Blues Lifestyle Alive and Well

1. November 23, 1936—in room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio—Robert
Johnson began strumming his guitar. Legend has it, the Mississippi native played
for three days straight, recording 16 songs, all while facing the wall in the hotel
room. He died 19 months later at the age of 27.
Johnson, arguably the greatest bluesman to ever live, may be dead and gone. But some 70 years later, I journeyed
with EBONY Senior Photo Editor Dudley Brooks down to the Delta––where it all started––in an attempt to answer
one question: Does the blues still live on?
Every year, thousands of visitors make a similar pilgrimage, hoping to connect with the spirit that gave the blues
her birthright and Johnson his untimely death. Ultimately, most make it to Clarksdale, Miss., where they get wasted at the
local juke joints and strike their best “rocker” poses at the intersection of Highway 61 and Highway 49, the leg-
endary crossroads where Johnson said that he sold the devil his soul in exchange for talent to play the blues. In the
middle of the street, some even strum their air guitars as they imitate Johnson when he sang, “I went down the
crossroads, fell down on my knees, asked the Lord above, ‘Have mercy now, save poor Bob, if you please.’”
102 EBONY l OCTOBER 2010 OCTOBER 2010 l EBONY 103
ON
MORE
BY KEVIN CHAPPELL
For many gripped by theBlues,time stands still,life moveson
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DUDLEY M. BROOKS
THAN
A
The Mississippi Delta
SONG

2. For visitors, the blues has become their newfound art, a hip form of
expression to help get them through these recessionary times. But
for the locals I met, the blues is not a song you sing half-drunk
during karaoke night at the local bar. It’s not a Buddy Guy poster some
teenager hangs on the wall in a college dorm room. The blues is a way
of life, a melancholy existence that is nostalgic only in the varying means
and modes it finds to kick them right square in the ass. Hundreds of
interviews later, I still can’t describe exactly what the blues is. But after
shooting bull for days over case after case of beer under the unrelenting
Mississippi sun, I damn sure know it when I see it.
It sounds like Clarksdale resident David Tribble. “Yeah, I’ve seen
them White people stop traffic up there on 49,” he says, stepping
through the frame of his screenless screen door, maneuvering around
empty beer cans in his front yard as his wife downs another one des-
tined for the heap. “If you don’t know anything about the crossroads,
why the hell you taking pictures? You don’t know anything about
that. You ain’t never chopped no cotton. You ain’t never lived in one
of these damn one-room shacks. You ain’t never done none of this.
So why do you want to know about it? I had a White woman stop me
… she was from Missouri, some part Missouri. She stopped me and
asked me, ‘What is that white stuff?’ I said, ‘That’s cotton.’ She said,
‘You mean to tell me, it comes straight out of the ground?’ I said,
‘Yeah, it comes straight out of the ground.’ I said it just like that. If
you don’t know, I will tell you any damn thing. Any damn fool knows
it starts as a seed, it buds, busts open and then you’ve got cotton. …
They come here, it makes money for the town, but it doesn’t do any
OCTOBER 2010 l EBONY 105104 EBONY l OCTOBER 2010
damn thing for us. It ain’t coming out here on the street. All the busi-
nesses around here are still shutting down. I ain’t doing nothing but
working every day. I work 10 hours a day, and still scuffling. I got paid
today, and I’m just like I was when I went to work two weeks ago.
Clean pockets.”
Put that to music.
It looks like old-time bluesman Robert “Bilbo” Walker. Born in
1937 on the Borden Plantation in Clarksdale, he still drives his old RV
from juke-joint gig to juke-joint gig, still chases the young girls and still
is eager to please the White folks. “If I got 50 Whites in there, I’m
going to make more money on that night than I would if I got 150
Blacks in there crowding the place out,” says Walker, 73, dressed in a
crushed-velvet suit and wearing a curly wig as he sits on a wooden bench
in front of Cat Head, a White-owned blues and folk art store in down-
town Clarksdale. “Because the White men get to feeling good, and the
White girls, they get to feeling good, they might put one $10 bill in the
tip jar. And when you play something they really like, and they get a few
drinks in them, they liable to come up there and put $50 in there next.
A Black man come up and give you $5 that night, you ain’t getting
nothing else from him. He might buy two drinks that whole night,then
he going to the casino with the rest of it, if he got anymore.”
Put that to music.
