Charlie Worsham sits down with ESPN’s Wright Thompson at the Lyceum on the University of Mississippi campus for a wide-ranging conversation about why Mississippi history, music, literature, and more. They trace lines from Delta juke joints to Chicago clubs, from cotton pickers to electric guitars, and from Emmett Till to James Meredith. The two swap stories about Dockery Farms, Doe’s Eat Place, and the last true jukes. It’s a heartfelt, unsparing, and hopeful tour of Mississippi from the sharecropping era into the present day.
Mississippi places mentioned: Univesity of Mississippi Lyceum (Oxford), Clarksdale, Bolivar County, Shelby, Bentonia, Blue Front Café (Bentonia), Grenada, Dockery Farms (near Cleveland), Vicksburg, Drew, Marigold, Tutwiler, Ruleville, Indianola, Hopson Plantation (Clarksdale), Delta Blues Museum (Clarksdale), Greenville, Doe’s Eat Place (Greenville), Bellazar’s (Boyle), Crawdad’s (Cleveland), Lillo’s (Leland), Raymond’s (Clarksdale), Airport Grocery (Cleveland), Fratesi’s (Leland), Po’ Monkey’s Lounge (Merigold), Red’s Lounge (Clarksdale), Club Ebony (Indianola), Harlem Inn (Leland), Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (Jackson), Yazoo City.
People mentioned: Willie Morris, David Ray Morris, Wesley Jefferson, Big Jack Johnson, Muddy Waters, Jimmie Rodgers, Ken Burns, the Carter Family, Taylor Swift, John Marascalco, Little Richard, Magic Sam, Magic Slim, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Super Chikan, Charlie Patton, Willie Brown, Pop Staples, Robert Johnson, Son House, Buddy Guy, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Henry Sloan, Howlin’ Wolf, Mavis Staples, Emmett Till, Fowler McCormick, Pinetop Perkins, Alan Lomax, Chess brothers, Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter, Bob Margolin, Michael Houser, Eudora Welty, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Robert Earl Keen, Jimmy Buffett, Hayley Williams, Bo Diddley, Public Enemy, Eric Clapton, Will Dockery, Sam Cooke, Dr. Dre, Nate Dogg, Eazy-E, J. W. Milam, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Manson, Thomas Merton, Ross Barnett, William Winter, Ray Mabus, Haley Barbour, Tate Reeves, Bruce Springsteen, James Meredith, Buck Randall, Jim Weatherly, Gladys Knight, Myrlie Evers, Medgar Evers, Archie Manning, Steve Vaught, Donna Tartt, John Grisham, Jerry Garcia, Kiese Laymon, Jesmyn Ward, and Natasha Trethewey.
