AMERICAN BEAUTY
DEEP SOUTH MUSIC TOUR Badlands geology and American History 1. Nashville, Tennessee, has great bars for country and blues. See the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (countrymusichalloffame.org), and the Ryman Auditorium (ryman.com) to learn about the Grand Ole Opry. Nearby Broadway has bars for real live music till late. 2. Memphis – blues, gospel, country, rock’n’roll, barbecue. Stay for Wild Bill’s Juke Joint, Graceland and Sun Studios, and on Sunday listen to the Reverend Al Green lead the choir in Full Gospel Tabernacle Church on Hale Road. 3. Following Route 61 south you reach the Mississippi Delta region. Stop for dinner at Tunica – which has lots of casinos – or opt for fried chicken or creole catfish at the Blue and White Diner (blueandwhiterestaurant.com) and a ride on the Tunica Queen riverboat.
4. Clarksdale, Mississippi, for juke joints, the Delta Blues Museum in the old train station and a night at the Shack Up Inn (shackupinn.com, from $75), with boutique rooms in old sharecropper shacks, at the Hopson Plantation, which hosts live blues. 5. Dockery Farms (dockeryfarms. org), where blues is said to have been invented by cotton picker Charley Patton in the early 1900s.
776 miles, 14 hours’ driving, one week minimum
6. Lafayette, Louisiana, is one of America’s greatest music towns, where you can hear Cajun, Creole and zydeco music in the dancehalls, or listen out for “swamp pop” . The Blue Moon Saloon and Guesthouse (bluemoonpresents.com, $18 bunks, doubles from $75) has live roots music on the back porch – local bands often record live albums there. 7. Finally, go wild in New Orleans at the dozens of jazz and blues clubs.
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