Or better yet, put on your walking shoes. If you thought you knew
a little something about how to fight a tight fight with a short stick,
come along, I have some people I want you to meet. We’re just getting
started.
| BLUES FOR LIFE | Blues guitarist Robert “Bilbo” Walker, 73 (opening spread and
above), strolls along his farm in Clarksdale. Miss. He just opened his own juke joint. “We
get started about 8 o'clock. We play a little while until I get tired and sleepy. Then I go
home and go to bed.” Juke joints (top), a way of life for many in Clarksdale, feature
artists such as bluesman Razorblade (left).
a
104 EBONY l OCTOBER 2010 OCTOBER 2010 l EBONY 105
“
”
way
theblues
oflife.
is

3. MAKING BIG MAMA PROUD
Shortly after entering Clarksdale, I see a sign outside of a nondescript
building that reads “Big Mama Fast Food & Groceries.” On the
inside—beyond the cracked sidewalk and creaky wood-frame door—
I didn’t find Big Mama, but I did find Big Mama’s sons, R.L. and
Anthony Wilkins, selling everything from sodas and chips to cell phones
and cigarettes. They even grill hamburgers.
To others, it may only be a corner store. But to the Wilkins brothers,
the modest enterprise in the heart of the Delta has become the corner-
stone where family, faith and forgiveness intersect. And boy, did they
have a story to tell.
“Once the casinos came in, that changed the game for us,” R.L. says.
That’s where Big Mama has worked for years, about 40 minutes
up the road at a casino in Tunica, Miss. The locals call it “Little Las
Vegas”—miles of slot machines, blackjack tables and craps pits built in
the middle of what used to be farmland. Big Mama used to work in
the field picking cotton. In the summer, her four sons and two daugh-
ters would help her in the fields.
“She was our mother and our father,” Anthony says. In fact, at one
point, Big Mama worked three jobs. She drove a school bus in the
morning, worked at a furniture store during the day, and then worked
the cotton gin at night in the field.
Dealing with their indiscretions, Big Mama got Anthony and R.L.
out of more than a few messes. Dealing with their ambitions, she got
them into their own business.
First, the indiscretions. Anthony’s sex drive is the stuff of legends. He
fathered his first child while in eighth grade. He’s now 45, and has 12
kids (11 daughters and one son) and 36 grandkids. He readily admits
that he has made mistakes in life, one of which landed him in prison.
“Nobody’s perfect but Jesus Christ,” he said. “And Big Mama.”
Now, the ambitions. Despite their missteps, Big Mama still believes
in her sons. She constantly tells them that. Big Mama helped her sons
open their store, even though she knew that some people around town
would not patronize it because they figured the Wilkins brothers were
still up to no good. “Even now, they say that we do this and we do
that,” Anthony says. “Instead of saying, ‘Them boys are trying to make
it down there,’ they say that we ain’t selling food in here.”
Right now, Anthony says that he’s taking Big Mama’s lead, taking
it all in stride. But how long can he turn the other cheek? “You can
piss me off now,” Anthony says. “You can piss me off real bad, and I’ll
be like a totally different person with y’all cats then. I’m just telling
you the truth … I don’t need no friends. Only friends I got are my
mother and Jesus Christ. That’s all I got.”
Put that to music.
I left Big Mama’s realizing that there is perhaps nothing more
Southern than a storefront business, and nothing more Delta than a
desire not to work for “The Man.” In Clarksdale alone, Jay and his
family have a grocery store, the Greens have an accounting firm and
Johnny Hawkins is a bail bondsman who sells real estate. Then there
are the Newsons, who own a string of businesses on MLK Boulevard,
and the Hicks brothers, who own a washerette and a restaurant
known across these parts for its legendary hot tamales. “You know,
they did hot tamales for Dale Earnhardt,” R.L. says. “Yeah, man,
a lot of famous people get their hot tamales from them.”
106 EBONY l OCTOBER 2010 OCTOBER 2010 l EBONY 107
THEY CALL HIM ‘MR. HARRIS’
Just outside of Big Mama’s, I couldn’t help but notice a man lean-
ing on his pickup truck. He wore a cowboy hat as black as his face,
which was as dried up as an old pitted prune. His name was Johnny
Harris. His stoic mug attracted me to him. His slow, methodical
drawl kept me there way longer that I had anticipated.
Smoking a cigarette, the 57-year old says that he was waiting for
his lady to get a new cell phone. He tells me that she accidentally ran
over her old one in her car. Turns out, the Wilkins brothers are run-
ning a special. “You pay $42 a month for one flat rate and
you can call anywhere you want to call for the same $42 a
month,” Harris says.
Once they get the hookup, they are hitting the road for
a short vacation. Their destination: St. Louis, some 300
miles away. Harris moved to Clarksdale in 1969, and left
about four years ago to buy some land about 10 miles down
the road in Alligator. That’s right, Alligator, Miss. More
about that later. “I’ve got 25 acres,” Harris says. Then he
offers up a tidbit that makes his story one that is uniquely
Delta.“I’m the only Black guy that’s got a horse.”
I soon discover that by knowing Harris was headed to St.
Louis, I know more than he’s told all the folks in Alligator.
