During my last trip to Tunica, I got the chance to swing by the Tunica Visitors Center to talk with Webster Franklin, President & CEO of the Tunica Convention & Visitors Bureau.  They have a great project going on around the Blues that is going to make visiting Tunica an even better experience. In fact, it’s interesting enough I thought I’d do a few posts on this.

But before I jump to what they are doing, I’ll give some background. If you don’t have much experience with the Blues, you likely do have some experience with Rock & Roll which drew many of its ideas from Blues music. It was essentially created in this area of the country, especially along the Mississippi river.

The Blues got started around 1900 and evolved over the decades that followed. If you want to know more, here is a short (20 minutes)  documentary on YouTube:

The Blues: American History in the Present Day

What is great about Tunica is that it sits right in the middle of the places influenced by blues music. It is also at the very beginning of the Mississippi Blues Trail.

The video below is on the Mississippi Delta region and starts at Tunica (it’s a few years old and Tunica regulars will notice a few casino name changes but is still good information)  after covering Tunica, they talk about highway 61 which is also called the “Blues Highway”

Providing some background took up most of my post and I haven’t yet got to the project happening in Tuncia. Now you see why I wanted to make this a multi post topic :-)   I’ll hit the  Tunica project in a coming post so stay tuned…