Oh Galveston...

A strip of land off the coast of Texas that was engulfed (literally, the Gulf of Mexico went right over the island) in 1900 by a hurricane that killed between 6,000 and 8,000; even after the San Francisco fire and Katrina it remains the USA's worst natural disaster. Now it is a tourist centre catering to the truck and motorbike crowd. I am staying at one of the older hotels...

http://www.commodoreonthebeach.com/

... and have just about had enough, after two days and about twenty plays, of Glen Campbell's marvellous civil war song. But forget all talk of sea winds blowin' it is brutally hot, temperature in the upper eighties and humidity sending the heat index (what it feels like) into the upper nineties... Not really complaining but it hasn't helped my temper in dealing with the lack of WiFi signal here for the last day or so... A period that has covered the missus' birthday morning which really buggered things up. But, on the bright side, it's up again (fingers crossed) and I now know what a Shrimp Martini is, and it's nowhere near as bad as it sounds, the one I had was an appetiser and seemed to consist of a tomato and Tabasco sauce over a bucket of peeled shrimp, which was then ladled over a couple of lettuce leaves (that's virtually health food here).

The old town is structurally beautiful but ruined by antique and gift shops... I leave on Friday but don't really know where I am going yet, might try Laredo on the Mexican border but will keep checking the weather as it is due to be up near 110 at the weekend.

The pictures are views from my balcony first thing in the morning (above) and in the evening (below).

Deep in the Heart... Well On the Edge of Texas

Finally made it into the big one, Texarcana, Nacogdoches and now Galveston. The first two were unremarkable and I have just arrived in Galveston... First impressions, think of a really hot Blackpool, ticks my boxes. I think I will be eating here tonight, for the giant plastic crab alone.

Clarksdale

If you ever find yourself in Clarksdale "Home of the Blues" and site of The Crossroads (where Robert Johnson and others are said to have sold their soul to the devil)...


The photo above is the crossroads itself (click on it to get it up nice and big) On the right you can see the, rather tacky, crossed guitar sign.

There is only one place to stay, The Shack Up Inn; pretty much unchanged, externally, from an old cotton plantation, commissary, cotton gin and sharecropper shacks but internally fitted with modern conveniences for a comfortable stay (my best sleep since I got here).

Michael's Magnificent

As I was leaving Stax I noticed this barbershop, walked in and asked the guy whether could help with my growing mop, the weather is warming up here and I'm heading to Texas where it is at 100 degrees already... Michael told me to take a seat and proceeded to prove what I've always thought, only black barbers really know how to deal with my stubborn hair. Stylists in salons always feel they can bend it to their will through heat and potions but my hair needs to be cut... What do you think?

Memphis

The city on the river, the centre of the cotton trade, the home of the Blues, Rock 'n Roll and Elvis... What could go wrong? I haven't really got to the bottom of it but something has; rather than feeling like the bustling and lively Chicago of the South the impression one has is of a dead or dying Southern version of Detroit (There are some photos in the right column). There is talk of rising crime levels and wealthy (white) migration to the suburbs but for a city with so much to offer the empty stores, apartments and office buildings seem an insult to the city's geography and history.

Arriving from Nashville you are left in no doubt that whereas that city is mainly white, Memphis is black. Beale Street offers cheap beer and live music to the tourists, Graceland is a sad and tasteless mausoleum...

But if you'd like to spend a few quiet moments at Elvis's graveside...

have a look at the film above.


Sun Record Studios is a breath of fresh air but one starts to really morn the city that has gone at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music

http://www.soulsvilleusa.com/

a marvellous place full of enthusiasm and heart as well as soul; the words of Steve Cropper (writer, producer and one of Booker T's MG's) stay with one... Talking of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Memphis 1968, he weeps as he remembers "Before that colour never walked through the door at Stax, that day everything changed". Memphis does feel cursed.

George "Show" Jones

There was a real sense of excitement in the crowd hanging around the enormous tourbuses at the Ryman Auditorium. They pretended, as fans do, that they were enjoying the last of the afternoon's sunshine rather than waiting for the chance to be in the same space as George Jones... No stage, no lights, we could believe that we are of the same species. But this would be a fiction and deep down everybody knew it, George is not one of us, he is more than a mere celebrity, more even than a star, George is the crowned head of country music aristocracy but even this does not quite cut it, given his history and his age he is, a little prematurely, up there with the legends Johnny Cash and Hank Williams.

When he arrived on stage the noise was deafening, the level of which was made even more surprising given the age of the audience.



