Clarksdale, Mississippi: where to hear the blues and where to stay

Clarksdale is a Delta town of about 15,000 people, some 75 miles south of Memphis on Highway 61, and the one place in Mississippi where you can hear live blues most nights of the week. It has the Delta Blues Museum, the crossroads everyone photographs, a handful of juke joints and more Blues Trail markers than any other town.

The juke joints

Red's Lounge on Sunflower Avenue is the real thing: a low room lit red, run for decades by Red Paden, with a band in the corner and a cooler of beer. Bring cash. Music is mostly on weekends, and the start time is when the band arrives.

Ground Zero Blues Club, co-owned by the actor Morgan Freeman, is the big one, in a brick building beside the Delta Blues Museum. It has a full kitchen, a proper stage and walls covered in visitors' writing. Purists prefer Red's. Go to both.

The best nights are Thursday to Saturday. On a Monday you may find nothing open at all, so plan your Clarksdale night around the weekend.

The Delta Blues Museum and the crossroads

The Delta Blues Museum fills the old brick freight depot downtown, where the trains once left for Chicago. Its best room holds the cabin Muddy Waters lived in at Stovall Farms, moved here log by log. Give it an hour and a half.

The crossroads sign, three blue guitars where Highways 61 and 49 meet, is a busy intersection with a gas station on the corner. The legend of Robert Johnson selling his soul there has no fixed spot, and several Delta towns claim it. Take the photo, then go and hear some music.

Where to stay

The Shack Up Inn, on the old Hopson plantation just south of town, rents converted sharecropper shacks and rooms in the cotton gin. The rooms are rustic, and that is the point. Downtown there are a few small hotels and loft rooms above the clubs, so you can walk home after the last set. For April, book months ahead.

When to go

April brings the Juke Joint Festival, one weekend with music on dozens of stages and porches across town. The Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival fills a weekend in August, when the heat is serious. October is quieter, with the cotton being picked and the evenings cool enough to sit outside.

From Memphis

The drive down Highway 61 takes about an hour and a half. You can see the museum and the crossroads in a day, but the music happens at night, so stay over if you can. Our Clarksdale day trip from Memphis covers the daytime sights, and the Mississippi Blues Trail tour spends two nights in the juke joints. For the markers worth stopping at on the way, read our ten Blues Trail picks.

Clarksdale questions

How far is Clarksdale from Memphis?

About 75 miles, roughly an hour and a half by Highway 61.

Which nights have live blues in Clarksdale?

Thursday to Saturday is the safest bet. Early in the week many clubs are closed.

Is the Clarksdale crossroads the real one from the Robert Johnson story?

The legend names no exact place. The sign at Highways 61 and 49 is Clarksdale's claim, and the one most visitors come to see.

When is the Juke Joint Festival?

Every April, on one weekend. Our Blues Trail tour has a date timed to it.