Riding with the Blues: Deep South Travels into Music History

Classic blues, one of America's most distinctive musical art forms, originated specifically in a portion of Mississippi known as "the Delta," a formerly cotton-growing feudal kingdom of sorts, stretching from Memphis, Tennessee, south to Vicksburg, hugging the great Mississippi River in between these cities along its eastern shore. For well over 100 years, these thousands of acres represented a private preserve ruled by white plantation owners. Black agricultural workers, initially as slave...