Legends speak of bluesmen coming here to sell their soul for skill with a six string.
Robert Johnson walked slowly through the humid, Mississippi night. He’d spent countless days toiling away on a nearby plantation, working for pennies as the world reeled from the echoes of The Great Depression. For most of his life, Johnson had dreamed about playing the guitar better than any man in the world. Tonight, he was going to strike a deal with the devil to get his wish.
Legend has it that Robert Johnson met with the devil on a moonlit night at the crossroads of Highway 61 and Highway 49. Though the actual location remains disputed, what’s undisputed is Johnson’s rise to lasting influence and fame. He would go on to become one of the most influential bluesmen of all time, landing at No. 5 on Rolling Stone’s definitive list of the world’s greatest guitar players.
Decades after Johnson’s untimely death in 1938 at only 27-years-old, his music would live on to influence the sounds of Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan, among others. In the 1960s, when British rockers searched the Mississippi Delta for Johnson’s successors like B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, and Furry Lewis, they found the legend of the Devil’s Crossroads. And the most agreed upon location of Johnson’s famous deal with the devil remains a musical hotbed to this day.
A good, drunk time is waiting for you there.
82 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee, through the cotton fields of an all but deserted Highway 61, you’ll find the town of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Memphis is known to the world as the home of the blues, but Clarksdale is its cradle. Here, 75 miles from the bright lights of Beale Street, you’ll find a small town whose very soul is bound to the blues.
It’s in Clarksdale that the two mythical highways intersected in the early part of the 20th century. It’s in Clarksdale where Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul.
Mess with Red, you’ll wind up dead
Red Paden has been operating his juke joint beside Heavenly Rest Cemetery for over 30 years. Inside, you’ll find various iterations of his name plastered on the walls in Sharpie, rope lighting, and aluminum. “Red’s, Redd’s, Red’s Lounge, Red’s Blues Club,” nobody seems sober enough or clairvoyant enough to give the place a dedicated spelling or name. Part of this could be due to the fact that Paden is damn near blind. To him, the spelling doesn’t matter. What does matter is the music. This pint-sized club beside a graveyard is one of the best places in the world to hear the blues.
At Red’s, rotating local musicians grace the floor on a weekly basis. They come from all over the Delta to play at Red’s. There’s no stage here—just a bar and a disheveled grouping of worn out chairs and tables littered with Bud heavies. The band occasionally filters through the crowd mid-set, clamoring for a domestic, bottled beer at the bar or wandering over to harass an old friend. Now and then, passing musicians and tourists are invited up to try their hand behind the bass or the drums. It’s a high-risk proposition. If you’ve got the goods, you’ll be treated to a few songs with some of the best blues players Mississippi has to offer. If you don’t, well, instructions are left on the bathroom wall. “Mess with Red, you’ll wind up dead.”
Brews and foods
A two minute ride down Sunflower Avenue will take you from the front door of Red’s to the backdoor of Ground Zero Blues Club. Partly-owned by Clarksdale-native Morgan Freeman, the towering brick building opened in 2002 is now a Clarksdale icon. It’s the closet thing the town has to a Beale Street-like atmosphere, and you’ll occasionally run into a cover band playing “Mustang Sally” here. If you’re lucky enough to catch a local act, though, Ground Zero can provide the perfect camp to park yourself at a pool table, soak in some craft brews, and wallow with the blues.
Memphis-based beers like Ghost River Gold, Wiseacre Tiny Bomb, and High Cotton’s ESB mingle with Delta brews like Lazy Magnolia’s Southern Pecan and Mighty Miss’s Let it Flow. But you don’t have to subsist on a high-dollar diet at Ground Zero: PBR and all of your regular domestics are also kept on deck.
If you’ve worn yourself out on the dance floor, Ground Zero’s front porch is littered with sofas and chairs for catching your breathe in the sticky, Mississippi night.
