Casting circles of white light on the dark water, the S.S. Capitol bears music as it steams up the Mississippi from the delta to Chicago.
It's the second decade of the 1900s, and inside the steamboat hundreds of couples dance on a floating ballroom to a thick curtain of quivering brass kept in time with the brisk lilt of Fate Marable's piano. During the Great Migration of blacks from the segregated South to the industrialized North, blues, ragtime, and jazz made the voyage upstream by way of the Mississippi, the Illinois Central's City of New Orleans railroad, and Highway 61. The musical mark left by this migration still runs deep.
For the past 23 years, the Quad Cities has celebrated the "devil's music" with the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival, today through July 1, Iowa's only festival devoted to the salacious sister of Southern gospel. "It's the only music that's truly all-American," said Ric Burris, the president of the Mississippi Valley Blues Society. "Although it was born from slavery, it has now crossed racial lines.
It's not black, it's not white - it's the blues." The three-day festival held on the banks of the Mississippi draws music lovers from all over the country. Along with live music from big names such as Robert Randolph, the festival offers educational programs for children and instructional workshops for all-ages on instruments such as the mandolin, harmonica, and organ.
Located right around the corner at 129 Main, the River Music Experience provides another live music outlet - this one for all musical genres. The joint also houses Café Mojo and a music gallery displaying artifacts such as Jimi Hendrix's wah-wah pedal from his Aug. 11, 1968, performance at the Col Ballroom in Davenport, and an intricate wooden replica of the S.
S. Ellis Kell, a musician and the director of programming and education of the River Music Experience, stands inside Café Mojo dwarfed by a wall of photographs - Snoop Dogg, Sheryl Crow, David Bowie, and Ray Charles all hang side-by-side. King, whom Kell has opened for three times, also hangs on this wall of musical talents.
The photograph shows King sitting, hands folded against his bowed head in thanks to the crowd. Upstairs there's a display of five Quad Cities legends - Bill Bell, Pat Patrick, Bix Beiderbecke, Louie Bellson, and Francis Clay - in a series of faded, sepia-tone photographs. Kell and resource-development director Larry Tierney admit that the music culture in the Quad Cities is lively, but often fragmented.
"The music scene is diverse, but there are little cliques here and there," Kell said. "River Music Experience is about bringing all that together in a central location for all types of music." Since its opening in 2004, the River Music Experience has collaborated with the Mississippi Valley Blues Society.
The River Music Experience will take a break from hosting live outdoor music this weekend to encourage people to attend the Blues Festival. "We're trying to preserve the music of this area by teaching people how the music made the trip up the river from New Orleans, to the Delta, to Memphis," Tierney said. Casting circles of white light on the dark water, the S.
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