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The last stop on our marathon road trip wasn’t about maps or mileage. It was about a dream come true for the blues-guitar-playing Oklahoma cowboy I happen to call husband. Willie knows his way around guitarspeak—he can tell you why a Gibson ES-355 sings the blues better than a Strat, and why a Les Paul is just showing off. Me? I just nod and smile, the way he does when I start talking genealogy.
So when our route home needed one more overnight, Willie piped up with, “Might be fun to dip south to Clarksdale, Mississippi.” Fun for him maybe. Mississippi hasn’t exactly been my happy place. But he gave me the look—the one that says, “If you loved me, you’d do this.” I sighed, rolled my eyes, and agreed.
First stop: the Delta Blues Museum. Museums are my jam, so this was a win. Muddy Waters’ “sharecropper” cabin alone was worth the visit—it told more truth in a single-room cabin than any textbook ever managed. I walked out with a better understanding of how much grit, soul, and heartbreak built the blues.
Then came Ground Zero Blues Club, Morgan Freeman’s co-owned shrine to all things authentic. It’s not the kind of joint I usually haunt—my club days ended about the same time I stopped enjoying wristbands and hand stamps—but wow. The music pulsed through the walls, the fried chicken was crisp enough to make me reconsider my religion, and the fried pecan pie topped with ice cream? Let’s just say I’m still in recovery.
By the end of the night, I had to admit: Willie was right. (Don’t tell him I said that.) Mississippi may not have been on my dream list, but it turns out fried pie and blues guitars can make a convert out of just about anybody. The music moved my soul, the pie moved my waistband—and if that’s not the blues, I don’t know what is.