As the show settled in two things became clear, George's bellows have gone but, when he could summon up the wind, his pipes were in perfect working order. The Jones Boys are pitch perfect and seemed to be encouraging the 77 year old with constant smiles and nods. The chat between songs was designed to reinforce the feeling that we were all cut from the same cloth, talk of family, farms, drinkin', cheatin' and derisory comments about "New Country"... I was happy to be carried along until a rather mawkish song honouring the fallen of the Vietnam War, this was illustrated with a film of the wall of remembrance and photographs of "the boys who didn't come home"... All well and good (only idiots blame soldiers for wars) but as the film progressed I noticed that we were only shown photographs of white people, a distinctly uncomfortable misrepresentation given the disproportionate number of black soldiers.


The show went on for about 2 hours, which I'm sure kept many of the aging and aged crowd up past their bedtime but we all, Nashville nobs to hollering farmers wives, rose to greet "He Stopped Loving Her Today" a deeply sentimental song that could be cloying in less skilled hands than Mr. Jones's... George nailed it.

Nashville Scenes

There are some photos of Nashville in the right hand column... As before if you would like to see them properly just click on the image and they will come up nice and big.

Nashville Sunday Afternoon

If you would like to recreate an afternoon in downtown Nashville, in a Honky Tonk (in this case Roberts Western World) I might be able to help...

Sit on a high stool, have handy a very cold bottle of beer and a warm Coney (Hot Dog), then watch the film in the right hand column, under the heading "FILMS" called "Nashville Sunday Afternoon"

NB
You only see the titles of the individual films by getting the cursor to hover over the image of the films.

Jinx?

After the tornado alerts of earlier this week I'm beginning to wonder if I'm a jinx... Follow this link.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/19053624.html

Friday night downtown

A few clubs

http://www.tootsies.net/

http://www.robertswesternworld.com/

http://www.mercylounge.com/

many cover versions, a few beers and, as the taxi driver promised on the way downtown, many women (generally hunting in packs as in Liverpool and Glasgow)... There was a theme but I couldn't work out what it was; they were of all ages, blondes, brunettes, redheads, they were of many races, then it struck me... Their hair didn't move, even when they danced; this must be the hairspray salesman's promised land.

The Country Music Hall of Fame

Went here out of a sense of duty... "You can't go to Nashville and not go to the Hall of Fame", it is a marvellous museum, lots of interactive exhibits, lots of musical illustrations, really informative histories all punctuated with extracts from interviews with contemporary stars, I spent nearly 3 hours there. I wouldn't say that it is worth visiting Nashville to go to the museum but if you're in Tennessee...

The website is also pretty good

http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/site/default.aspx

check the multimedia section for 360 degree views of some of the exhibits, music and video clips.

Nashville

I thought I would like Nashville but I also thought, as more than half of America's record labels have their headquarters here, that it would be a corporate town... Much in the way that those who expect glamour in Los Angeles are disappointed. But it doesn't feel like that at all, it doesn't work from the top down but from the roots up; don't get me wrong this is a big destination for American tourists.


They head for Broadway, home of Honky Tonk and Honky Tonks, the music which introduced steel guitars and drums to Country Music and the bars in which the music is played. In the bars you will never hear a song you haven't heard before, it is all covers of Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard etc etc. But as John Sebastian pointed out in the lyrics of "Nashville Cats"

Well, there's thirteen hundred and fifty two
Guitar pickers in Nashville
And they can pick more notes than the number of ants
On a Tennessee anthill
Yeah, there's thirteen hundred and fifty two
Guitar cases in Nashville
And any one that unpacks his guitar could play
Twice as better than I will

Even though it could be a depressing experience, it's not. In bar after bar you find singers and bands who have obviously missed the chance of stardom but still enjoy playing the music.

Magic bottle - Spot the difference

I know it's a gimmick but it gets me... My favourite beer over here, Coors Light, does a trick. When the beer is cold enough to drink, the mountains on the label turn blue.

Left - Ready, Right - Already drunk.

Keeping up with the Jones

Some background... I arrived at Country Music fairly late, and by that I don't mean the stadium performers who all seem to be called Garth (or "The Anti-Hank" as Kinky Friedman has it), but the ones walking the original path with art and feeling. The chief among these was introduced to me by my friend Ian and is the ex-husband of Tammy Wynette, the man Frank Sinatra called the "best white male singer", George "The Possum" Jones.

http://www.georgejones.com/bio/index.htm

This morning I am doing my washing in the Laundry Room and checking the leaflets as to what I might fancy seeing round here and my eye falls on one for the Ryman Auditorium

http://www.ryman.com/

and George Jones is playing on Sunday, I called the number, I'm going to be in the sixth row. Unbelievable, either I've been living right or I have some bad luck coming to even things out... On the other hand it is worth remembering that Jones' alcoholic past earned him an alternative nickname to "The Possum", George "No Show" Jones, so we will see.

