Twice a year people come from all over the world to bask in The Harmonica Experience in the Mississippi Delta where the blues began.
Master harmonica players gather in the Juke Joint Chapel at the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale, Mississippi teaching inspired students how to breathe in and out to create beautiful bluesy tones on their harmonicas, also known in the area as a “Mississippi Saxophone.”
On this Southern plantation where blues legend Pinetop Perkins once worked the land, aspiring musicians sat on the porches of their cabins learning how to bend notes and call music from their hearts and souls.
In the evening, the more skilled musicians often encourage anyone interested to join along in a spontaneous jam. Some sing better than others, some play in a group for the first time, but they all have fun making music together with their new friends in this special place.
The students draw inspiration from the atmosphere; the spring flowers or fall cotton in bloom; The shacks, once home to sharecroppers; the fields, once filled with people making music to help pass the time and ease the pain of their burden. The workshop takes place minutes from where many of the great blues artists lived, worked, played music, and are buried.
Black history lessons are everywhere.
Participants are getting a very authentic learning experience from passionate professional musicians willing to share their knowledge and see their students shine.
“Ultimately you want to be able to express yourself, you want to be able to find your own blues in you and play that.” says harmonica great Charlie Musselwhite while visiting the students. “You want to find the tones that resonate with you and play those from your heart.”
Coaches and professional musicians Cheryl Arena and Brian “Hash Brown” Calway run the camp with other coaches, while teaching and musically supporting the students who learn, play, practice all week as they work towards a final Saturday performance.
Cheryl also offers students on a canoe trip on the mighty Mississippi with river historian John Ruskey and the Quapaw Canoe Company.
Kate Wakeling looks forward to The Harmonica Experience in the fall. She has traveled from Australia many times to learn and play harmonica with the coaches and students who have become her musical family. Many of the students return again and again as they gain confidence and build relationships, tweaking their talent while enjoying a week in the Delta.
In Clarksdale, there are clubs to hear music every day of the week and festivals throughout the year that bring blues fans to the area. There is a blues museum too.
Visit the graves of the great Sonny Boy Williamson or Pinetop Perkins, or the famous Crossroads, where Robert Johnson “sold his soul to the devil.”
But get ready for a genuine experience—- the Mississippi Delta is an acquired taste. Downtown Clarksdale still struggles, blues tourism and agriculture are what keeps the area afloat. But the area is still full of beautiful, colorful and interesting people who call it home.
For the real blues fans, Mississippi has done a fantastic job with the Mississippi Blues Trail. It would be worth allowing extra time to go see the B.B. King museum and the many other blues attractions in the Delta. Download the app and see significant locations on their Map as you drive along.
To also help prepare for the experience, read the quintessential Dispatches From Pluto, by Richard Grant, a New York Times Best Seller about the area.
Memphis is the closest big city located about an hour north of Clarksdale. It is home to the Blues Foundation, the Blues Museum, iconic Beale Street, Graceland and the Civil Right Museum. Memphis is rich in musical heritage and history and is also worth making the extra time to visit.
By Karen Pulfer Focht ©2022
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