Mississippi Blues Trail
Cache Challenge
The Mississippi Blues Trail was established by the Mississippi Bureau of Tourism to recognize the unique connection our state has with a style of music known as the "Mississippi Blues" or simply "the Blues." Many musicians acquired fame, and for some fortune, playing this style of music. The MBT decided to recognize these artists and their beginnings here in Mississippi.
The MBT divided the state into five basic regions where Blues Trail markers are placed.
These markers are in places of historical significance to the blues music heritage. Each marker tells about a specific piece of that history. The vast majority of these markers are in the Delta region in the northwest part of the state.
This challenge involves visiting those historical MS Blues Trail markers scattered out around the state of Mississippi...and even beyond.
Participating cities include : Tupelo,Columbus,Jackson,Holly Springs,Cleveland,Clarksdale,University of Mississippi,Aberdeen,Meridian,Vickburg...
At or near many of these markers there is a geocache hidden. Your quest is to visit these markers and find the geocaches associated with them.
Each Blues Trail Geocache consists of one find towards the final goal of 50 Blues Trail Geocaches in order for challenge completion for final.
Here is a bookmark link to the current blues trail caches -Mississippi Blues Caches
We hope your ventures along the way
to completion of this challenge are both
memorable and rewarding!
In 1940 singer-guitarist Booker “Bukka” White, who lived in Aberdeen during the 1920s and ‘30s, recorded the blues classic “Aberdeen Mississippi Blues.” Twenty-three years later the song’s title enabled blues researchers to relocate White, who subsequently resumed his recording career. According to Social Security records two of the most influential blues artists of all time, Chester Arthur “Howlin’ Wolf” Burnett and Albert King, claimed Aberdeen as their birthplace.
“Aberdeen Mississippi Blues” was one of many powerful and original blues songs recorded by Bukka White (c. 1904-1977) at his historic Chicago session in March 1940. White’s recording career might have ended then had not his music inspired new interest during the folk-blues boom of the 1960s. Relying on White’s recording for a possible address, guitarist and researcher John Fahey sent a postcard to “Bukka White, Old Blues Singer, c/o General Delivery, Aberdeen, Miss.” Remarkably, the card was forwarded to White, who was living in Memphis. He was soon recording again and was hailed as one of the finest performers among the older bluesmen whose careers were revived in the ‘60s. Born near Houston, White spent many of his early years performing and farming in Chickasaw, Monroe, and Tallahatchie counties, rambling in and out of the Aberdeen area, and marrying several local women in the process. After he shot a man at a nearby juke joint he was sentenced to Parchman Penitentiary in 1937. Already a recording artist, White found another opportunity to record when folklorist John Lomax arrived at Parchman in 1939 to collect songs for the Library of Congress. Some of White’s most memorable songs, including “Parchman Farm Blues,” “District Attorney Blues,” and “When Can I Change My Clothes,” were based on his trial and incarceration.
content © Mississippi Blues Commission