Because we want you to survive your booze-filled trip to Clarksdale, we recommend loading up on tamales at Ground Zero or wandering over to Levon’s Bar and Grill for a taste of finer dining. Levon’s is an Australian-owned eatery that’s the spawn of music’s magnetic pull on international travelers. Owners Johnny Cass and Naomi Casaceli relocated from Sydney to be near the epicenter of the blues. Their restaurant, lined with velvet sofas and an upscale-for-Clarksdale decor, is located in the town’s old Masonic lodge.
Levon’s serves up live music and Cajun-esque meals like blackened catfish, boudin bites, and a fish and mussels stew called cioppino. The spot is also well-known for its fresh pizza, a welcome casual option that can be mixed with the extensive house cocktail selection or devoured with standard domestic beers. Imports here are limited to Corona, Stella, and Heineken, but Levon’s offers a rotating selection of American draughts. Here, you’re likely to catch an excellent live act while you eat and plot your next move into the night.
Ghosts in the dark
It’s said that the ghost of Elvis can still be seen hitchhiking north up Highway 61 through the Delta towards Memphis. At the Shack Up Inn, you’ll have a chance to see a ghost of your own.
The old cotton gin sits four miles outside of town. Once a nameless melting pot of metal and sweat in a sea of Clarksdale cotton gins, its remnants are now one part roadside attraction and one part blues club.
The Shack Up Inn offers rooms for the night and yet another stage to hear live music echo into the cotton fields. The vestibules range from sharecropper shacks to renovated, rustic rooms in the gin itself. It’s the perfect retreat for a nightcap. And you’ll want one, as some of the rooms are rumored to be haunted.
The spirits who haunt these walls remain vague, and it’s fair to speculate that many a sighting has occurred after a long stint at Red’s and Ground Zero. Rates at the Shack Up Inn start at $75/night during the week, but can run you a Benjamin on the weekends. Other overnight options are available at local chain hotels, above the old Five and Dime store, or on AirBnB.
The Devil’s Legacy
Preston McEwen charted a course through the Delta music scene for nine years as the drummer for Memphis’s Ghost Town Blues Band. McEwen helped the band to a 2nd place finish in the 2014 International Blues Challenge before bowing out to pursue a career as a professional poker player. On tour, the southern drummer often found himself in Clarksdale, walking in the footsteps of Robert Johnson and the devil’s legendary contract. Ground Zero was a regular stop, as were private parties and Clarksdale’s annual juke joint festival.
“His music is almost like folklore,” McEwen explains. “It’s really mysterious because there are very few photographs of Robert Johnson and very few recordings, if any, that you can get ahold of. So even the songs he wrote are kind of sacred in a way.”
“The legend is talked about by musicians. There are different theories on where the actual location is supposed to be. Some say Clarksdale, others say Rosedale, and others point to an intersection in the middle of nowhere, but whether or not Robert Johnson really sold his soul to the devil or not, there is something there that transcends reality in a way.”
“You’re going to find something in Clarksdale that you don’t find on Beale Street. People who come to experience the authentic blues sometimes find it hard to find on Beale Street. It’s more of a party atmosphere. In Clarksdale, you find guys who never made it out of Mississippi. Sometimes, you find guys who are true living legends like Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram. If you’re writing a story about Clarksdale, you’ve gotta tell people about Kingfish.”
In Clarksdale, Kingfish Ingram is the closest thing to a modern heir apparent to Johnson that exists. And a legend already surrounds the man. In 2015, the then 15-year-old blues artist found himself opening for McEwen’s band at a Memphis deli. A few months later, he was playing at the White House. In a short time, Ingram was cutting records with the greatest living bluesman in the world, Buddy Guy.
“His music has a soul that you don’t find a lot these days,” says McEwen. “When you hear it, you know. He’s got the spirit of a young man, but his voice sounds like he’s 65-years-old and he’s been singing the blues for years.
Just like Johnson, the legend of Kingfish Ingram has started to spread far beyond the Mississippi Delta. Just like Johnson, it all began by the Devil’s Crossroads.
If you find yourself in Clarksdale on a lonesome Mississippi highway on a humid, summer night, do yourself a favor and pull over for a spell. There’s live music to hear, and a story to tell.
