Gateway to Ground Zero

King Cotton

The various museums we had visited had given us a good grounding in the role that cotton had played in shaping the delta we were travelling through, but nothing can quite prepare the traveller, at the right time of year, for the sight of ripe cotton fields stretching into the horizon. As we continued our journey south, we stopped to get up close and personal with the plants, still the largest value-added crop in the US.

It’s an overwhelming experience to stand in a seemingly never-ending cotton field. The “fluffy bit” or boll is there to protect the hard, sharp seeds within, and is held in place by a thorn-like part of the stem, somewhat like a setting in a diamond ring. This made picking a very painful, labour-intensive process. The seeds make up over 60 per cent of the weight of the picked plant and the invention of the cotton gin (or engine), which removed the seeds 10 times faster than before, massively reduced costs and sparked an explosion in production.

Completely unplanned it only took 20 minutes or so, but the visit to the cotton field remains one of the most memorable events on the tour, and we continued to Clarksdale.

Clarksdale

Known as the “Golden Buckle on the Cotton Belt”, Clarksdale was a centre for agriculture and trading from the mid-19th century onward. In musical folklore, it is the site of the “Crossroads” where the legendary Bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in return for the ability to play his first blues guitar. True or not, Johnson became an inspiration to countless rock stars, from Led Zeppelin to the Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton’s famous cover of Johnson’s “Crossroads Blues” was a huge hit for Cream.

As well as staking a claim to be the birthplace of the Blues, the city has been home to a remarkable number of Blues stars and today is a veritable mecca for blues aficionados, featuring world-class museums and attractions and fantastic live venues, including perhaps one of the best blues clubs in the world. Fans of Banksy will also love the artwork on many of the walls around the city.