BLUES MUSEUM and News of the Day

Our cruise continues.  Today, one of our tours.  It can be confusing, because there are various kinds of blues museums.  

• Go across the country, and the majority of Blues museums is in the Mississippi Delta.
• There was the Blues Hall of Fame Museum in Memphis.
• The Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
• B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola, Mississippi.
• Plack Prairie Blue Museum, West Point, Mississippi.
• Ole Miss Blues Archive, Oxford, Mississippi.
• Knee Deep Blues Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.
• National Blues Museum, St. Louis, Missouri....but this one permanently closed just this month.

One more, and maybe the best, is the Gateway to the Blues Museum in Tunica County, Mississippi.

• Located in a rustic train depot going back to 1895.
• Tells how the Blues was born, and role Tunica played.
• Some photos.

Lots of guitars.

Starts with videos.  There are two steel guitars you can try to play.  The exhibition links life in the age of slavery and the music of the times.  Again, lots of guitars and other instruments, like harmonicas.

Of course you can read the above photo, but here is Google AI's version of the Blues:

The blues is a foundational music genre and musical form that originated in the Deep South of the United States—particularly the Mississippi Delta—around the 1860s to early 1900s. It was created by African Americans, rooting itself in work songs, field hollers, spirituals, and chants.

When you're on an ocean cruise, you see seawater, waves and nothing much else.  Departures and arrivals can be festive,  European river cruises have a certain charm.  Castles, folksy towns, forested mountains and such.  A Mississippi River cruise has, well, muddy water and shorelines of nothing much to see.  Scraggly trees, river banks with rocks, minor industry, etc.  No alligators, deers, colorful towns....nothing much.  These two photos from our veranda of a docked Melody represent 99% of the view.

There will be maybe a dozen major highway and railway bridge crossings under which we will flow by, but we'll probably miss many of them because they suddenly come and go without warning.  But we do have lectures (and one of my future postings will combine many of them into the Mighty Mississippi).

But we do have these presentations, some entertainment, tours from the boat and fine cuisine.  Some photos of the past couple of days.  Why I don't know, but cocktails with appetizers are served from 5:30PM, and dinner on a different deck also starts at the same time.  Maybe they want to spread out the crowd.

One night we had dinner with Kathy and Vicki, sisters from Oregon.  They were wearing Beaver and Duck shirts, as this was alma mater night.

Dinner featured pork chops.

Yesterday, salad and spaghetti bolognese for lunch, with a beer and Pinot Grigio.

We then arrived in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Today, I'll finally move into the news of the day.

• President Donald Trump addressed the nation yesterday.
• The reaction depended on your party affiliation.
• Here is his entire speech for you to make your own conclusions.
• However, the stock market initially tumbled today, while oil prices shot up.
• The Dow Jones seems to be crawling back up after an initial drop of around 300 pints.
• West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped up 11% to $111/barrel, while Brent crude futures advanced 7% to $108/bbl.
• 
  NASA's Artemis 2 mission launched yesterday, and will take astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen (from Canada) on a 10-day voyage around the Moon and back.

• 
  This was the first crewed flyby mission around the Moon in more than half a century.
• Remember Apollo?  The computer on the Orion spacecraft processes data 20,000 times faster.

• 
  Everything you need to known about Artemis II, or 2.
• Artemis One occurred in 2022.
• Artemis III will be a crewed mission to land on the Moon's South Pole.  Maybe next year, or 2028.
• The goal of Artemis is landing on Mars.  When?  In the 2030's, with 2035 a possible early date.

To end, I asked Google AI to give me the three most influential blues songs of all time.

• "Cross Road Blues" - Robert Johnson (1936): A foundational Delta blues song, it established the enduring myth of the bluesman selling his soul to the devil at a crossroads. Its haunting lyrics and intricate guitar work have been covered and reinterpreted by countless artists.
• 
  "(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man" - Muddy Waters (1954):  Written by Willie Dixon, this track epitomizes Chicago electric blues. Its stop-time riff and swaggering lyrics directly influenced the sound of countless blues-rock bands.

• 
  "The Thrill Is Gone" - B.B. King (1969): King's signature song took the blues to a wider audience, mixing string arrangements with his signature guitar vibrato to create a modern standard. 

Other monumental songs often cited include "Dust My Broom"(Elmore James), "Smokestack Lightning" (Howlin' Wolf), and "Boom Boom" (John Lee Hooker).

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