(insects chirping) ("Cairo Blues") ♪ You know I was going to Cairo ♪ ♪ But the water was too high for me ♪ ♪ The girl I love ♪ ♪ She got washed away ♪ ♪ You know, everybody got drownded ♪ - As a whole, the younger people not interested in the roots of the music or where it come from, who did it, or how it come by.

But we must try our best to pass along the information because that's what we pray that's from, the lack of information.

("Cairo Blues") ♪ Cairo, Cairo ♪ ♪ Water's running all over town ♪ - Someone always getting on me about, "Well, Bobby, you think the blues is everything "'cause you a blues singer."

No, I think the blues is everything not because I sing the blues, because the blues is the mother of all music.

If you don't like the blues, you probably don't like your mama.

(Bobby and Papa Ray laughing) ♪ Put me down ♪ ♪ I used to (indistinct) ♪ ♪ But all my money... ♪ (strong, steady blues music) - [Papa Ray] You know, it's a fact, the greatest game-changing music on planet Earth never comes from the rich and comfortable neighborhoods.

It comes from where the opportunities are slim and life is often hard.

As St.

Louis bluesman Henry Townsend once said, "It was a relief from the pressure."

And this episode of "The Roadshow" is about the blues for the 21st century.

(strong, steady blues music) (classic blues music) We're here in Clarksdale, Mississippi, a place which is considered by many to be the ground zero of Delta Blues, with Ms.

Tameal Edwards who is the adult in charge of the fabulous Ground Zero Blues Club.

And I trust you're having a musical day.

- Oh, always.

(rhythmic blues music) - The club's been around since what, I think about 2002?

- 2001.

- 2001.

Has a very famous backer and co-owner.

- Yes, Mr.

Morgan Freeman.

- Which makes me assume he likes blues music.

- He is a blues lover.

He loves blues music.

- [Papa Ray] You know, and the blues doesn't have just one sound.

- No.

- The blues that was going on in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1930 wasn't like the blues that was going on at Stovall Plantation at the same year.

Same for St.

Louis or Chicago or the great city of New Orleans.

I mean, blues was permeating American music, but it wasn't the same everywhere.

- A lot of times when people come here, they expect to hear Delta Blues.

But I let them know real early, the state of Mississippi has three different, maybe four different genres of blues that come here.

We have Delta Blues, which sometimes can have like a rockish edge due to the influence.

We have Hill Country Blues, the music over there in the hills.

There's Pine Belt Blues down there just a little further south, which could sound a little churchy.

And then you go further south and that's when the Zydeco and all that come into play.

To understand blues, you have to understand the history.

You have to understand there's different genres.

Y'all have, you know, multiple types of blues.

I mean, Chicago influence, St.

Louis, all that.

I mean, it's so many different influences.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, somebody lost a loved one, a dog, (chuckles) going through a hardship, or they broke.

So I mean, it's still the same subject matter.

I grew up hearing it in the background.

It was gospel on Sundays.

But Saturdays, it was blues.

- And oftentimes, the same folks singing it.

- Yes.

- Blues to me is best presented not on a formal concert stage but in a nightclub.

- [Tameal] Yes.

- [Papa Ray] In a place where people are socializing.

Maybe they're drinking.

Maybe they're having a bite of food.

They're there maybe with their girlfriend.

- [Tameal] That's right.

- Maybe there with their wife.

The girlfriend and the wife may be in the same room at the same time.

But we're not talking about that.

(Tameal laughing) And blues, as I said, is a social music.

And you can just soak that up in here.

- Oh man, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to work here.

The very first time I walked into Ground Zero, and I've probably told this story a million times.

But at my old job, my friend said, "We're gonna go have drinks."

I said, "Where?"

She said, "Ah, we'll pick somewhere."

She pulls up to this place and I said, "Why would you bring me here?

"They have couches on the front porch."

She said, "Get out the car."

And so I'm fussing the whole way up to the door.

And I open the door and I'm like, "Oh my God, what is this place?"

And it was a feeling.

And to this day, I can't describe it.

But other people say they feel it too when they walk in our doors.

I pay my cover charge.

I'm sitting on a bar stool like a kid.

Like, "Oh my gosh, there's more."

You know, what's gonna happen?

And LaLa Craig, oh, phenomenal piano player.

She gets up here, barefooted, hair flying, pounding on this keyboard playing boogie-woogie blues piano.

And I was like, "I love this place.

"I want a piece of it," you know.

And I applied and got hired on the spot.

And I've been here ever since then.

- Well, you know, when the music virus hits one of us, you enter the music at a certain point of your life.

And then that door opens up, and it gets deeper.

(soulful blues music) Here in Mississippi, after all, this is the state that birthed Charley Patton, birthed Son House, birthed Robert Johnson.

