Moorhead and the Blues Bluejeans' Place

As he sat in the train depot in Tutweiler, Mississippi, W.C. Handy heard the strangest music he had ever encountered...a man playing a guitar and scraping the strings with a knife's flat blade while singing,

"I know the Yellow Dog District like a book,
Indeed I know the route that rider took
Every cross-tie, Bayou, burg and bog.
Way down where the Southern cross' the Dog.."

W.C. Handy didn't know what to make of the song except it was different and had his attention. That music, under Handy's tutelage, became what we now call "blues music". But where was this place "Where the Southern cross' the Dog"?

That's an easy answer--if you're a railroader or a bluesman: Moorhead, MS where the Illinois Central (then called the Southern") intersected with the Yazoo/Delta Railroad, commonly called the "Yellow Dawg", which is now part of the Columbus and Greenville Railroad.

where the southern crosses the dawg moorhead ms-2.png

Here I am standing at that junction in 1999 (there wasn't a train for miles which broke this trainlover's heart, too, as I was hoping to get a picture of a train crossing this landmark).

If you looked behind me, you'll see one of the reasons why I'm documenting various things in blues history--they're disappearing in front of our own eyes!

where the southern crosses the dawg is disappearing moorhead2.png

Take a look at this picture--the railroad tracks of the "Southern" have been partially removed, but you can still see the train station in the distance.

I hope the town fathers here have enough sense to preserve this bit of musical heritage before it's too late!

How about another funny story? The whole time I was in Moorhead, a deserted place if I ever saw one, I was trailed by a cop car. The cop must've left his house in such a hurry to follow me that he didn't have time to put his uniform on--he was driving his official police vehicle while wearing a spaghetti string t-shirt (and he was in his 60's, so it wasn't a young kid, either! ).

If you want to see more information on this site in blues history, check out these sites:

Yellow Dog Blues (actual words to the song W.C. Handy heard) and here's an instrumental of it at this link .

And some more background on the "Where did you sleep last night" page.