USA Roots of Music

Day 1 - Departure - arrival New Orleans
After you checked in at our hotel and If you still manage, we will welcome you to join us to catch some music in the French Quarter, where we also spend the night.

Day 2 - New Orleans - Stay
We spend one day in New Orleans to help us recover from the long flight and get used to the time difference. When it comes to music, there’s a lot going on here. Today, amongst other things, we visit Congo Square. In times of slavery this square was the only place in the whole of America where black people were allowed to make their music, and dance. Down a side street is Cosimo’s Matassa, the small studio where in 1948 the first Rock ‘n Roll vinyl was recorded, ‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’ by Roy Brown. New Orleans was once a French settlement, and to this day you can still recognise a variety of French influences in many places throughout the city. New Orleans is a melting pot par excellence. Nowhere else in days gone by would you find such a mingling of French people, Spanish, slaves, British, and native Indians. The presence of that melting pot is still tangibly present in the music as well as in the food. The Big Easy is the birthplace of almost all American music. The music scene here comes to life at night, and every night there’s a choice of dozens of live performances to go to.

Day 3 - New Orleans - La Fayette
In the morning we pick up our bikes and ride across the impressive Mississippi River bridges, leaving the city behind us. This is the beginning of our 3000km long round trip through the Deep South, travelling clock-wise. Before long we enter a wetland area; here are the swamps and bayous that are the subjects of hundreds of songs. One of the best known ones is ‘Nous allons a Lafayette’ and that is exactly what we do. This is the area where French descendants - the Cajuns - settled down after they were driven from Canada by the British. They work hard at preserving their old music and food culture, and their way of life. We eat at Randol’s whilst listening to Cajun and Zydeco music. We stay overnight in a splendid old style French guesthouse.

Day 4 - La Fayette - Natchez
In the morning a boat trip takes us through the swamps near Lafayette. With a guided tour we sail across picturesque Lake Martin where we see alligators and all kinds of waterfowl whilst a local guide tells us more about the area and its history. Afterwards we take our bikes on a route right through the bayous and across the magnificent bridges over the Mississippi River. In Ferriday, not far from Natchez, we visit the house where Jerry Lee Lewis grew up. His sister still lives there and the living room has been transformed into a proper museum. Natchez is nice little village which is deserted during the week, but comes to life at the weekend when there’s lots of live music to enjoy. Here we visit the location where in the past one of the country's largest slave markets took place. We spend the night, again in style, in a baroque style hotel.

Day 5 - Natchez - Shreveport
We ride westward toward Shreveport. Late afternoon the Auditorium opens its doors especially for us. This is the place where Elvis made his debut radio performance on the famous show ‘The Louisiana Hayride’. We stand on the very same stage Elvis stood then. The Art Deco building is also home to a museum of this legendary show. Here big names such as Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Hank Williams also took their first steps on the path to everlasting fame. For the vinyl fanatics among us: eat your hearts out in Stan’s Record Shop.

Day 6 - Shreveport - Cleveland
A few kilometers outside Cleveland we find Po Monkeys. It is one of the very few remaining Juke joints in America; a dilapidated barn surrounded by cotton fields. Here every Thursday night black workers from the neighbourhood raise the roof when  they come to dance and listen to the music. We’re not far from the crossroads where blues legend Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at midnight in order to play better guitar. At midnight we ride to this (the only genuine) dirt road intersection and listen to the master who came to be an inspiration for artists such as Keith Richards and Eric Clapton.

Day 7 - Cleveland - Greenwood
After we have recovered from the wild night before, our first stop is Greenwood to visit the grave of Robert Johnson, after which we step inside WABG, a unique medium wave radio station that broadcasts under the motto ‘Blues, News, and Interviews. We go to Dockery, the plantation where both Son House and Charlie Patton worked and where they taught Robert Johnson to play the guitar. From there it’s a short trip to ‘Parchman Farm’, nickname for the Mississippi State Penitentiary. This is the infamous prison where, in the 30s, folklorist Alan Lomax recorded numbers with amongst others Bukka White, Son House and Leadbelly. We have been given permission to visit this heavily guarded prison. Elvis’ father was also incarcerated here in Parchman, and was an inmate for a while. We spend the night in original shacks, in the middle of cotton fields.

Day 8 - Greenwood - Clarksdale
Clarksdale is the beating heart of the blues. In Reds you can hear authentic blues every night of the week, and Ground Zero is film star Morgan Freedman’s big blues club.  We also visit the Delta Blues museum and some great shops such as The Cathead which is full of books, DVDs, posters etc. We sleep at the Riverside Hotel, traditionally a black musicians’ hotel, run by the colourful Radcliff family.

Day 9 - Clarksdale - Memphis, and Day 10 - Memphis - Stay
We go north along Route 61, a famous Blues route. Early on we arrive at the Boulevard Church for a gospel service experience. Next come 2 full days with a visit to Elvis’ mansion Graceland, the Sun studio, the Rock and Soul museum, Stax with black music from Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding and The Staple Singers, and the Lorraine Hotel where Martin Luther King was shot dead, now the location of the Civil Rights museum. We experience the live music of Beale Street, or if not, that of Wild Bill’s Juke Joint.

Day 11 - Memphis - Muscle Shoals
Halfway through this part of the tour we stop off at Tupelo where we pay a visit to the house Elvis was born. Then on to Muscle Shoals, riding along the historic Natchez Trace Parkway, an old Indian trail. The following morning we get a guided tour round the Fame Studio. Black artists such as Sam & Dave, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding made recordings here, followed by The Stones, Paul Simon, Rod Stewart and many more. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Southern Rock numbers  ‘Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers’, and ‘They’ve been known to pick a song or two’, as well as The Allman Brothers band come from here. Nearby Florence is the birthplace of the ‘Father of the blues’ W.C. Handy.

Day 12 - Muscle Shoals - Montgomery
We give America’s ugliest city, Birmingham, a wide berth. We take a route south over hilly roads and end the day in Montgomery. The city is an ode to Country legend Hank Williams. In the eponymous museum we see among other things the Cadillac where he breathed his last breath on the back seat.

Day 13 - Montgomery - Mobile
We begin the day with a visit to the mausoleum of Hank Williams, then we take our bikes onto some smaller roads through the State of Alabama for the day. We have a coffee in Monroeville after a magnificent trip via Greenville and Old Texas. From there we follow the Alabama River to its mouth where it flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The photo exhibition ‘Elvis at 21’ in Mobile is well worth a visit, so is the Mardi Grass museum.

Day 14 - Mobile - New Orleans
Today we ride one of the most fantastic routes of this tour: Highway 90 west takes us on a fabulous stretch back to Orleans. For a long time we follow a beach road flanked on one side by the sea, and the other by stately homes and pretty towns. Turning more inland we are presented with wonderful natural scenery. We cross several impressive bridges, hardly meeting any traffic the whole time. The 90 brings us almost to the door of the motorcycle rental on Canal Street. What a ride!!  We return our bikes and take a last deep dive into the nightlife of music city number 1: New Orleans.

Day 15 - New Orleans - Departure