Take The First Train To Clarksdale: Rural Blues

Drop The Biscuit

Back to basics. A voice, a guitar and a tapping foot. Add a mythological bargain with the devil and you have the simple ingredients that can tilt a world on its axis, which the Blues certainly did.

And ground zero was an unassuming share-cropping town situated on the bank of the Mississippi at the intersection of Routes 49 and 61. Clarksdale: the place where Robert Johnson was said to have made his Faustian pact.

Here’s some of the first generation sounds which led up to and were fall-out from that encounter.

Apologies for the sound quality but we are dealing with recordings made almost a century ago!

1 ROBERT JOHNSON-CROSS ROAD BLUES

2 BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON-SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS KEPT CLEAN

3 BESSIE SMITH-BLUE SPIRIT BLUES

4 MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT-STACK O’LEE

5 SON HOUSE-DEATH LETTER BLUES

6 CHARLEY PATTON-SCREAMIN’ AND HOLLERIN’ THE BLUES

7 ROBERT WILKINS-THAT’S NO WAY TO GET ALONG

8 SKIP JAMES-DEVIL GOT MY WOMAN

9 SISTER ROSETTA THARPE-THE DEVIL HAS THROWN HIM DOWN

10 BUKKA WHITE-SHAKE ‘EM ON DOWN

11 LEADBELLY-(BLACK GAL) WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT

12 VICTORIA SPIVEY & LONNIE JOHNSON-DOPE HEAD BLUES

13 BLIND WILLIE McTELL-TRAVELIN’ BLUES

14 HENRY THOMAS-HONEY WON’T YOU ALLOW ME ONE MORE CHANCE

15 MISSISSIPPI FRED McDOWELL-LEVEE CAMP BLUES

16 MEMPHIS MINNIE-WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS

17 HAMBONE WILLIE NEWBERN-ROLL AND TUMBLE BLUES

18 ONE STRING SAM-I NEED A HUNDRED DOLLARS

19 PINK ANDERSON-IN THE EVENING

20 FLOYD ANDERSON-RUNAWAY MAN BLUES

21 BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON-JOHN THE REVELATOR

22 BIG BILL BROONZY-KEYS TO THE HIGHWAY

23 REVERAND GARY DAVIS-I’M THROWIN’ UP MY ARMS