Forty people from 10 states boarded a bus in Jackson. Most of them, if you’d pressed them, probably figured Mississippi would be fine.
Fine.
That’s the word people use about my home state when they don’t know any better, and I’ve spent a good part of my life trying to show them otherwise. There’s something in me that has always wanted to turn people on to things. A new song. A great book. A restaurant. A small town. A story. A place.
As a kid, a song would come on the radio and I’d wear my mother out until she drove me to buy the 45 single. Then I’d spend the next week making sure every friend I had listened to it whether they wanted to or not.
Not much has changed. A good portion of the last twenty-five years of this newspaper column has been devoted to saying the same thing: “You’ve got to try this.” Sometimes it’s been a restaurant. Sometimes it’s been a book. Sometimes it’s been a place in Europe.mAnd the thing I most want to turn people on to is the patch of ground I was born on. Last week, it was Mississippi. Those forty travelers came for five days of food, art, music, and culture.
My job was to make them fall in love with Mississippi.
The first day started at Cathead Distillery before a visit to the Governor’s Mansion. From there we headed to Sacred Ground Barbecue where Chef Derek Emerson and his wife Jennifer opened their doors on their day off, fresh off earning Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition. The restaurant was closed. The hospitality wasn’t. That pattern would repeat itself throughout the week. Doors opened, people showed up, and stories got told.
The next morning, guests enjoyed bagels baked by Marisol Doyle, whose pizza was recently ranked ninth best in the world. Ninth in the world. At the GRAMMY Museum, those bagels became part of a morning built around extraordinary food and one of the country’s finest music museums. That’s a pretty good Mississippi morning.
As we traveled through the Delta, guests met Delta rice farmer Mike Wagner, listened to stories from Stafford Shurden, explored McCarty’s Pottery, and eventually welcomed Muddy Waters’ great-nephew onto the bus.
Somewhere around the time Muddy Waters’ great-nephew started playing blues on the bus while Matt tended bar in the back, it occurred to me that a Yonderlust bus without a bartender is really just a long, sad commute.
Live blues rolled down Highway 61 as cotton fields passed outside the windows. You can’t manufacture experiences like that. You can only stumble into them if you’re lucky enough to be in Mississippi.
That evening brought dinner at Boure in Oxford with Chef Tory McPhail. The next morning we headed to Tupelo to visit Elvis Presley’s birthplace. Jack Curtis, one of the country’s premier Elvis tribute artists, climbed aboard and sang the King’s songs all the way there. By then, folks had learned to just enjoy the ride.
A few hours later we stood at Elvis Presley’s birthplace. Later that day we visited The MAX in Meridian. Every Mississippian ought to see The MAX.
Music followed us everywhere: Eden Brent in Cleveland, Muddy Waters’ great-nephew in the Delta, Bill, Temperance, and Jeff playing Americana string music into Hattiesburg, and Vasti Jackson bringing the house down at Crescent City Grill.
Music wasn’t part of the tour. Music was the tour.
Mississippi isn’t called the Birthplace of America’s Music because somebody thought it would make a good tourism slogan. The blues started here. If you believe Muddy Waters when he sang, “The blues had a baby and they named the baby rock and roll”—and I do—then rock and roll grew from Mississippi soil, too. Jimmie Rodgers, the Father of Country Music, came from Meridian. Country music, rock and roll, and the blues all trace their roots back to this patch of ground. American music doesn’t just carry Mississippi’s fingerprints.
American music is Mississippi.
Think about that. Texas gave the world oil. Maine gave us lobster. Idaho gave us potatoes. Mississippi gave the world music. Not a style of music. Music.
The Gulf Coast welcomed us with a tropical storm. Mother Nature had plans of her own. Highway 90 flooded. The schooner cruise was canceled. A few activities disappeared from the schedule. The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum visit got washed out. Mississippi didn’t.
If you’re going to spend an extra hour trapped inside a restaurant during a tropical storm, Mary Mahoney’s is a pretty good place to do it, especially with Bobby Mahoney holding court.
Dinner at White Pillars reminded everyone why Coast cuisine has become one of the state’s culinary treasures. The next morning, we visited the Walter Anderson Museum hosted by Walter’s son John Anderson before lunch at Ed’s Burger Joint and the ride back to Jackson.
By then, the luggage had gained so much weight from all the swag we handed out that I was fairly certain at least one suitcase contained a small Buick. Every day we gave out books, gifts, food products, shirts, hats, and other reminders of Mississippi. By week’s end, the bus had gotten lighter while the luggage had gotten considerably heavier.
Truth is, none of this happens without people doing their jobs better than I do mine. Brittany and Simeon at Yonderlust Travel handled details I never even knew existed. AJ safely guided us across hundreds of miles. Matt the bartender somehow kept forty travelers happy from the back of the bus.
Gratitude also goes to the more than 450 people throughout New South Restaurant Group. While I was out showing off Mississippi, they were taking care of guests, leading teams, solving problems, and keeping our restaurants running. They also fed many of our travelers and made me proud every step of the way.
Over five days, we crossed almost the entire state—Delta flatlands, Hill Country, Piney Woods, and the Gulf Coast. They heard blues where the blues was born, stood where Elvis took his first steps, walked through museums every Mississippian ought to visit, rode out a tropical storm, and sat at tables with chefs, artists, musicians, farmers, and storytellers who make this place what it is. By week’s end, they hadn’t just visited Mississippi. They had met Mississippi.
Most of all, gratitude goes to the forty guests who trusted us enough to explore a state many had never truly experienced.
After nearly ten years of hosting groups throughout Europe, I’ve learned something surprising. The trip I look forward to most every year isn’t Tuscany. It isn’t Spain. It isn’t England.
It’s Mississippi.
Several years ago, Morgan Freeman was asked why he lives in Mississippi when he could live anywhere in the world. His answer was perfect. “I live in Mississippi because I could live anywhere in the world.” Then he added, “Hell, I’d live here for the food alone.”
Most of those forty guests boarded that bus expecting Mississippi to be fine.
Five days later, they had fallen in love with the people, the music, the food, the stories, and the culture of a place that has given the world far more than it has ever received in credit.
Watching people fall in love with Mississippi never gets old.
Onward.
