“The Mississippi River Delta is flat country. Not a hill in sight.It is often way too cold or way too hot. But there is a subtlebeauty to it. Large plantation owners used to rule this deltacountry and I imagine what it may have been like 100 yearsago. I can almost smell the history as a thunderstorm rollsloud and black across the flats, creating waves in the wheatfields resembling a green tumultuous sea.

“From these former cotton fields came a new art form. Out ofcommerce, out of slavery, out of greed, out of necessity, outof Africa, came the BLUES. Yes, the music: blues, jazz, rockn’ roll, and rap came from these cotton fields. Out of thesecotton fields and out of these little one-room churches camethe voice of an enslaved people. The voice of the men andwomen that toiled in these fields is the blues, and it is still avoice heard around the world.”

—David Alan Harvey

Blues, Booze, & BBQ , the first book by Michael Loyd Young,documents the 150 miles of Highway 61, the famed blacktoproad snaking from Memphis, Tennessee down to Greenville,Mississippi. At the halfway point, in the heart of the MississippiDelta, sits Clarksdale, the city considered the birthplace of theblues and the location of Robert Johnson’s famed “Cross RoadBlues” intersection of Highway 61 and Highway 49.

The Delta has been home to blues legends such as CharleyPatton, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf,Ike Turner, Cadillac John Nolden, B.B. King, T-Model Ford,Mississippi Slim, Big Jack Johnson, and Willie King, amongcountless others whose music has become the glue thatholds these communities together as they struggle tosurvive. Young’s photographs, taken at juke joints, in privatehomes, or while just hanging out, illustrate the bond bluescreates between the Delta and its people. It is through thismusic that the people pass on their heritage and culture tofuture generations.

Author proceeds will be donated to the Delta Blues Museum.