Route 61
Author:
Ted Drozdowski
Gibson Guitars Exploring the Mississippi Delta.
Pure Fender And Pure Soul!< < The Robert Cray Standard Stratocaster guitar is a stylishly trong persuader that captures Cray¯ unmistakable tone and style. Outfitted with a vintage hardtail bridge, Fender Custom Shop pickups, custom shaped neck based on a 8 and 4 Strat Fender Ping vintage style tuning machines, and a Sunburst finish.< < This guitar effortlessly takes you from stingin to swingin, King or a Super Reverb amp to nail Cray¯ sound!< < The feel of this guitar is solid, the hardtail bridge (no tremolo routing) has unbelievable sustain, and you can play this guitar for hours on end and without tuning.< < The tones from the pickups are really special.
Guitar Tuner As a longstanding joke goes, the two biggest cities in
Mississippi are Memphis and New Orleans. But in between lies the
cradle of American popular music, the Mississippi Delta. And along
its major artery, Highway 61, you can visit places that still rock
with the sound and soul of raw down-home blues.
FENDER `62 American Vintage Stratocaster Electric Guitar The evolution of the Stratocaster continues with the American Vintage `62 Strat All original specs are detailed, including neck and headstock shapes, body radius and contours, 12th fret dot positioning, beveled pickup magnets. This instrument has a real vintage sound at a price thats thousands less than the orignial. This guitar is featured in a sunburst finish.
Bass Guitars The lobby of Memphiss Peabody Hotel (149 Union Ave.;
901-529-4000) is not among them, yet for the price of a cocktail,
it provides a taste of Old World elegance and a contrast to the
rural poverty that lies 90 minutes to the south, in the land where
the blues were born. Beale Street, a former hub of black
culture where B.B. King, Bukka White, Rufus Thomas and other great
bluesmen got their start, is just blocks away. Although few of the
street's original storefronts remain, on a lucky night you might
catch the city's hardest-working guitarist, Preston Shannon, who
slips crafty originals between versions of "Mustang Sally" and
"Sweet Home Alabama," or Richard Johnston, a young, white
Mississippi-hill-country-blues torchbearer who plays on the street
in front of the New Daisy Theater.
classic POD xt Live guitar amp modeler, with an expanded array of 78 guitar amps, wattage heavyweights to boutique beauties and vintage treasures. With 24 guitar cabs, 98 stompbox and studio effects, 28 bass amps, label studio, ready to tackle guitar, bass vocals and beyond. What¯ more, its larger LCD and smart new editing workflow pages make it easier than ever to find, tweak and save tones.
Les Paul There's only one real juke joint left in Memphis: Wild
Bill's (1580 Vollintine Ave.; 901-726-5473), which built its
reputation presenting local artists like Big Lucky Carter, who
recorded for the Sun and Hi labels, and the Fieldstones. You can
also occasionally hear good blues at the Center for Southern
Folklore (119 South Main St.; 901-525-3655), although in a more
antiseptic setting.
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Guitar Lessons Fortified by a hearty meat-and-two plate from Ellen's Soul
Food (601 South Parkway East; 901-942-4888), head south on
Route 61, to Clarksdale, Mississippi, the birthplace of John Lee
Hooker, Sam Cooke, Junior Parker and Ike Turner. As one leaves
Tennessee, the strip malls give way to flat, fertile land where
cotton remains king. Miles of fields keep the blacktop company,
interrupted by gins and billboards for casinos, which have put many
juke joints out of business.
Having decided to create this series, Fender went to great lengths to do it right. In earlier days, because of less precise tools and the amount of hand work involved, the guitars varied more from instrument to instrument. Instead of only relying on the official specs from the book, Fender found primo examples of each vintage model the really sweet ones then tore them down and took precise measurements. As a result, the Vintage Series guitars not only duplicate the originals, but the very best of the originals.
Guitar Pro A right turn at the crossroads of 61 and Highway 49 leads to
downtown Clarksdale, where the only remnants of a juke-joint scene
that once jumped to the beat of Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy
Williamson (Rice Miller) are Red's (662-627-3166) and the
shuttered Rivermont Lounge, on Sunflower Avenue.
Clarksdale's blues heyday is celebrated at Ground Zero (0
Blues Alley; 662-621-9009), a new juke-themed club co-owned by
actor Morgan Freeman, and at the Delta Blues Museum (1 Blues
Alley; 662-627-6820), formerly the freight depot of the train
station where Muddy Waters left Mississippi for Chicago in
1943.
Bass Guitar For a real taste of Delta life, visit Clarksdale in humid
August, when the region's remaining down-home performers gather for
the free Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival
(662-627-6820). And stay at the Riverside Hotel (615
Sunflower Ave.; 662-627-2694), where each creaky floorboard has a
story. Nearly every important blues and jazz figure who played
Mississippi during segregation, from Pops Staples to Duke
Ellington, stayed at the Riverside. Bessie Smith died there after
an auto accident in 1937, when it was still the Thomas
Afro-American Hospital. If it's Sunday, catch services at the
Bell Grove Missionary Baptist Church (831 Garfield St.;
662-624-2920), where Waters's cousin, gospel singer Willie
Morganfield, is pastor. Before leaving town,visit Abe's
Bar-B-Q (616 State St.; 662-624-9947) for a Big Abe, the pork
sandwich favored by Big Jack Johnson, Clarksdale's reigning guitar
wizard.
Electric Guitar Continuing down the highway through Mississippi, you'll find the
lonely grave of Sonny Boy Williamson behind the cotton patches of
impoverished Tutwiler, a few miles up Highway 49 from the infamous
Parchman Farm, where both bluesmen and civil-rights activists were
imprisoned. At Margaret's Grocery (601-638-1163), just north
of Business 61 in Vicksburg, the Reverend H.D. and Margaret Dennis
have turned their former market into a rainbow-hued tabernacle
cobbled together from old tiles, bricks, cinder blocks, plastic
flowers, beads and a school bus. Over the entrance to the former
store, paintbrushed lettering proclaims, all are welcome. Expect a
good-natured sermon from the Reverend—especially if he finds out
you're on the trail of that ol' devil music.
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