Take a Delta Blues Trip to "Where the Blues Began"

Rosedale Juke, photo by Susan Klopfer




I stroke it to the North, I stroke it to the South... (Clarence Carter)




"Junior" is a cultural anthropologist who lives in the Mississippi Delta, Louisiana side, and spends lots of time in Delta juke joints. His popular link allows blues lovers to take a trip inside the places where the blues began.

"I'm not talking about white people blues bars filled with college students. I'm talking about edge-of-a-cotton-field juke joints filled with real Delta folks," he says.

Here's his link -- Junior's Juke Joint

Filmmaker calls on public, FBI to solve Emmett Till's murder & other cold cases

Keith Beauchamp speaks to an audience in Philadelphia, Miss., about the 1964 murders of Michael Schwerner, Paul Goodman and James Chaney. Only one man, Edgar Ray "Preacher" Killen, of potentially dozens of suspects, was ever convicted for the crimes.


Kelly Peters, reporter for the Daily Orange, writes that when Keith Beauchamp saw the photograph of Emmett Till's brutally beaten face, run ran on the cover of a 1964 Jet Magazine, he became a civil rights activist.

"Till, a black boy from Chicago, Ill., was murdered in Mississippi in 1955. His mother insisted on an open casket to show the world the brutality in his death.

"Today, Beauchamp is still an activist, but Till's murder has yet to be solved. Beauchamp said he is committing his energy to solving Till's and other murders of the time."

Peters's story continues ...

Robert Johnson, Delta Bluesman

I went to the crossroad, fell on my knees ... Asked the Lord above, "Have mercy, save poor Bob, if you please."

Robert Johnson's first recording session, November, 1936 -- speculation remains about that session and where it took place.

The Delta Blues: Robert Johnson Recording Set Up and Location

Robert Johnson, Delta Bluesman

I went to the crossroad, fell on my knees
I went to the crossroad, fell on my knees
Asked the Lord above, "Have mercy, save poor Bob, if you please."


+ + + + +
We all know that good old Robert Johnson had his first recording session that faithful day in November, 1936. But still, a lot of speculation has recently emerged about that session.

Of course, there are the rumors of turning his back to the audience (the next group of musicians to record), and now there is peculation as to where this recording was actually done.

Continued, The Delta Blues --

Odetta, civil rights inspiration, dies at 77: 'I never knew I had a voice that could sing.'

Image from M.C. Records


Her voice was an accompaniment to the black-and-white images of the freedom marchers who walked the roads of Alabama and Mississippi and the boulevards of Washington in quest of an end to racial discrimination.

Odetta, the singer whose deep voice wove together the strongest songs of American folk music and the civil rights movement, has died. She was 77.

Link to Odetta video ...

Read more about this famed singer ...

Remembering the Past While Celebrating the Present

Let Freedom Sing: The Music of the Civil Rights Movement on January 27, 2009

FAIRFAX, Va., Nov 14, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Let Freedom Sing: The Music of the Civil Rights Movement
It is one of the most inspiring stories in American history. Within a generation, Americans of African descent overturned several hundred years of slavery and brutally enforced segregation to win their Civil Rights. Civil Rights wasn't the first movement in American history to generate memorable songs, but it was the first in which music not only reflected the movement but drove it. The songs of the Civil Rights movement are the subject of a stunning new 3-CD set from Time Life Music that will be released during Black History Month 2009.
Let Freedom Sing--The Music of the Civil Rights Movement traces a seventy-year journey with songs that reflect the thoughts and feelings of those at the forefront affected by the movement as well as those simply trying to make sense of a troubled period in our history. Some of the songs are well-known (Respect, Change Is Gonna Come, Blowin' in the Wind, We Shall Overcome, Say It Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud, People Get Ready, Get up--Stand up, and many more) but the set also includes extremely rare recordings such as Brother Will Hairston's account of the Montgomery bus boycott, The Alabama Bus, and Nat King Cole's unreleased protest song from that era, We Are Americans Too.
The story begins with Go Down Moses ("let my people go"), one of many spirituals that led African Americans on their quest for Civil Rights. It continues with a bitter indictment of the lynchings that plagued the South after the Civil War (Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit) and an equally bitter indictment of the treatment of African Americans in the armed forces during World War II (Josh White's Uncle Sam Says). No Restricted Signs and Black, Brown and White protested the segregation that greeted returning servicemen. The call for change became more clamorous during the 1950s with the bus boycotts, the lynching of Emmett Till, the enforced integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the lunch counter sit-ins. All were etched memorably in song.

Continued --

Teacher Offers Civil Rights Music Collection

Hi Susan,

My name is Dave Mort and I'm a History teacher living in England. I
always use music in the classroom to teach, particularly post war American history and especially Bob Dylan. I have written historical novels before but my latest work details the rise of the civil rights movement and anti Vietnam war protests in 50's and 60's America.

To this end I have chosen sixty songs from the period that chart the progress of both and relate the story through them. If you go to my website

www.playitagainunclesam.com

you will be able to read the intro.

Fairly soon there will be an interactive jukebox installed where you will be able to hear the 60 tracks and see some pictures.

Your comments would be appreciated.

Regards and respect
Dave Mort