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Where Y’all Country roads lead

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And as the world remembers the Kolossal Kris Kristofferson today we take the opportunity to revisit where Y’all Country roads lead.

Tennessee and Mississippi, the centres of the music world, billing themselves as the birthplace of Country, as well as Blues and rock’n’roll.

You can follow in the footsteps of those titans of their genre, as we did, along the Mississippi Blues trail.

And converge at the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for playing the guitar.

And pay pilgrimage at Sun Studio and Graceland to the King of Rock’n’roll in Memphis, Tennessee.

A night at the Opry

Y’all Country roads, we know, end up leading to The Grand Ole Opry which celebrates its 100th centenary next year.

The world’s longest-running radio programme will have more shows on their calendar than ever before in 2025.

All of which give visitors more opportunities to see a performance live and in person all year long.

And all year long too you can live Country music at the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum in downtown Nashville.

The world’s largest music museum, it boasts more than 350,000sqft of galleries and displays.

The collection includes Carl Perkins’ blue suede shoes, Elvis’ Cadillac and gold piano and Hank Williams’ Western-cut suit with musical note appliqués.

The current exhibition is Luke Combs: The Man I am.

Get Carters

Dynamic duo: Johnny Cash and June Carter

For those who wish to take the journey on at the Smithsonian The Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, Tennessee.

And hear the story of the 1927 Bristol Sessions and the Carter family and Jimmie Rodgers shaped Country music.

Through multiple theatre experiences, interactive displays, texts and artifact.

Pathways to success

For a state with only 7 million natives, Tennessee sure punches above its musical weight.

And you can learn more if you take the Tennessee Music Pathways which tells the story of the state’s musical heritage and its influences around the world and its live music scene.

The lives and careers of Mississippi’s trailblazing country music artists, from the “Father of Country Music,” Jimmie Rodgers, to the “First Lady of Country Music,” Tammy Wynette, are immortalized on the state’s Country Music Trail.

Historic markers have been placed throughout Mississippi to mark important country music sites.

And commemorate Mississippians who have contributed to the music genre.

With, of course, Elvis’s birthplace Tupelo, Jimmie Rodgers’ grave in Meridian and Charley Pride’s hometown of Sledge.

New on the scene

And introducing Mississippi’s newest country music attraction Marty Stuart’s Congress of Country Music in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

The five-time Grammy winner is developing a 50,000sqft campus featuring a performing arts centre.

And, coming soon, a world-class country music museum stocked with items from his personal collection.

America, Countries, Music, UK

Hank Williams in Alabama

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As with so much in life where my great hero Billy Connolly goes I will follow which means to Hank Williams in Alabama.

Billy oft tells the story of how he first got into the banjo, his great musical love.

And the start point of his legendary entertainment career.

The Barras street market in Glasgow might seem an unlikely place to discover a Country legend.

But then many of the best people (Billy and Bandanaman) grew up in these streets.

And it was on one such stall that Billy’s dad bought Hank’s I’m So Lonely I Could Cry which prompted Billy to buy a banjo.

Hank’s for the memories

Billy, whose television travelogues are among the best anywhere, takes us to Hank’s gravestone in his Tracks Across America.

And texts his children and gets a photograph to tell him he’s there.

This year is a very special year for Hankophiles.

Hiram ‘Hank’ Williams was born on September 17 in Mount Olive, Alabama.

And Alabama naturally makes a big deal of their favourite son with a Hank Williams Trail.

It kicks off with a visit to his childhood home preserved as a museum in Georgiana, where he learned to play guitar from Black street musician Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne. T

Then drive an hour north to Montgomery, where Hank moved in his teens, and pick up lunch as he did at Chris’s Hot Dogs.

Alabamaversary

Visit Montgomery’s Hank Williams Museum to see his stage costumes, guitars, and the 1952 blue Cadillac in which he died, aged just 29.

You can pay your respects at his grave, like Billy did in homage to Hank Williams in Alabama.

In nearby Oakwood Cemetery, marked by a marble cowboy hat.

Of course, in a state where music is in the very air, there is always an anniversary.

Muscle memory

And April 23, 2023 marks the 60^th anniversary of Rick Hall’s FAME studios in Muscle Shoals.

The studios have attracted artists from Alabamian Wilson Pickett, who recorded “Mustang Sally”, Aretha Franklin and Etta James to Alicia Keys.

A new behind-the-scenes tour takes visitors into Hall’s personal office and showcases his collection of instruments.

Of course this being the Deep South then music is all around you so why not make an odyssey of it in neighbouring states.

And take in Tennessee and the best that Nashville, Memphis and Dollywood have to offer.

And Mississippi and its Blues trail and its Grammy Museum.

America, Countries, Culture, Music

The Deep South have a lot to sing and write about

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‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy… that’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’ And doesn’t Harper Lee’s state Alabama and the Deep South have a lot to sing and write about.

That great novel, To Kill A Mockingbird was 60 years old last year.

And it is regularly listed as one of the public’s favourite books and Harper Lee is rightly celebrated in the Deep South state.

So much so that the good residents of her own Monroeville homestead live the story every year.

With the locals actually becoming part of the cast alongside Jem, Scout, Boo Ridley, Atticus Finch and Tom Robinson.

Part of the cast

Every April and May, a version of Mockingbird is put on by people from the community.

And you’ll see the jury preside over Tom Robinson’s trial is selected from the audience before each performance.

While just a short drive away lies Montgomery where Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald lived from 1931-32 and where Scott worked on Tender is the Night.

You can visit the Jazz Age couple’s Felder Avenue home is now the site of the F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum.

And a two-bedroom apartment that can be booked by literary lovers on Airbnb.

The Sound of the South

It is no coincidence that Hollywood mines the Deep South for epic movies.

William Faulkner, the Poet Laureate of the South says it better than ya’ll could.. certainly this scribbler.

Faulkner is the author of the classic The Sound and the Fury.

And he opined: ‘I discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it.’

And you can learn much more about Faulkner and other alumni from the Magnolia State including Richard Wright and Eurdora Welty on The Mississippi Writers Trail.

All of which is a good bookend to the Mississippi Blues Trail which of course is richly infused through the Civil Rights Struggle.

While Faulkner will forever be linked to the Deep South, that too is the case for Tennessee Williams. Well, how could it not as he carried it around the state in his name?

Good ole Southern Boys

Like many famous Tennessee legends, like BB King and Elvis Presley he is in fact a Mississippian.

The Deep South includes Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi & Tennessee.

And to immerse yourself in the region is to step right into the pages of these great storytellers.

Yes, truly, the Deep South have a lot to sing and write about.