A detour to a significant site.

Travelling to Nashville up I65 I noticed a sign to Lynchburg... I followed the road to the site of the distillery which supplies the world with Jack Daniels Sour Mash Whiskey. Decided not to take the 70 minute tour led by a guy wearing dungarees and using an extreme Tennessee accent... A walking caricature. But chatted with the white haired lady behind the desk in the museum who was informative and had obviously lived a rich life, her name tag announced "Dynamite". The photo is of one of the more authentic buildings.

Rather pleased I made the move North, this morning people down South in such places as Lafayette, New Iberia and Houma are cowering in their basements under a tornado alert... We were there just a week ago.

Storm dodging

Spent yesterday morning studying the Weather Channel and Weather.com

http://www.weather.com/

to decide whether the severe thunderstorms and resulting "tornadic" activity were heading north east or south east... Decided that they were likely to go south-ish so headed north towards Nashville, stayed last night in Birmingham, Alabama; scene of crucial victories for the civil rights movement in the early 1960's... All I have seen is my room at the Howard Johnson's and the queue at the TacoBell drive-in. Off to Nashville today and practising my pickin' and grinnin'.

A note... The Americans are are incapable of passing a day without making up a new word, see "tornadic" above, and many of these are names... It seems that to have the same name as someone else is considered hackneyed and unoriginal; spellings can be changed, see CSI's Jorja Fox (surprised her surname isn't spelled P-H-O-C-H-S); but more popular these days is the creation of hitherto unknown names , which usually means 1. Take a name, let's say Jacob. 2. Then either add "alie" on the end, "Jacobalie", or 3. (and this is very popular) simply add "La" to the front, "Lajacob"... This results in some really strangled results, the girl on reception in New Orleans yesterday was, and I kid you not, wearing a badge which announced that she was "Lashawnalie".

A couple of photos

Moyra has sent some of her photographs... I thought these were especially good.

From the top... Bald Eagle chicks in the Atchafalaya Swamp (their head feathers only go white when they are older); a Catfish Po'boy from the Bon Creole (this is from our second visit); Jake eating the Po'boy from the Bon Creole (as it is the second visit I have learned to order the half-size... No really) and the last is a much better picture of The Bar They Left Behind.

Thanks Moyra.

The Blog of Shame

It is Monday, Moyra has just returned to blighty and I have a stinking hangover; a hangover, I realise on reflection, that I really deserve.

Arrived on Saturday and managed to make it to the Rock 'n Bowl (see below) for a couple of beers and a couple of Stolichnayas (I say a couple but the measures were Russian in scale) all well and good were it not for the fact that we had an appointment to see the finale of the Premiership Season (well done Man Utd) in Finn McCools at 9.00 the following morning. Now when you get to an Irish Bar (amazing there are any left in Ireland) at 9AM there is only one thing to drink, Bloody Mary, so we had three each while watching the football... I think that these were the reason that it then seemed a good idea to have a Guinness! Then a bit of a rest and a visit to the Museum of WWII, special display on Hollywood during the Second World War, then it was in to the Bar They Left Behind (to the left of General Lee's statue in the photo above... If you click on any of the photos they come up really big so that you can see them properly) for a "Dark and Stormy"; take a pint glass, add a few lumps of ice, add a splash of Ginger Ale then fill with dark rum, out to eat at Landry's Seafood House for lovely Catfish in caper and lemon sauce, Moyra ate Redfish, both washed down with Margaritas... The trouble really started when I remembered that there was a bar on the way home, Dominic's, which served 16oz frozen Margaritas for $7... We got there to discover that the barman had made Red Beans and Rice and was giving it away, we weren't hungry but he was insistent and it was delicious and we ended up drinking two of the tequila delivery systems.

I don't want to add up all the alcohol points because I already know how many... Much too many! Never again etc. etc.

Catching Up

Back in New Orleans after a trail around "Cajun Country"; Jefferson Island, where they have a ridiculous number of Roseate Spoonbills (think Flamingoes with a beak that looks like it has been hit with a hammer); Avery Island, where they make Tabasco and keep small alligators; Houma, a real oil town where the La Quinta Inn has the most infuriating WiFi (on 30 seconds, off 30 seconds and repeat ad nauseam); Cocodrie, where they catch enormous "Redfish" and serve deep fried Catfish; Grand Isle, where Moyra had her first Sno-cone (think Jublees with a range of flavours) and the State Park was having its sand replaced... I took photographs of none of these things, Doh!

