It’s 4,351 miles between Jackson and Liverpool but nothing between them musically which is why today we’re celebrating the Merseyssippi Blues.
The blues and rock’n’roll-inspired Beatles and Merseybeat assured Liverpool’s place in the musical landscape.
And so it was only natural that when the string-plucking musicos of the Magnolia State decided to branch out.
To mark the Blues beyond their borders they decamped to Liverpool.
To unveil a Mississippi Blues Trail Marker, their first in Britain, at the Cavern Club where the Beatles made their names.
And where the Sixties British musical invasion of America took shape.
And where now stands a special Blues plaque at the Club to commemorate the special relationship.
Devilishly good music
How better then to mark the occasion than through music?
And who better than a Johnson… award-winning Mississippi blues artist James ‘Super Chikan’ Johnson?
Known for his electrifying shows at Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale.
Super Chikan obvs has a Blues birthright as a Johnson.
Nobody did more for the Blues before BB King than Robert Johnson who sold his soul to play guitar at the crossroads at Dockery Plantation.
Which is the centre point for any music fan’s odyssey on the Mississippi Blues Trail.
Love, love me Blues
If Johnson is Blues royalty then Lennon is Beatles royalty.
And Julia Baird, John’s half-sister, represented the Fab Four, was there to roll out the Blues carpet for the Mississippians.
Of course, just as Johnson’s Crossroad should be on anybody’s visit to Mississippi.
Then the Cavern and the Beatles Story and any one of The Beatles tours out of the club should be on a tourist’s Liverpool itinerary.
And what better than the Magical Mystery Tour, run by Holly Johnson’s brother Jay.
See, it’s all circular.
So if you live on this island why not start your Deep South odyssey at the Cavern Club, the home of the Merseyssippi Blues.
