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The Mississippi Delta

"The most southern place on earth"

Location

The Delta is NOT the geographic delta of the Mississippi River. You know, the one dumping into the Gulf of Mexico. Technically, it is more like the geographic delta of the Yazoo River. This area is composes some of the most fertile soil in the nation, and is in places 40 feet of topsoil.

When we say the Delta, we mean the cultural area that begins at the lobby of the Peabody Hotel and ends at Catfish Row in Vicksburg. The Peabody is in Memphis, Tennessee. The Delta lies in the northwest corner of Mississippi and beyond.

People

More than 40% of the Black population of MissiMuch of the formerly-enslaved population of the Delta moved north during the Great Migration beginning in the early 20th century. Today over 70% of Delta residents are Black, The Delta is very poor. The area has few jobs, few educational oppertunities and little healthcare resources. 

 

Agriculture

Over 4 million acres of the alluvial floodplain was originally covered in hardwood. White speculators cleared the land and developed plantations at the edges of the Mississippi River, planted in what was to become known as King Cotton. The vast majority of the population was enslaved, often twice the number of whites. After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, farming continued through sharecropping, now considered virtual slavery. While represented as an even split of the profits remuneration was severely slanted to the mostly white landowners. By the end of the nineteenth century, Black farmers made up to two-thirds of the Delta’s population.

 

They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday is just as bad.
Albert King
"You can have the blues one day because your woman leaves you. You can have the blues the next day because she came back"
Willie Dixon
I gave you seven children and now you wanna give' em back.
BB King
"Squeeze my lemon baby, 'til the juice runs down my leg. The way you squeeze my lemon, I swear I'm gonna fall right out of bed."
Robert Johnson
"I got a friend who lives across the street, he knows where your birthmark at, baby, and how many corns you got on your feet."
Little Johnny Taylor
"Now there was a blind man by the name of Dell - he couldn't see but he really could smell - fish man passed the house the other day - thought it was a gal, hollered 'I'm going your way'"
Roosevelt Sykes
Oh, I asked her for water, oh, she brought me gasoline That’s the troublingest woman That I ever seen”
Howlin' Wolf
“Born under a bad sign, been down since I began to crawl. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all”
Albert King
“I love the tip, I love the top, I love you better than a hog loves slop ‘Cause you’re a big legged woman, with a short short miniskirt Promise me darlin’, you’ll never make me feel like dirt”
Freddie King
"I never loved a woman, and I hope I never will. 'Cause a lovin' proposition might get somebody killed."
Bessie Smith
If I can't sell it, I'll keep sitting' on it
Big Mama Thornton

Music

The Delta is the home of the blues, which also means it is the progenitor of country music and rock and roll. This emotional  style is raw and stripped-down, often telling stories of hardship, failed romance and the traveling life. The blues are typically performed on one slide guitar, and often a harmonica. 

There are more than a few stories about the location and nature of the birth of the blues. One of the foremost contenders is that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads in Clarksdale to gain his musical talent. While the exact location is debated, the intersection of Highways 61 and 49.

Besides Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Son House and Muddy Waters are delta blues greats. Women performers include Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith. The most noteworthy contemporary blues singer was  B.B. King.