We promised we would write about Clarksdale nights. Here we go. But before we begin, we’d like to share some photos from the Riverside Hotel and give you some more information about it.

Metin already told you about Rat, the owner and the manager of the Riverside Hotel.

The Riverside Hotel is more than a hotel. It’s really like a museum. The walls are filled with pictures of the famous musicians who stayed in here.

Rat remembers the names of every other guest who stayed in a room he shows. And probably, he never gets tired of telling the same things to everyone who comes to look for a room for four-five times a day. He’s not tired, because Rat loves to talk

We told you how the people who stayed at the Riverside Hotel left their personal stuff. How they got used to finding things where they had left. So we leave a Yeni Rakı hat in one drawer and a copy of Turkish edition of The Grapes of Wrath that I had brought with me in another drawer.

The story told in The Grapes of Wrath takes place somewhere around here. The route in the novel starts from Chicago and continues along another legendary road, Highway 66. I hope we will pass from the point where two highways intersect.

And here is the picture of the room that Rat uses as something like office/reception. It’s more like a messy museum.

Somewhere next to the door of Rat’s office we saw the program of a bar called Red’s. Red’s is three minutes’ walk from the hotel. Get out of the door, walk to the right, the bar is on the left, right after Matin Luther King Park “Our” Rat and the other residents at the hotel hangs out in that bar. So we did the same thing during our stay in Clarksdale. The music was great and we had a lot of fun but we also felt sorry for not having visited some of the juke joints we discovered while walking around on our last day.

Grand Zero Blues Club was the one we regretted most for not visiting. But there is nothing to do. Hopefully, the next time…

Every corner of this club, inside and outside, is filled with writings. The walls, the ceiling, the tables, and the pool tables, even the lampshades hanging on the pool tables…

It is hard to say the same things for Red’s, which resembles anything but a bar when you look from the outside.

But the inside is lively, though pretty dim… The first night, they were celebrating the birthday of T-Model Ford.

Below: T-Model Ford is playing, while Robert Balfour who was on the stage before him is having a rest. (We saw the pictures of them both on the walls of Delta Blues Museum, the next day.) A lady from Clarksdale is dancing and Metin is having a hard time believing what he’s witnessing.

The bucket in the middle is for the tips. You tip in as much you like. These tip-buckets or the tip-boxes have become common since we started heading towards north from New Orleans.

The second night, we were in the same place but this time Millage Gilbert was on the stage.

We came across many posters of him around. He’s loved deeply in here… But I think the bass player was recruited at the last moment. For a moment, the guitarist showed the bass player which string he should put his finger on. Nonetheless, we were very pleased to hear the master Millage Gilbert’s guitar and voice.

We spent our days visiting museums and the important places of the blues history. Delta Blues Museum is very nice one. But you are not allowed to take pictures inside. Since we have been careful with following every rule so far, including not driving drunk, we didn’t try to take pictures inside. (www.deltabluesmuseum.org)

I took a photo of Metin with J. Whitley “Whit” Perry, whom we met at the gift shop pf the museum. Perry has a published book on Delta people. You see the meeting of two writers in this photo. And we present our thanks to the museum employee Christopher Coleman for letting us take this picture. He was going to be on stage in a bar the same night. He plays the keyboards and sings in a gospel group.

The second museum we visited in Clarksdale, the Rock’n Roll & Blues Heritage Museum, was closed. We were surprised to learn it was open three days a week, but there was nothing to do. Unfortunately, those three days were none of the two days we spent in town.

A museum which is open for three days a week tells a lot about the notion of work in here. Here, people don’t like to work. Just like the museum, we couldn’t keep up with the opening hours Abe’s, a restaurant highly recommended in Lonely Planet book on the USA. It opened late in the morning, and we were early. And we missed the chance once more because we couldn’t guess it would close at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Another place we missed the chance to go was Madidi, which was opened by Morgan Freeman – Lonely Planet recommends here, as well. It is open only in the evenings and for brunch on Sundays… In short, Clarksdale people were very inert bon vivants, and therefore very lovable. The museums, the restaurants, the markets, even the barbershops! Yes, you have to get informed about the working hours of the barbershops, as well. We tried to get a haircut on Monday, but couldn’t find anywhere

Another historical place that we wouldn’t miss the chance to visit was the Crossroads.

I am sure Metin will write a more detailed version of the story, but let me say it shortly: You remember Robert Johnson, and how we left a bottle of rakı by his grave. And this is where he is claimed to have sold his soul to the devil, and now a attraction point for tourists. Every passerby stands in front of this pillar and poses for the camera, at this juncture where highways 61 and 49 intersect. It is the Eiffel Tower of this region. Inevitably we ended up taking more than a hundred photos around.

At this crossroads, every shop, even the furniture stores are named accordingly.

And here is the back wall of Abe’s restaurant, which we couldn’t manage to get in. This wall faces the Crossroads.

Now we leave Clarksdale behind and head to Memphis. We will tell about it in the next episode. See you!