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Beale Street
George W. Lee, one of the first African-American Army officers in World War I, describes the street in his 1934 book "Beale Street - Where the Blues Began" as "where the blues began. Rising out of the Mississippi River, it runs for a mile straight through the busy heart of Memphis....". Blues music and the mystic of Beale Street are both closely tied to the Mississippi Delta. The Mississippi Delta is an area between the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers stretching roughly from Memphis to Vicksburg and contains some of the most fertile soil in the world. The Delta region's plantations began as lumbering operations but soon converted to farming as soon as the forests were cleared. The Plantation's massive cotton operations required huge work forces and subsequently drew thousands of African Americans workers to the region. It was the work songs of these plantation laborers that gave birth to the blues. During his travels through the Delta, a musician named W. C. Handy heard one of these work songs being played by a young man in Tutwiler, Mississippi. Handy was so impressed by the rawness of this music that he soon began writing his own blues songs. By the time that W. C. Handy wrote the "Memphis Blues" in 1912, the population of Memphis was half African-American. Most of these citizens had found their way up US Highway 61 in search of jobs and opportunity not afforded them in the rural Mississippi Delta. At the turn of the century, the street served as the center of life for the African-American community. Beale Street served both as a commercial hub during the day and a bustling entertainment center at night.
Jeff Droke - 2007
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By
the
dawn
of
the
roaring
twenties,
Beale
Street
was
an
intoxicating
mixture
of
bars,
brothels
and
gambling
dens.
The
pleasures
of
Beale
Street
stood
in
stark
contrast
to
the
conditions
most
had
left
on
the
plantations
and
sharecropper
farms
of
the
South. Many
of
the
blues
musicians
who
plied
there
trade
in
the
Mississippi
Delta
soon
found
themselves
playing
to
packed
and
appreciative audiences
on
Beale
Street.
The
Mississippi
Delta,
running
from
Vicksburg
to
Memphis,
produced
such
legends
as
Son
House
(Right)
from
Riverton,
John
Lee
Hooker
and
Ike
Turner
(Clarksdale),
Mississippi
John
Hurt
(Teoc),
Muddy
Waters
(Rolling
Fork),
Willie
Dixon
(Vicksburg)
,
Elmore
James
(Richland)
and
BB
King
(Indianola).
The
suffering
endured
by
these
men
help
spawn
a
creativity
that
still
drives
contemporary
music
today.
The
legendary
B. B.
King
once
said
"I
didn't
think
of
Memphis
as
Memphis,
I
thought
of
Beale
Street
as
Memphis".
Beale
Street
also
provided
a
young
Elvis
Presley
a
taste
of
the
blues
with
his
frequent
visits
to
the
street
in
the
fifties.
The
music
absorbed
by
Presley
on
Beale
Street
during
this
time
period helped
pave
way
for
his
groundbreaking
recordings
at
Sun
Studios
and
the
subsequent
birth
of
"Rock
n
Roll".
However,
the
misguided
polices
of
urban
development
coupled
with
the
1968
assassination
of
Dr.
Martin
Luther
King,
soon
put
an
end
to
Beale
Street's
economic
and
entertainment
viability.
In
the
seventies,
Beale
Street
was
mostly
populated
by
pawn
shops,
discount
stores
and
boarded-up
storefronts.
The
majority
of
the
residences
in
the
vicinity
of
Beale
Street
were
demolished
and
the
surrounding
community
ceased
to
exist.
In
just
a few
years,
the
"Main
Street
of
Black
America"
had
turned
into
a
ghost
town.
The
Historic
Daisy
Executive
Director
Randle
Catron
(shown
at
left
with
Rev.
Martin
Luther
King
during
the
1968
Memphis
Sanitation
Workers
Strike)
and
the
Beale
Street
Developmental
Corporation
started
the
process
of
Beale
Street
revitalization
in
the
seventies.
The
revitalization
process
Happy Motoring !!