Day one of a month in Clarksdale
The last week of the American Diversity Project was full of short nights, and a few solid stories. There was one minor revolution started by Alan Bryant when he took a 50/1.4 to the streets.
Now it is my turn, I’m settled into the center of the tourists at the Riverview Hotel, with Rat, the manager guarding the door and always ready to start a well rehearsed conversation about the blues greats that used to stayed in my room.
For inspiration I brought a few photobooks with me including William Albert Allard‘s “Portraits of America”. As I flipped through it there is a whole section on life in the Delta, including an image shot in Clarksdale. It is “the” blueprint for any essay on the Delta, blues, cotton, row houses, chain gangs. Any essay must be a summery of a far more complex subject but the touchstones have changed so about the only thing I will copy from Allard is his slightly underexposed style.
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