“When I go somewhere, I keeps it to myself,” Harris cau-
tions me. “I don’t tell nobody; sometimes you tell people
you’re leaving and they get juiced up and decide they want
to break in your house, take something, you know, and
then you have to kill them.”
“Kill them?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Harris says. “They say I’m mean, anyway. I’m not mean.
There’s just certain peoples that I deal with, and certain peoples I don’t.
Like you, for instance. There’s certain peoples you deal with and certain
peoples you don’t.”
But I’m not talking about having to kill them. Then again, I’ve
never been a country boy with 25 acres and a horse trying to make it
in Alligator, Miss.
Harris says that he likes the folks in Alligator. His only rub with
them: “They don’t go nowhere,” he says. “It’s like they’re scared to
| TOUGH LIVING |
Jennifer Davis (left)
lives in a dilapidated
trailer in Alligator, Miss.,
with her grandson
Marqorius, who has a
learning disability. Davis
hopes Antwone
Wallace—aka Blak
Powea—(opposite) can
help her fill out the
necessary paperwork
to move into a better
apartment down the
street. Powea, originally
from Chicago, leaves
Bruno’s on his ATV,
the ride of choice in
the one-square-mile
town. Dotting the Delta
landscape (this page,
bottom), small churches
are places where gener-
ations have come to
escape the blues.
”
SECLUDED.
I know everybody.
Everybody knows me.
It’s
in the country,
RESPECT.
“I’m out

4. old Jennifer Davis and her 2-year-old grandson Marqorius Davis.
They call him Scoop. He’s her son’s son. Like many Black grand-
mothers in the Delta, Jennifer is raising Scoop. Not an easy task,
considering Scoop is having speech and hearing issues. “His mother
lives in Clarksdale [with Davis’ son], but I guess she couldn’t deal
with him because when he’s upset, he grits his teeth like you would-
n’t believe. I guess it bothered her. But I got used to it,” she says.
The two live in a dilapidated-looking trailer that she says Bruno is
renting to her. It sinks down in the middle, floods when it rains, has
sporadically running water and a really bad rat problem. It has been
broken into several times. In fact, as we talk, a guy who she says broke
into it recently, actually walks by. “Him and his old lady, they got my
microwave, my TV, my DVD, my clothes,” Davis says.
“Somebody told me that you got my TV,” she says to him. He
ignores her and keeps walking.
‘STUCK IN TIME’
As I drove through miles and miles of cotton fields headed back
to Clarksdale, my mind was spinning. Too much beer, too much
Mississippi sun, too many late nights at too many juke joints, too many
folks with too many stories that I didn’t quite understand.
What I was beginning to appreciate about the blues is that sometimes
you’re living it and can’t shake it. But sometimes it is a self-inflicted
condition based on misconceptions, fear, false limitations and histor-
ical precedent.
I needed to confirm my theory—and quick. So where did I go? Where
else—to the Black man’s shrink—the local barbershop on MLK
Boulevard. There, I found Derrick Johnson, the town barber at the
shop owned by the Newson family. As he set up his clippers and pre-
pared for his first customer, he broke it down for me.
“They’re stuck in time,” says Johnson, 35. “It’s falling down from
generation to generation. If someone don’t come and break the cycle,
it’s going to keep going. Four hundred years of slave mentality.”
Johnson, who joined the military and has traveled extensively, says
that when young men come into his barbershop for a $12 cut, he works
on their minds while he’s working on their heads. “They say, ‘Well,
I’m making it right now. Barely, but I’m making it. I’ve got a bird in
the hand. I ain’t worried about the bird in the nest,’” Johnson says.
“But I tell them, ‘You’re talking about birds when there are some
eagles out there.’”
Put that to music.
“Poverty is everywhere,” he continues. “The Delta is not based on
poverty. The Delta is just based on a lack of knowledge. It’s just sad.
The only reason I know as much as I know—and I’m not bragging—
is because my mind is broad. I done been to 42 states. I done stayed
in threeorfour.ImadeitineachstatethatIwentto.Andtheyrespectme.”
In the end, my travels through the Mississippi Delta made me real-
ize that the people living the blues all want to make a little headway,
chart a little progress, get a little respect. Unfortunately, to break
through the constraints that have kept them bound to the blues some
70 years after Robert Johnson’s death, more may need to think out-
side the box and go against conventional wisdom.
Hell, some may even have to make a deal with the devil.
108 EBONY l OCTOBER 2010 OCTOBER 2010 l EBONY 109
get out of town. The people that live in Alligator stays
in Alligator.”
A construction worker by trade, Harris says that he
keeps to himself. And when he does have to deal with
someone, he says that he prefers dealing with Whites.
“The bottom line is, you respect the White man and
the White man’s gonna respect you. I say, ‘How are
you do doing, sir? Excuse me for a minute.’ If you got
something you want to say to a person, say ‘mister,’
‘ma’am,’ ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir.’ If I don’t respect you, you
not gonna respect me. Every White person down
here calls me ‘Mr. Harris.’ They don’t call me ‘Johnny.’
