This Week's Featured Marker:

Alligator

On November 29, 2012, a Mississippi Blues Trail marker was dedicated in tiny Alligator, a one-time home of Robert Johnson that’s located about thirteen miles southwest of Clarksdale near the northern border of Bolivar County. The marker attests to the great wealth of talent in even the smallest settlements in the Delta, and the induction ceremony was particularly special in that included several of the artists featured on the marker.

Robert “Bilbo” Walker lives in Clarkdale when he’s not in his second home of Bakersfield, California, and is famous locally for his frequent crisscrossing of the country in vehicles including a limousine and a motor home with painitngs of himself and the late drummer Sam Carr. Johnny Drummer (aka Thessex Johns) travelled down from his longtime home of Chicago, where for many years he appeared regularly at the South Side lounge Lee’s Unleaded; unfortunately the club recently closed its doors. Watch Drummer perform at the club.

After the ceremony Walker and Drummer performed a brief set in a local venue, and on the Saturday following the dedication Drummer joined Walker during his gig at the juke joint Red’s Lounge in Clarksdale, where Walker’s a regular performer. Red’s and owner Red Paden were recently featured in the documentary “We Juke Up in Here!”

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