Tripod Home | New | TriTeca | Work/Money | Politics/Community | Living/Travel | Planet T | Daily ScoopLIVING & TRAVEL
Dawn Massey
interviewed by Anthony Qaiyum on November 28, 1995
"Just about any night of the week, you can hear just great live blues and pay a dollar cover charge."
Dawn Massey, of the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission, discusses the America's Music Corridor tour; a vacation which delivers the history and the experience of American roots music, such as blues, jazz, and rock.
Tripod: What types of music will you hear on the tour of America's Music Corridor?
DM: You pretty much hear everything, from blues to ragtime to rock-and-roll and jazz. We even throw in a little alternative -- some alternative suggestions in each city as well.
Tripod: This is a self-guided drive?
DM: Yeah. There are a couple of companies throughout the U.S. that do motor coach tours, but we pretty much encourage people to do it as a fly-and-drive. Fly into Saint Louis, rent a car, drive down to Memphis, drive down to New Orleans, and then turn in your rental car and fly out of New Orleans.
Tripod: Are there other cities and towns covered in the tour besides those three?
DM: It's Saint Louis and New Orleans. It's a cooperative agreement between the tourist commissions in those two cities, and then we include the Mississippi Delta, and that includes, of course, Memphis. So it's technically a three city tour.
Tripod: How long does the tour take?
DM: We primarily have done press trips and whatnot for people, and it's usually an eight day, seven night kind of thing. And that's a comfortable drive, because Saint Louis is only about four and a half hours from Memphis, and New Orleans is only about five and a half to six hours from Memphis. It's a half day drive. Plus you get to see all the area in between the cities where most of these musicians grew up. In the Mississippi Delta, for example, you see Clarksdale, Mississippi, which is still considered Mecca for a lot of the traditional blues artists.
Tripod: Are there enough points of interest to focus on one specific genre of music, if you happen to have a favorite?
DM: If you wanted to just do blues, I think you could do that easiest, because Saint Louis and Memphis of course are so well known for blues, and then New Orleans was a hotbed for rhythm and blues, which later turned into rock-and-roll, in the fifties and sixties. Fats Domino, Little Richard, and all those guys started out in New Orleans doing rhythm and blues. And then somebody -- well, you will hear some people say, the white guy -- took it and turned it into rock-and-roll.
Tripod: Can you tell me some of the specific activities suggested along the route?
DM: Well, in Saint Louis we have a great exhibit, which is really the best way to get yourself acclimated. It's called "From Ragtime to Rock-and-Roll, Saint Louis African-American Music," which is at the Missouri Historical Society's museum in Saint Louis. And it traces everything from Tina Turner to Chuck Berry to Scott Joplin and pretty much touches on every area of music that you're going to see on the corridor. And then there's a fun place called Blueberry Hill, which is a restaurant and bar, but it's filled with memorabilia from Chuck Berry and Elvis, and it's sort of the pop culture side of what rock-and-roll was. There's a great collection of Beatles memorabilia. And then there's a great collection of Howdy Doody. So it's a little bit of everything.
And outside of Blueberry Hill is the Saint Louis Walk of Fame, which honors Saint Louisans, people who were either born in Saint Louis or spent their formative years here, and ended up going on to be superstars in some area or another. Everything from Chuck Berry to Tina Turner, Josephine Baker, Scott Joplin, you name it, they're on there, along with people like Tennessee Williams and Masters and Johnson. It's amazing the number of people, and the broad spectrum, that the Walk of Fame represents. And the best thing about Saint Louis is the live music. We have more working blues musicians in Saint Louis than any other city in the country.
Tripod: Wow. Even Chicago?
DM: According to our Blues Society, yes. Because we have like fifty working blues bands. Just about any night of the week you can go into the Souillard neighborhood, which is sort of the oldest neighborhood in Saint Louis, and hear just great live blues and pay like a dollar cover. And then LeCleat's Landing is another place that's got a lot of live music. So the best thing about it is there are a few historical points in Saint Louis, like the Scott Joplin House, where you can go and find out about the history, but then you can go to these clubs and see the music happening, right before your very eyes.
Then, well, if you want to do Memphis of course, it's Graceland, Elvis's mansion, Sun Studio, B.B. King's down on Beale Street. Lot of live music down there. Center for Southern Folklore is a good museum to get yourself familiar with the legend of Beale Street. And there are a couple of good blues museums, the Beale Street Blues Museum, and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
Tripod: What is it about the Mississippi River region that has made it such a culturally rich area?
DM: I think that it's just that that was the route so many musicians and others took. They traveled by boat. A lot of the Delta Blues musicians went north, and they traveled along the Mississippi River. I don't why this 700 mile region of the country pretty much gave birth to the world's music. But I think it's just because of the close proximity of the cities, and you had different musicians playing together, and then each one sort of taking something from the other, and then moving on, downriver, and introducing that sound to the next group of musicians they played with. So I think the ruralness of the area is probably [a factor, too]. There was no other entertainment, so these musicians made their own, entertained all the people in their town before they moved on to the next town, which could have been twenty miles away. So the music grew because of that, because of the highly transient nature of the people that lived in the area.
Tripod: How much does the tour cost, on average?
DM: It would really all depend. I mean, if you want to do a blue jeans and T-shirt tour, you can get out, I would say, very reasonably. I haven't really put a dollar figure on it, but renting the car and the airfare, obviously, will be the main chunk. But you can get hotel rooms in all three cities very reasonably.
Tripod: A lot of our readers are young people. Would you say this is something people just out of college could easily do?
DM: Oh yeah. Because a lot of times when you get older, you get a little too picky about where you will and won't sleep, but as long as you're willing to go for the experience, as opposed to going for the luxury hotels, I think you'll be fine. Like I said, in Saint Louis, and in New Orleans, you can hear great music for a relatively low price. Depending on where you go in Memphis, the same is true. I would think probably the highest ticket you're going to have is when you to Graceland and you pay seventeen or eighteen dollars to tour Elvis's house.
Tripod: And then, again, the nice thing is you don't have to do any specific activity, right?
DM: Right. That's the best thing about being self-guided is you can take it in pretty much whatever direction you want to go. If you have absolutely no interest in ragtime, then don't go to the Scott Joplin House. Or if you have no interest in jazz, then don't go to the jazz museum in New Orleans. Just go and soak up all of the other types of music that fused together to come up with that New Orleans sound.
Tripod: Is there one season that's better than others?
DM: I would say fall or spring, just because it gets very hot in Memphis and New Orleans in the summer. Although it's going to be cheaper to go to New Orleans in the summer, because that's their off season. So if you want to go, and you don't mind sweating, that would be the way to go, cause hotel rooms are plentiful and relatively inexpensive. But the weather's usually the best in all three of the cities, spring and fall.
Tripod: But it's a tour you can do year round?
DM: Oh, yeah.
Tripod: If you had to pick one sight or activity along the route which is a must see, what would it be?
DM: Let's see. I couldn't pick just one. I could pick probably one in each city. I'd say Saint Louis, make sure you go to Blueberry Hill, just because it's a fun, casual place and you can really learn a lot about rock-and-roll while you're in there. And Memphis, I'd say Sun Studio, just because it's probably overlooked, as being such an important part of American music. It's more than just Elvis recorded there. There's a lot of other great musicians. And then in New Orleans, there're a thousand bars to go, but I would say, just go wander around Jackson Square, and see the street musicians, and the people that aren't looking for a record contract, they're just looking to play, do something that they love and hopefully make a little rent money on the side.
Get free itineraries, guidebooks, and everything else you need to make the tour, by calling:
(800) 916-0038
Map | Search | Help | Send Us Comments