I know that the current living king of Southern blues, Bobby Rush, is no stranger to this room.

- He is not.

Bobby Rush was one of the artists who gave us our official blues stamp almost 25 years ago.

He filmed a live performance here.

And then he came back and performed for our 20th anniversary as well.

So he's a very good friend of ours, really good friend of ours.

- And, of course, this club has blues artists, younger artists, literally not only from Mississippi but all over the nation and the world coming here because they wanna be able to say, "I played the Ground Zero Club."

- Yeah, we host a couple of benefits for the Pinetop Foundation.

And they have a music school for kids.

And so, kids like Danny Garwood, John Clayton White, these kids, I mean, oh gosh, I think I first saw 'em when they were like 10, killing it, standing on the edge of the stage, you know, playing old blues licks.

I mean, at 10, like how can a kid be more talented than me?

But they are amazing.

And, you know, I always get so emotional during that time.

Because guess what?

One day, I gotta book these kids, you know.

And to see, literally see their careers from the beginning to some of 'em where they are now.

Kingfish was part of that program.

He literally played here for the first time at age 10 or 11.

And that's why every time he wins an award, like the whole staff just starts crying.

Because we're like, "Oh my gosh."

You know, we saw him, you know, from the beginning, this shy kid to European tours.

And it's really amazing to see, beautiful thing.

- Well, the younger generation is reincarnating the blues.

Under the age of 30, people from St.

Louis, such as Marquise Knox, Dylan Triplett, young man known as The Rattlesnake, Matt Lesch.

- Yes, love.

- They've all played here.

- Yes, they have.

- And they all come home, you know, satisfied, pleased that they were able to hit a set of music here.

- That's right; that's right.

And we love to have them.

Marquise, such an old soul.

And whenever he comes, it's like he has the crowd in the palm of his hand.

Most of my blues artists, they walk around with the guitars and they do what we call the Blues Walk.

Marquise, his voice is his instrument.

And he walks around, and I mean, no microphone, no nothing.

And you could hear a pin drop, just him singing.

And it's a beautiful thing, really beautiful.

And the first time Dylan Triplett played here, it was for, I think, one of the Pinetop benefits.

And I got all these calls and text messages like, "Oh my gosh, you gotta see this guy.

"You would love him."

And fast forward to the very next year, I got a chance to see him and I was like, "Oh my gosh."

He gives a very old school feel.

'Cause he gets out on the floor, and he'll pull people up and get 'em dancing.

And I just love all of 'em.

And Matt just did his first show here this year.

He did an amazing job.

And we just, we love all of our blues artists.

And we literally get 'em from all over the world.

- You know, the blues artist who's departed on, Big George Brock, Matt was his guitar player at the age of 16.

- [Tameal] Yes, he was.

- So the best young blues artists, one way or the other, have been able to apprentice themselves and benefit from the instruction, or at the very least the example of an older artist.

- Yeah.

- We're in a juke joint.

- Yes, we are.

- And this is where the saints of the juke joint come to play.

- That's right.

- The Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

- That's right.

- Have a musical day.

- Thank you, you too.

(upbeat blues music) (strong steady blues music ) - So here in Clarksdale, we are at Cat Head Records.

This is a great example of a dynamic I see all over the world as far as independent record stores.

And what is that dynamic?

Well, you have a record shop that is tied in to the music scene of its community.

You have a record store that not only is a retail center and a go-to place for visitors to find out what's going on musically, this store also has its own record label that's been putting out classic deep-dish blues for quite a number of years.

Mr.

Roger Stolle of Cat Head Records.

And it is a musical pleasure to be here.

- Well, thank you, Papa Ray.

I, of course, know you from the airwaves in St.

Louis since I used to live there.

So it's a pleasure to have you here.

Of course, I love your record store back in St.

Louis as well.

You've taken more than a little bit of my money outta my wallet before.

But I walked away happy.

- Clarksdale, Mississippi, I think it's pretty clear that there's a certain amount of what you could call economic challenges for the continued health and growth of this town.

It's a place that has decided, a major way to do that is to revive and display and promote and glorify the fact that Clarksdale really is a town with a deep, deep blues history.

- That's right.

So we have the past history, which is represented as you walk around town with various markers and such.

Of course, we have the Delta Blues Museum, the first blues museum in the world, dating back to 1979.

So you have that represented.

But also, we have live blues 365 nights a year.

We do not miss a holiday.

We don't miss a long weekend.

We take advantage of everything to try to put, you know, heads in beds and feet under tables, get people to sort of re-energize the community as well as support the music.

We also enjoy now well over a dozen annual blues festivals from little tiny ones that frankly aren't making money yet to big ones like Juke Joint Festival, classic ones like the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival.

And these things mean that musicians can now live here and more or less live off their music.