They say ‘Mr. Harris.’”
Put that to music.
Before we parted, Mr. Harris told me one more
thing before he headed off to St. Louis. “You should
go down to Alligator. It should be jumping right
about now,” he said. “Ain’t no police down there.
They police themselves. And don’t tell them that I’m
out of town.”
Will do.
WELCOME TO ALLIGATOR
As soon as you enter Alligator, two things are obvi-
ous. Many of the residents of the fifth-smallest town
in Mississippi like to imbibe alcoholic beverages, and
Bruno’s Package Store is the place of choice. It’s 4
o’clock in the afternoon and half the town is outside
getting their drink on. Although signs are posted
everywhere forbidding patrons from loitering, no one
seems to pay that any mind. Not even Bruno Fava, who most likely
posted the signs and is inside selling pints, quarts and fifths as fast as
his stubby Italian fingers can work the cash register.
The scene is intense. Hoopdies are constantly pulling in and out,
dropping off people, picking up people, almost running over people.
If the blaring rap music that penetrates the parking lot doesn’t drive
you a little batty, Paul Thomas bum-rushing you will. If there’s still
such a thing as a town crier, he’s it. Except the Brother is not on a
horse. He’s riding around Alligator on an ATV.
Thomas knows everyone and everyone’s business. Today he’s play-
ing hip-hop promoter, taking me next door to the source of the rap
music––an open room with a pool table and a jukebox rigged up to
play CDs made by the teenagers in Alligator.
“Ain’t no drugs; ain’t nothing but music,” Thomas says as he intro-
duces me to a teenage girl—Bilbo’s girlfriend—whose CD is playing.
“All they do is rap. Early in the morning, about 6 o’clock, everybody’s
sitting around drinking and rapping. We ain’t got no swimming pool.
We ain’t got no rec centers. We ain’t got no baseball team, no softball
team, no basketball team, no hockey team, none of that. Ain’t noth-
ing else to do but rap.”
Put that to music.
Then, Thomas seems to have an epiphany. “Man, you got to meet
Blak Powea.”
I say, “Black Power?”
He says, “No, Blak––Brilliance, life and knowledge;
Powea––Presence of wisdom, energy, answers. He’s the man. He’s
going to make us all famous. He’s got a studio at his home. He’s the
one that made all of the CDs. Let me go see if he’s at home.”
With that, Thomas goes off on his ATV. I go inside, buy a 40-
ounce from Bruno and loiter with the rest of the Alligatorians.
I did arrange to meet Blak Powea at his house the next day. When
I arrive, he was out back loading two-by-fours onto a trailer. He takes
a break, invites me into his house (which he is in the process of ren-
ovating) and tells me his real name: Antwone Wallace. “But you can
call me Blak,” he says.
“Around here, I’m working with five artists exclusively,” says Blak,
who is 37. “The artists I got, I basically molded those guys.”
Inside Blak’s studio, there are more books than tracks. “It’s just a
small little setup, preproduction,” says Blak, who also raps. “It’s down
right now, but it’s all good. I got stuff I need to fix. I just haven’t had
time. Been out of town traveling.”
“Traveling?” I said. “I thought people who live in Alligator stay
in Alligator.”
Well, it turns out, Blak is not from Alligator. He’s from Chicago,
an outsider who is admired by the locals perhaps because he’s from a
big city. He and his wife moved to Alligator seven years ago. He’s one
of the few Alligator residents who owns a house. According to the
2000 census, the per capita income in Alligator is $9,567. Most in
one-square-mile town rent apartments and trailers from Bruno.
That’s right. First, he sells them the liquor. Then, he sells them a place
to pass out. Straight up gangsta.
Surrounded by acres of farmland, Blak’s house backs up to
Alligator Lake. He admits that he likes being a big fish in a small
pond. “I got Hollywood right here,” he says. “I’m out in the coun-
try, secluded. I know everybody. Everybody knows me. It’s respect.”
There’s that word again.
If there are 220 people in Alligator, I left there thinking there have
to be at least that many peculiar stories. I met people such as 38-year-
| ‘I DON’T NEED NO FRIENDS,’ | says Anthony Wilkins, who, along with his brother
R.L., runs a convenience store that their mother helped them open. “Big Mama taught us to
believe in God,” he says. A worshipper (above) gives glory to God in church.
”
but JesusChrist...
and
PERFECT
BIGMAMA.
“Nobody’s
EDITOR’S NOTE: Shortly after returning from St. Louis, Johnny Harris,
according to published reports, shot his girlfriend in the back as she
was trying to run away, then beat her with the gun. Shortly after killing
her, Harris killed himself with one shot to the chest. Infidelity is believed
to have been the motive.