Back in New Orleans we wandered, ate and drank... Which brings me on to The Blog of Shame, see above.

Bon Creole Lunch Counter

Just a quick note... If you find yourself down this way and have something of an appetite, try this place. We shared a Gumbo and each had a Po'boy sandwich (foot or more of soft bread, sauce, tomato, lettuce and over-stuffed with either Catfish, Shrimp or Crawfish) it is the very epitome of conspicuous over-consumption but, on the other hand, it is delicious.

We didn't have much of a supper.

Double Celebration

Sunday. A good day. My friend Moyra arrives to join me for a week or so and I listen on the computer as Sheffield Wednesday chalk up an, entirely undeserved, 4 - 1 victory to secure their place in the Championship... Phew.

Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival

Saturday saw us at up to our elbows in spicy, fresh-boiled crawfish (crayfish, langoustine by another name) at this local fair.

As Breaux bridge is deep in Cajun Country this also features plenty of music and dancing.

For those who know the work of James Lee Burke we spend the next few days meandering round the locations of his Dave Robicheaux stories... New Iberia and so on.

Atchafalaya

The Atchafalaya Basin, or Atchafalaya Swamp, is the largest swamp in the United States. Located in south central Louisiana, it is a combination of wetlands and river delta area where the Atchalafaya River and the Gulf of Mexico converge.

We visited on the day we arrived in Lafayette from New Orleans (you can see a selection of photographs if you click on the the picture beneath the heading "Atchafalaya Basin" on the right). We saw Ospreys, Bald Eagles, Ibis, Blue Heron, Alligator, Coypu and Beaver and in dryer times, it is wet season with water levels 12 feet higher than in Summer, we might also have seen Brown Bear and Cougar and, our guide told us, "gazillions of mosquitoes, soooo many it would make you cry".

The Rock 'n Bowl

This is the best music venue I have ever seen. A bowling alley from the 1960's which has made no attempt to keep up with the times, a stage installed at one end, a long bar where drinks are cheap and plentiful, good Cajun food served in minutes and, on the night we were there, the Legends of Zydeco playing... C. J. Chenier, Buckwheat Zydeco etc. And all the while the lanes of the alley are packed with people bowling.

The crowd is a very mixed one, working stiffs using their local alley, music lovers and a large number of Cajun and Creole people who come up from the country in their trucks and they come to dance; it is contagious and for the second time in one day I find myself dancing. I think this journey might be working.

JazzFest

The 1st of May saw us at the New Orleans Jazz Festival... Opened at the Fais Do Do (Cajun dance party) stage with The Creole Zydeco Farmers... You can see a film of them right here



...don't know if it does anything for you but it got us up and dancing.

Next we saw the Carolina Chocolate Drops; a group of young black musicians who play Bluegrass music (guitar, harmonica, jug and lots of banjos)... A form which is associated with the poor, white, Celtic immigrants in Appalachia, and has at times seemed to be the music of the racist south. But the Chocolate Drops are evangelical in their desire to explain that in the nineteenth century this music was played and enjoyed by all... Their 50 minutes saw them move from academic oddity to the breakthrough hit of the festival, standing ovation from a packed Blues Tent.

We finished with native son Randy Newman who spent 90 minutes reminding us that the American people are not well represented by this administration... Wise, self-deprecating, funny and packed with irony.

Jake and the Missus in New Orleans

Lizzy discovers that Beignets (deep-fried, free-form chewy waffles) from the Cafe du Monde go down a treat with a cup of milky coffee...

Jake rides the deliciously titled "Zydeco Express" Streetcar.

Ponderosa Stomp

New Orleans began with the two-night Ponderosa Stomp... An event which began with a wedding where the groom tried to recreate his jukebox live; it was so successful that the Stomp is now in its seventh year and the groom has developed a reputation for persuading artists who rarely if ever appear to play.

One building, two nights, three stages and a multiplicity of choices.. Some of the notable acts we caught were Tammy Lynn, Ronnie Spector, Roky Erickson & The Explosives, Lazy Lester, Syl Johnson with the Hi Rhythm Section, the Mighty Hannibal, James "Sugarboy" Crawford (now selling God but still fine), Wiley and the Checkmates, Dr. John. It was absolutely wonderful.