So we've tried to use it to support the music and arts community as well as sort of the entrepreneurs and the downtown sort of heartbeat of the city.

Now we still have a long way to go.

This is historically a very impoverished community.

Blues music and tourism, downtown revitalization can't fix everything.

But we feel like it's really playing its part.

Blues music as a whole was sort of that first puzzle piece on an otherwise empty table.

And with puzzle pieces, you build out.

Like you say, people come here for the music.

"Well, now I need to stay somewhere.

"Now I need to eat somewhere.

"I wanna shop somewhere.

"I wanna go see music."

So it just keeps building out.

(upbeat blues music fades) (soulful blues music) - Here and now in the 21st century, you're not only seeing those individuals who are still with us who are of the generation that was playing blues 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

This is a place now where young musicians, not from Clarksdale, not from Mississippi, come wanting to be able to say, "Well, I've played in Clarksdale."

And they do so.

- We attract fans and musicians from all around the world.

Juke Joint Festival this past April, we had at least 26 international countries here, almost all 50 U.S.

states.

We also have, very fortunately for Clarksdale, the Arts and Education Program at the Delta Blues Museum.

Kingfish, if you've heard of Kingfish, he is sort of the biggest name that's come out of Clarksdale recently.

And he went through that program as well.

- Let's talk about your label.

- Sure, so I started Cat Head Presents, technically is what I called it, originally to record an album on Big George Brock.

- From St.

Louis.

- Yeah, from St.

Louis, although really from down here originally.

He calls me up one probably a Saturday morning and said, "You know, I'm getting older, "and I just don't know how much longer I can do this.

"And I wanna make another album."

We ended up doing whatever it is, a dozen songs.

You know, I sent three CDs all around the world to all the blues magazines.

And every single one of 'em said "Cat Head in Clarksdale."

So it was like running an ad in all those magazines.

And then we got all these offers to go overseas to Europe and take Big George over there.

And I ended up doing three albums on George as well a DVD, "Hard Times," a documentary.

- Aside from Big George Brock, other artists that you've recorded?

- Well, other artists that I've worked with, either taken overseas, booked on festivals, put in film projects or recorded for CD, would include guys like James T-Model Ford, you know, the Tail Dragger, you know, the Ladies Man, as well as Robert Bilbo Walker.

And Bilbo, in some ways after Big George, is the guy I got to spend the most time with.

Taking him overseas, he really could not travel without someone helping him.

He also, late in life at the end, really when he was 80 years old, opened up his lifelong dream of a juke joint.

And you would hear these incredible stories that you wouldn't even know to ask the question.

You know, one day, you know, looking at his hand, I'm like, "Now I never asked you, "what happened to your finger."

"Oh, my wife shot it off."

Well, that's a story.

- Sounds like a blues song to me.

- Yeah, so Robert Wolfman Belfour, another one of my absolute favorites to spend time with, Jimmy Duck Holmes, amazing, The Blue Front Cafe, the oldest juke joint in Mississippi, Little Willie Farmer, who is a delightful man and sort of like going to, you know, hang out with Lightning Hopkins or something.

He's just that old school.

He's only 69, but he's that old school.

I just feel really, really lucky to have made the move when I did and chosen to get into this because of the experiences with the people you get to meet and hang out with.

- Clarksdale, of course, has an individual who's been at the blues game for many decades.

And I'm talking about the Grammy Award winner, Charlie Musselwhite.

I understand he's a frequent visitor.

- He is; he lives about a block from here.

So I see, you know, Charlie and his wife Henri, they're fabulous, fabulous people, sometimes a couple of times a week if they're in town.

- Charlie Musselwhite proves that musicians who take care of themselves, they can be making really powerful music in their ninth decade of life.

(classic blues music) No finer example that I can think of, of a record store that supports the community and forwards the community that it serves, Cat Head Records here in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

- It all works back to my mission.

I didn't move here to open a store per se.

I moved here with the mission to help organize and promote the blues from within.

Pull it together, make it a reliable thing people could visit and hear and see and experience and then push it out to the world.

And that's what we've been doing.

And so the byproducts are these, you know, CDs and DVDs and festivals and tours.

But really, it all comes back to that mission.

- To say the least, do good in your neighborhood.

- That's right.

Thank you very much.

(soulful blues music fades) (tense blues music) (tense blues music continues) ♪ Hey driver, you moving too fast ♪ ♪ Hey driver, you moving too fast ♪ ♪ Ain't in no hurry ♪ ♪ Ain't got a worry ♪ ♪ Ain't in no hurry at all ♪ ♪ Ain't in no hurry ♪ ♪ Ain't got a worry ♪ ♪ Ain't in no hurry at all ♪ ♪ That track is where (indistinct) ♪ (tense blues music) - We're at one of the blues nerve centers in Clarksdale.

