to Memphis:  Searching for the Soul of the Delta
By Dan Reich

Everyone has their own passion. Mine is music. With my wife, it is photography and food. Thus it was that we conceived a trip up the Mississippi Delta as an exploration of the cradle of blues and jazz, and generous samplings of local cuisine. The plan was to make our way from New Orleans to Memphis via Highway 61 in a car…the same way thousands migrated north from the southern plantations to Memphis, Chicago or Detroit, in search of jobs and a better life.

Our first stop was New Orleans were we ate our way through three fun filled days. At Commander’s we were served one of the most extravagant lunches we have ever consumed…turtle soup, an artistically-arranged catfish salad, and bread pudding soufflé. We walked off the lunch in sub-freezing weather, photographing the gothic ironwork and stately presence of the grand and imposing mansions in the Garden District.

The dinner at K-Paul’s Kitchen was undeniably terrific.  The gumbo had a really deep flavor and the Catfish was so succulant. After dinner we found a jazz haunt called Snug Harbor…an intimate little room just outside the Quarter where jazz of the more avant garde  variety is featured, still it was a warm friendly local scene.

The next day, we booked a bayou swamp trip hoping to see some alligators. Unfortunately, they prefer temperatures higher than the 30 degrees it happened to be so most of the tour consisted of good stories, although our guide managed to produce a one-foot-long live baby alligator from a cooler, however we got some good pictures of the swamps. That evening we opted for Dooky Chase’s, which features "homier" cooking in a sophisticated ambiance and was enthusiastically recommended by my mother-in-law, who were not impressed with the more famous tourist-oriented places. It was located in a neighborhood where it was suggested that we take a cab, but we had a great meal there, and much admired the vibrant colors and original Afro-themed artwork decorating the walls.

The next part of the trip was a two-day stay at an elegant plantation in Natchez, Mississippi. Our time there included numerous tours of nearby plantations, were really like stepping into the era. The-----House was really amazing with it’s 4 stories of incomplete masterpiece. We we were wined and dined in a  private banquet room with two other couples at a banquet table laden with enough silver and china to host a coronation. Six wonderful courses later, we were ready for our four-poster bed next to a gas fireplace.

As we headed north on 61, we entered the land of the blues. We stopped in Clarksdale, with its famous "Crossroads" sign and where legend has it bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil.  We booked a room at the Shack Up Inn, a former plantation with "shotgun shacks" (so named because a blast fired through the front door would hit anyone in the house). The property had been revived as a funky B&B (running water, heat, electricity, coffeemaker, etc.) but otherwise left in their original state of near-dilapidation. Our shack was dubbed the Pinetop Perkins Shack, dedicated to the venerable blues pianist. We enjoyed the piano in the living room.

We stopped at Clarksdale’s fascinating and informative Delta Blues Museum. This museum is really worth a visit. The exhibits all include life size images of all the greats. What a tribute………………………

We  made our way into Memphis, looking forward to our stay at the esteemed Peabody Hotel just steps from Beale Street, where the action still seemed to be…despite some ill-advised urban renewal that had left only a three-block stretch of clubs, shops and restaurants surrounded by empty lots.

We made sure to be in the lobby of the Peabody when the evening duck parade began. A horn player in elaborate garb played a fanfare as the Peabody’s ducks exited the fountain in the lobby and made their way, in a very organized single-file row, to the elevator to the top floor, where they would spend the night. The gumbo at the Blues City Grill that evening was spicier and better than anything we had eaten in New Orleans. We walked across Beale to the BB King Club, where a spiffy-looking R&B outfit with a couple of horns held forth, playing predictable covers such as “In the Midnight Hour.”

The following day we took in Graceland and Sun Records…the former dedicated to The King, and the latter where he recorded his first hits. I’ll try and describe Graceland, although I feel doomed to failure. It’s not just a house that’s been decorated a bit…unusually. It’s a sprawling document to the monumental impact that one performer had on our culture, and how our culture reflected it back to him. Separate exhibits highlighted his recording accomplishments, memorabilia created to merchandise Elvis (Elvis Lipstick – "Be on my lips always") displayed alongside homemade portraits (and trophies) sent to him by fans, stage costumes, posters from more than thirty movies, a collection of cars and motorcycles, even his private jet, the Lisa Marie. The total effect of all this was overwhelming, and moving. Elvis’ standing among the faithful seems much closer to that of a religious figure than an entertainer.

Sun Records was quite a contrast…a small brick building virtually unchanged since the mid ‘50s, where we were given a tour (with soundbites) of the studio that launched the careers of Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash.

Dinner in Memphis (as opposed to New Orleans) is more a matter of "where’s the best barbecue?" A friend’s tip (and a John Hiatt song lyric) pointed us towards the Rendezvous, just a short stroll from the Peabody. The barbecued ribs, although OK, suggested the place’s reputation is based more on familiarity than actual quality. Back out on Beale, we were drawn into the Rum Boogie Café by some spirited blues playing and the walls decorated with a collection of autographed guitars hanging from the ceiling. Some made perfect sense (ZZ Top) others none at all (Brian Boitano and Rudy Galindo?) but the music was just what you’d want in a blues bar house band.

Our final day was spent touring the Gibson guitar factory and the excellent Rock and Soul Museum, who share the same vast brick building off Beale. A long afternoon and evening of flying and time changes got us home to San Francisco about midnight, dreaming of a Saturday Night Fish Fry at a roadhouse near Clarksdale, pulsating with the energy of joyous release that gave the Delta blues its power.