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Tutweiler,
Mississippi is where W. C. Handy said he first heard the sounds we
now call the blues. "The Father of the Blues" as he was know,
W.C. Handy claimed his first exposure to the blues as we know them
was in the Tutweiler railroad station in 1903.
That site in
Tutweiler, which I visited on my "blues history trip, is now an
national historical landmark. Interestingly enough, the song
Handy claims to have heard was "Where the Southern Crosses the Dawg"
in Moorhead, MS. A picture of that location appears elsewhere
on Bluejeans' Place.
This town, like
many other hometowns of famous bluesmen and women, suffers from
abject poverty, but has an overabundance of pride. Some years
ago, Tutweiler created a panel of blues murals on the side of their
businesses.
 This first one appears on a door on
the back of a grocery store.
The next picture
shows the Tutweiler railroad station to the left, the historical
W.C. Handy and unknown bluesman scene in the center and a Delta
cotton field cropduster on the right.
The final mural
showcases the life of Sonny Boy Williamson II, the master of
the blues harmonica, who rests in peace in an abandoned graveyard on
the outskirts of Tutweiler.
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Just as an aside,
if you're looking for a quilt, potholders, oven mitts, wall hangings
or table runners, why not get something really different at a good
price? The Tutweiler Community Education Center, run by some
Catholic sisters, offers a wide array of these products made by
African-American women from the Tutweiler area. Their phone
number is 601-345-8393. Visit these web sites for more details:
And in you're in
town, stop in and say hi to the Sisters--they loved it when I
did! (They have great postcards for sale, too!)
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