Surprise Discoveries in Mississippi

Study a real map and you might find a surprise where you are.

I use Apple maps to double check our vehicle GPS system. Sure the GPS talks to us and is very friendly(in my mind), but sometimes it’s wrong…

I used to have a box of paper maps but those got destroyed when I parked my car near the barn for two years during the pandemic and the sunroof leaked.

The smell was horrific and the mildew was quite impressive.

Did you know moss can grow on a steering wheel?

I found it on our map while crossing the Mississippi river at Lake Village, Arkansas.

The Great River Road National Scenic Byway

The B.B. King Museum in Indianola, Mississippi.

I love the blues, B.B. King especially.

I saw B.B. King a couple of times at a very small venue in Clifton - the college area where the University of Cincinnati is located. It was probably the late 70’s and Bogarts was the small venue in Cincinnati many musicians chose to perform. I saw Jimmy Buffett there as well before he played to thousands.

I was unaware there was a B.B. King museum and we weren’t going to miss it!

The B.B. King Museum - Indianola, Mississippi

He started life as Riley B. King in one of America’s most impoverished places, the Mississippi Delta. B.B.’s hometown is the setting for The B.B. King Museum in Indianola, Mississippi.

Indianola, sits squarely in the middle of the Mississippi Delta the land that gave birth to American music.

Many rock and roll musicians name B.B. King and the blues as one of their influences. Mick Jaegger, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Buffett, Ron Wood, Keith Richards, Slash all name B.B. King as most influential in their career.

In fact, musicians have been following in B.B. King’s wake for over 60 years.

The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center tells the story of King’s life, his career, and stories of the Delta—its history and music, race relations, literature and legends, adversities and successes.

It’s an informative stroll through not only Blues history, but also our cultural history as well.

In one of the exhibits B.B. recalls how he was not allowed to purchase gas for his tour bus because he was black, this was in the South at the time. He told the service attendant his bus was over 100 gallons and the guy still refused. They went to another gas station and filled up and everyone bought sandwiches too.

B.B. King Homecoming Events

Something I didn’t know.

B.B. King loved his hometown. Every first Saturday in June, the B.B. King Homecoming Festival was held at Fletcher Park in Indianola. The event featured B.B. King who, as he was physically able, returned every year since its inception in 1983.

Although B.B. performed in sold-out venues all over the world, nothing made him happier than to be back in his hometown to playing for the crowd he considered as his extended family

As part of the festivities, the closing act was a nighttime performance at Club Ebony.

Club Ebony - Indianola

Club Ebony, one of the South’s most important African American nightclubs, was built just after the end of World War II by Indianola entrepreneur Johnny Jones. Under Jones and successive owners, the club showcased Ray Charles, Count Basie, B. B. King, Bobby Bland, Little Milton, Albert King, Willie Clayton, and many other legendary acts.

Club Ebony, opened for business around 1948, was built over a period of years by John Jones, who purchased this property in November of 1945 with his wife Josephine. In a 1948 memoir, Jones wrote: “It is said to be the South’s largest and finest night club.”

The name Ebony was already a fashionable one for African American nightclubs; the first Club Ebony opened in Harlem in 1927.

Jones had operated other clubs in Indianola, notably Jones Nite Spot on Church Street, where a young B.B. King peered through the slats to witness performances by Louis Jordan, Jay McShann, Pete Johnson, and Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller).

Jones wrote that when he opened his first business, “there were no other clubs for Negroes in Indianola at that time.”

     In a 1967 interview King, who recalled peeking in at bands through the windows of Jones’ Night Spot as a youngster, said that Jones “was really the guy that kept the Negro neighborhood alive, by bringing people in, like Louis Jordan…Johnny Jones was a very nice fellow, and he knew the guys on the plantations didn’t have any money during the week, but he would often let us in and we would pay him off when we came in Saturday.” Delta Magazine.

Mary Shepard bought the club in 1974. Shepard first leased Club Ebony at the suggestion of her then-husband, Willie Shepard. Willie had recently returned from Vietnam, where he was paralyzed after stepping on a land mine. Shepard said she was hesitant to take over the club, but decided it would help her husband rehabilitate from his injuries.

Shepard leased the club for a year and a half from then-owner Ruby Edwards. Then she purchased it outright on Jan. 4, 1974.

What began as a reluctant proprietorship turned into more than three decades shaping the culture of the blues in the Mississippi Delta.

After Shepard and her husband divorced in 1986, she continued running the club, booking acts such as Willie Clayton, Bobby Rush, Dorothy Moore and B.B. King.

Shepard suffered a stroke while planning the B.B. King homecoming in 2004. She had another stroke in 2005. Her family members ran the club until 2008 when she retired.

When Shepard retired in 2008, King stepped in to buy Club Ebony, preserving not only a major cultural landmark but also the special place where, fifty years earlier, as he wrote in his autobiography, “I found love back down in the Delta.”

B.B. King purchased the venue to keep the Club Ebony tradition alive. He later donated the roughly 70-year-old building to the BB King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center.

B. B. King - The Thrill Is Gone (Live at Montreux 1993)

So the lesson here, don’t just follow what GPS says to do, study a real map and you might find a surprise where you are.

Newest cool kid.

Newest Cool Kid

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