I’ve seen the bright lights of Memphis, and the Riverside Hotel (Part 1)
If I tried to sit down and craft this story as a piece of fiction- the tale of a bunch of city boys in search of blues mysticism in the deep south- I wouldn’t get close to the magic of this piece of reality that my good friends and I shared together.
Fleeing from the Memphis tornadoes, quite unaware of the gravity of the situation playing out throughout the south (and especially in Alabama, a couple hundred miles to our east), we turned south into the Mississippi darkness. I had enjoyed a few libations on Beale street and so my man Justin Levine was in charge of driving us through truly awful weather down and out of the danger zone. There was actually very little driving involved, since we basically hydroplaned the entire way down highway 61. Yes, THAT highway 61- the mythical route that cuts right down the center of the country, tracing the Mississippi River from the Canada border to the great city of New Orleans. In the deep south, it is known as The Blues Trail- since it connects the towns that cradle the history of blues music and therefore the great history of American music itself.
There was an incredible sequence of events and indecision that led us to our resting place that night. If we were anywhere near sane, we would have stopped as early as possible that night, but some bizarre force kept leading us on. We passed many cheap hotels across the MS border and the resort/casino town of Tunica- which seemed incredibly inviting…yet, something kept us trudging all the way to Clarksdale- the focus of our conversations for the last two days and of my dreams.
Clarksdale is a small town in the Mississippi Delta that holds more mythology than perhaps any town of its size in the country. It is the birthplace of a staggering number of music legends: Son House, Sam Cooke, Ike Turner, John Lee Hooker and from a later generation, Nate Dogg! We had also heard that Bessie Smith, one of the greatest singers of all time, died there. In addition, the intersection of highways 61 and 49 in downtown Clarksdale is the supposed site of “The Crossroads” where Robert Johnson made his infamous deal with the devil.
Here’s the rediculous tourist marker that exploits this rumor:
All of these notable residents, and Robert Johnson’s satanic site were leading us to Clarksdale, however we hadn’t planned on spending the night there- it was only the tornado that brought us there this very night.
We found the Riverside based on 3 positive reviews online (which I pulled up on my phone haphazardly as we skidded down the highway). I called the place at around midnight when we were about an hour away. A man answered the phone, “Riverside, this Rat.” At that point, a normal person would have hung up and continued in search of a Best Western, but the voice sounded warm and inviting, if a little drowsy. I apologized for waking him and asked if he might have a room for three musicians and wouldn’t mind taking us in at around 1am. “I’ll be here, you’s just ring the bell, I’ll be here.” That was that, no changing our minds now.
On the way, bursts of lightening lit up the black night pure white and we began to see the flooding all around us- high water rising, indeed. The delta was swollen, and highway 61 and the great, muddy Mississippi were becoming one and the same. An hour later, after some fine driving (water skiing) from Levine, we pulled up in front of the Riverside Hotel in the persistent, eerie rain. Any highbrow folks would never have gotten out of the car. The Riverside is basically a war-era boarding house- uneven, slanted and relatively rundown. It looks exactly like it did when it opened in 1944 as the segregated town’s African-American hospital. In fact, one of the magical things about Clarksdale is that the whole town looks trapped in time- a true piece of American history.
As soon as I saw the historical marker on the street in front of the hotel I felt the blood rush from my face. My heart began pounding like the stomp-in-time of a bluesman’s hard-sole shoe. Sonny Boy Williamson lived here? Bessie died HERE? “Since 1944 The Riverside Hotel has provided lodging for traveling musicians,” reads the first sentence. This was surely our home tonight.
We looked at each other, dazed, delighted and suddenly un-exhausted and knew we were in for a serious experience . What, after all, were a bunch of New Yorkers who maniacally drove from New York City for no reason looking for?
The boys stayed inside our little car as I headed for the door, with the engine still on and the windshield wipers whisking the view clean, just in case I needed rescuing. A hand-written sign tacked to the screen door in front read “Ring Bell for Rat.” I did so and a few seconds later- the stirring of a once-sleeping man.
“You the boys called me earlier?”
“Yes, sir. So sorry to wake you.”
“You boys shut off that car and bring all your things in. Don’t worry about the car, I got a security camera up there. Bring all your things in. It’s cash only, now. You boys come on in.”
And so we did.
