As you enter the museum, you get a taste of history in the making from Big Jack Johnson, Terry Big T Williams, T-Model Ford, Guitar Shorty and other blues legends of today and sample the “goings on” in the jukes around town.  We’ll take you back a few decades to the barber shop of Wade Walton.  This blues-singing barber would play the blues with his razor and strop. 

The museum takes you way back to when you held a recording in your hand and the closest thing to an iPod was the local jukebox . . . Back to the roots--THE BLUES.  Featured is the first blues record CRAZY BLUES, a 78 rpm, recorded in 1920 by Mamie Smith along with recordings by other female blues aritists such as Ma Rainey, Clara Smith and Victoria Spivey.

The display honoring Bessie Smith  includes a rare test recording of EMPTY BED BLUES.  This renowned blues artist died in Clarksdale in 1937.

Old acetates and 78 rpm recordings of Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson prove the influence these blues singers had on artists such as Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones and almost every other artist from the 60’s. From Muddy Waters to Buddy Holly to Jimi Hendrix, you’ll enjoy the artwork of the record covers and concert posters from the time when music was something could hold not just download.

Clarksdale’s own legacy is richly represented by Little Junior Parker, Eddie Boyd, Lil Green, Sam Cooke, John Lee Hooker and foremost Ike Turner, who composed the first ever rock ‘n roll record in 1951 here in Clarksdale at The Riverside Hotel on Sunflower.  It’s Ike’s record that Bill Haley recorded in 1951 and started Haley’s world famous career in rockabilly making him change the name of his group from the Saddlemen to the Comets 

  (sorry, still a work in progress . . . )