And we are here with a gentleman who plays harmonica, who teaches harmonica, who designs and alters harmonica, and is known by harmonica players all over this country and all over the world known as Deak Harp.

Glad you came over, man.

I mean, like I said, I've heard of you for years.

- Really?

- Yes, yes, yes, of course.

(slow tempo blues harmonica) - I've supported myself with this little tin whistle.

I've supported myself this long with this harmonica.

When I asked James Cotton, what did he call the harmonica, he says, "I call it the Mississippi saxophone."

So that's why I named this place the Mississippi Saxophone.

And blues is important.

So this is a Mississippi saxophone.

(rhythmic blues music) - [Papa Ray] Do you remember Arthur Williams?

Arthur was the trickster of St.

Louis.

- He was so cool.

I was working with Hubert Sumlin at the time.

And we drove him down to St.

Louis so he could record with Big Bad Smitty.

And I was there for that recording at the Mutual of Omaha Studios in St.

Louis.

Unbelievable, Hubert kicked off every shot.

♪ Aah la da da da ♪ ♪ Ba da da da la da da ♪ And I'm sitting there going, "Whoa.

"Pinch me, please."

(laughing) You know.

Arthur was something else.

- The first man to play through a Hammond B3 Leslie cabinet.

I mean, a B3, you know, Leslie speaker and got that funky tremolo sound.

But Arthur was a great, great guy.

- Yeah, I miss him.

Actually, whenever he came to Clarksdale, him and his buddy would bring three gallons of moonshine.

And they'd be selling it to everybody at Red's.

(chuckles) I worked for James Cotton.

He was Mr.

Superharp.

(moody blues music) I knew one thing that I wanted to learn from him was how did he make that harmonica sound so deep?

Everybody in the harmonica community now says that I have the best tone in the business.

And I don't know if they're right about that.

But I don't wanna be fast, I don't wanna be inventive.

I don't wanna be the best.

But I just wanna have the best tone.

(soulful blues music) You're sitting in Charlie Musselwhite's chair.

He sits there and holds court.

He sits there and tells us Big Walter stories, Little Walter stories.

Sits there, and that's his guitar, that little Telecaster-looking hollow thingy.

And he sits in that chair and he plays guitar.

It's a pleasure to have him here in this town.

- Willie Dixon did a book signing in the late 80s in our store.

And it was about two weeks after he had made his agreement and gotten the money from Led Zeppelin.

So Mr.

Dixon had a smile that couldn't stop.

But he flatly said to me, "As far as I'm concerned, "the greatest harp player of all is Big Walter Horton, "Mr.

Jacobs Walter Horton."

- Walter had the biggest tone too.

One thing, though, I can say is when Robert Plant came to town here, I showed him one of my harmonicas.

He was hanging out and knew Roxie.

And he walked in, and everybody bombarded him.

They knew who he was.

I waited till everybody left him alone and I started just playing a little harp.

And his head turned completely around and started walking towards me.

He says, "Man, you sound pretty good, you know?"

I said, "Well, I'm glad to meet you."

The first thing that I said to him is, "It's nobody's fault but yours "that I am a harmonica player."

I saw Led Zeppelin in '77.

Before I knew anything about blues, I was listening to the pop guys.

Like, I got to meet Ozzy, and I make harmonicas for Ozzy.

I used to, anyway; he just passed away.

But I was his harmonica builder.

I told Plant, I said, "When I saw you guys in '77, "all the lights went out in the audience "and all I could hear was this harmonica."

And all of a sudden then, the spotlights went on him and he's standing in front of the microphone playing the harmonica.

And I went, "Oh my God, that's it.

"I know exactly what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life."

You know, I knew right then and there.

You know, I was still a carpenter, but I wanted to be a harmonica player.

(soulful harmonica riff) Most music stores have a lot of stuff in it, and it's all for sale.

I still love what I do.

And someday, I'll be rich.

This place is, I hope I can keep it going forever.

(soulful blues music) (blues plays on record player) - The eternal question on this roadshow asked of men, women, boys, girls, and shop owners: What was your first record?

What was your very first record?

- Probably "100% Cotton".

I think that's the holy-grail record for harmonica.

- My first record was Elvis Presley.

- I got the whole Bessie Smith collection.

(soulful blues music) - [Papa Ray] I have no doubt that blues in the 21st century will inspire, inform, and create new music that will indeed be a relief from the pressures of life.

(soulful blues music) ♪ Honey baby ♪ ♪ Meet me just one last ♪ (melancholy blues guitar music) (melancholy blues guitar music continues) (melancholy blues guitar music continues) ♪ All time here and everywhere you go ♪ ♪ Times is harder than before ♪ ♪ Oh oh hard ♪ ♪ And hard ♪ (melancholy blues guitar music continues)