I’ve revisited Highway 61 a few times, although I’venever overheard God talking to Abraham or anyone else about killing any sons. What I have heard is great music. The Blues has given life to a lot of other music, not least rock ‘n’ roll, but somehow it has also remained more or less untouched itself – at least down along Big Muddy. If you’re a motorcyclist like me, you are of course not likely to be able to take advantage of the waterway. Fortunately, there is an alternative for anyone chasing the Blues. You guessed it, Highway 61.

无论是孟菲斯与比尔街,就61, devoted to the Blues and drinking—the two always did go together—or the crossroads with 49 at Clarksdale where Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil, or The Gateway to the Blues at Tunica, Highway 61 is not called the Blues Highway for nothing. But it isn’t just about the Blues. You don’t need to ride far off the sacred tarmac of 61 to find yourself in places where both the Blues and other musical traditions took root and grew.

One such place is Ferriday, Louisiana. Turn off 61 onto 425 at County Pie in Natchez, cross the river and with it the state line to Louisiana and Vidalia, then carry on for 10 minutes, and you’ll find yourself in this remarkably musical little town. Many musicians took this road before you, often to Haney’s Big House. African American entrepreneur Will Hany operated this club for several decades. The club featured local musicians including Ferriday’s Leon “Pee Wee” Whittaker and Natchez’s Hezekiah Early and Y.Z. Ealey. A young Jerry Lee Lewis often visited the club, soaking up the sound of the blues.

Ferriday’s homage to its most famous son was far from the cash-generating excesses of Graceland before it sadly closed once and for all. Next to the drive-through liquor barn still owned and operated by the Lewis family, it was a family tribute. It had been the Lewis family home, apparently with every nook and cranny filled with photos, memorabilia, and artifacts documenting his legendary career. No velvet ropes or showcases here, it seems tours took a hands-on approach. While Lewis’s 1950s stardom approached Elvis Presley’s, the experience of touring this museum was said to be an intimate journey. It’s a great shame it has closed.

Lewis’s niece used to lead tours around the museum and manage the property. When I was there it was supposedly still open, but she was nowhere to be found and the liquor barn was closed. I only got to see the outside. Didn’t even get a drink. It’s still worth a stop.

Just up the road in downtown Ferriday is the wonderfully named Delta Music Museum, Hall of Fame and Arcade Theatre. The Louisiana Secretary of State’s web pagewww.sos.la.govintroduces it lyrically with “Just as the landscape along the Mississippi River changes as it flows from Memphis down through the Delta, so do the musical traditions. From bluegrass and gospel to blues and rockabilly, you can find all these music genres preserved and celebrated at the Delta Music Museum in Ferriday.”

The diversity of the musical styles showcased here is illustrated best through the lives of three cousins who grew up in Ferriday and who rose to national prominence. Jerry Lee Lewis became a national sensation in the mid-1950s [and not just then; I saw him live in London in 1980- The Bear] as the wild-haired, piano-pounding innovator of rockabilly music, while Mickey Gilley went on to become a country western star with more than 30 hits in the Top 40 while operating a world-famous nightclub that bears his name in Houston. The third cousin, Jimmy Swaggart, became one of the country’s most successful television evangelists and was known for singing and playing the piano during services.

Other musical celebrities showcased in the museum and commemorated with stars on the pavement outside include Fats Domino, Aaron Neville, Conway Twitty, Percy Sledge, and my favorite—clarinettist Pete Fountain. The museum is filled with musical memorabilia, and the charming tour guides share stories about the musicians—at least one of them, quite risqué. The Arcade Theater next door to the museum has been restored and serves as venue on Saturdays for performances and broadcasts by many musicians.

Back across the bridge in Mississippi, Natchez offers other traditions of musical and other entertainments. A sedate and quite proper town today, it showcases the nasty reputation for boozing, brawling, and prostitution it once had in only one place: Natchez Under the Hill, down by the river. It was a rest stop for rivermen of flexible moral codes, and one traveler wrote in 1816 that it was “without a single exception the most licentious spot that I ever saw.”

The focus of this vice-riddled river port was the Under-the-Hill Saloon. Natchez’s well-heeled denizens lived atop a set of sheer bluffs uphill from the river, and indeed still do, while the settlement “Under-the-Hill,” conducted its wild doings along the riverbank. Today the saloon is a bit of a tourist trap, but it offers regular live music, cold beer and an elephant carved from a single piece of wood. Upstairs, visitors can stay in the Mark Twain Guest House, where the famed author is said to have slept while he was just another riverman named Samuel Clemens.

I stayed in the room that the saloon’s barman swore was the one Sam Clemens occupied, but sadly was not inspired to write another Huckleberry Finn. Still, with my Indian Springfield parked across the road, some live jazz wafting up from the bar and a view of the majestic sternwheelers tracking the flow of the Mississippi, I was content. I suppose the Natchez Brewing Company’s Old Capital IPA might have had something to do with it.

Some places for Blues memories along the river:

Delta Music Museum, 218 Louisiana Avenue, Ferriday, Louisiana. Wed., Thurs., Fri. only, 9am – 4pm.www.deltamusicmuseum.com

Delta Blues Museum, 1 Blues Alley, Clarksdale Mississippi, 1-800-626-3764. Monday – Saturday 10am – 5pm. www.deltabluesmuseum.org

Robert Johnson Heritage and Blues Museum, 218 E. Main, Crystal Springs, Mississippi, 601-892-7883. Tues-Wed: 10am – 12pm, Thurs-Fri: 10am – 6pm, Sat: 10am – 2:30pm.www.robertjohnsonbluesfoundation.org

Gateway to the Blues Museum, 13625 Hwy 61 N, Tunica Resorts, Mississippi, 888-488-6422. Monday – Friday 8:30am – 5pm, Saturday 10am – 5pm, Sunday 1 – 5pm. TunicaTravel.com/Blues

Sun Studio, 706 Union Ave, Memphis, Tennessee, 901-521-0664. Daily 10am – 6 pm. Tours at the bottom half of every hour from 10:30am – 5:30pm.www.sunstudio.com