I highly recommend this book for anybody considering a Blues trip into the Delta. It is the best available resource on the market. Looking at its competitors, they all miss the mark due to either outdated, incomplete, or just plain incorrect information.I have just completed a Delta blues trip and read the book after I returned. Having actually done such a trip provides a very authoritative vantage point from which to judge any such work.
Our trip was preceded by 6 months of online research into every aspect of the Delta and surrounding areas. Over 100 pages of information were accumulated prior to departure. The trip itself covered nearly a 1400 mile loop by car that began and ended in New Orleans. So many of the stops we made along the way ~ Jackson, Ms.; Greenwood, Ms.; Clarksdale, Ms.; Helena, Ark.; Memphis, Tenn.; all the historic gravesites; the prisons and the plantations were all covered in Steve's book. He certainly did his homework. (For goodness sake, he moved there as part of the overall immersion process, LOL!)
We met Steve in Helena while he was lecturing and playing at the `Blues on Main Street' exhibit opening at the Delta Cultural Center on Cherry St. He is proficient at both. It was there we bought the book that got carried home and subsequently read after the fact.
If you don't have 6 months to do your own research, just buy his book and read it in a week. He covers everything. Then take it with you and use it as a guide on the road.
(p.s. Plan your trip so it somehow involves the WC Handy awards in Memphis in late April, as well as the Beale Street Music Festival that follows that weekend).
