At The Crossroads

It is not often that one has the opportunity to get a personal tour of history by someone who was there. I had that rare opportunity as a result of attending my very good friend, Bucky Barrett’s, mom’s funeral. I spent all of about 35 hours in Canton, Mississippi and was privileged to see where the American Blues story began at Eric Clapton’s famous “CROSSROADS”. The fable is that blues musicians would come down to this part of the country to sell their soul to the devil so they could play the blues. We started where it all started for Bucky at an intersection where he was in a motorcycle accident and nearly lost his foot. It put him immobile in bed for months where he picked up a guitar and practiced for days and months on end. We stopped at a gas station where Bucky had his first job cleaning chicken trucks and worked with 2 old black gentlemen named Bo Peep and Git Loose (pronounced, Git Loo). He said they called him “Mr. Bucky” even though he was a kid. We moved further down the road and saw where BB King first got started in an all black club named, The Rainbow Club. Bucky use to climb on top of an old soda box and look in the back window and listen to the band and watch the guitar player. They finally brought him in, the only white person in the club, and he sat and watched the magic of these early blues players. Down the road a piece is where Elmore James got started. Now it looks like an old run down shack but in its day it helped give birth to an entire genre of music that would influence generations to come and itself would spin off rock n’ roll. As we were driving Bucky turned to me and said, “On any given weekend, you would have BB King playing at one club and down the road you’d have Albert King playing at the Moonlight Inn and in the south end of town Bobby Blue Bland would be playing at The New Club Desire“. Outside of one of these old, run down, shacks is a permanent city monument commemorating the famous blues players that came out of Canton and reading all of these great players I smiled because there on the list is my good friend Bucky Barrett.
We were in Canton to celebrate the life of Alice Barrett, Bucky’s mom, and sprinkled through this tour Bucky would tell me stories of how his mom supported him and encouraged him to play the guitar. The most telling story for me was hearing that Bucky said his mom brought him up not to see black or white. He said, despite living in the segregated south, he didn’t feel the prejudice growing up that most did in the early 50’s. He was a guitar player. The clubs were on the “other side of the tracks” and all of those great blues players didn’t see him as a “white kid”. Bucky said it best, “we were all guitar players and that was it”.
I had the pleasure of meeting Alice Barrett one time and what a time it was. Even in her passing she gave me the gift of this visit and walk through an important piece of original American music. It was a trip I will never forget. Thank you Bucky and Alice!