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Clarksdale, Mississippi: Abandoned Places and Blues Joints (Video)

Clarksdale, Mississippi: Abandoned Places and Blues Joints (Video)

Join fine art photographer Keith Dotson on a photographic exploration of the abandoned places in this fascinating Delta city where blues music got its start

Walking and driving the old streets of Clarksdale, Mississippi, birthplace of the blues.

In this video, we visit and make photographs in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the so-called birthplace of blues music. Many of the greatest blues musicians were born in Clarksdale or started their careers there.

Clarksdale helped spawn one of America’s greatest and most fundamental genres of music. If you think about it, blues music is the root of most modern styles of music — of course everybody knows rock and roll was based on the blues — but you may not realize that even country music was influenced by blues musicians.

Our first stop is the abandoned Clarksdale High School. One of the unique aspects of this high school is that it had a cemetery on its school yard. In this video, we just take a quick look at this incredible building, but I previously made a full video of Clarksdale High School with some history of the school and a detailed look at the headstones in the cemetery. See that video below.

A detailed look at the abandoned Clarksdale high school with a close examination of the headstones in the graveyard found on its property.

After posting the original video about Clarksdale High School, I heard from a lot of people who went to school there. While this seems like a rather creepy — if beautiful — old ruin, for them, it’s a beloved place of happy memories. There has been a lot of expression of sadness to see it in such a dire state of neglect.

Black and white photographs from Clarksdale and vicinity

These photographs are available as museum-quality fine art black and white prints on baryta surface art paper. Click the photograph to go to my main e-commerce site.

Abandoned shotgun shacks located on the highway between Clarksdale and Belzoni, Mississippi. Black and white photograph by Keith Dotson. Buy a fine art print.
Abandoned shotgun shacks located on the highway between Clarksdale and Belzoni, Mississippi. Black and white photograph by Keith Dotson. Buy a fine art print.
Black and white photograph of an abandoned storefront in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Buy a fine art print.
Black and white photograph of an abandoned storefront in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Buy a fine art print.

This abandoned storefront is seen briefly in the video above, but you can see a more thorough exploration of it in the video below, including some peeks inside.

In this video, we take a good look at this incredible abandoned storefront in Clarksdale. Peek inside with me.
Mississippi Delta cotton gin with airplane flying past. Black and white photograph by Keith Dotson. Buy a fine art print here.
Mississippi Delta cotton gin with airplane flying past. Black and white photograph by Keith Dotson. Buy a fine art print here.
Ivy on the arches of abandoned Clarksdale high school. Black and white photograph by Keith Dotson. Click to buy a fine art print.

See all my photographs of the Mississippi Delta here.

Thanks for reading

Be sure to visit me on FacebookInstagram or Pinterest, or on my website at keithdotson.com.

~ Keith

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