Introduction to the Blues

It was August,1966. I had just completed basic helicopter training at Fort Wolters, Texas and, with the rest of my class was making my way to Fort Rucker, Alabama for advanced training before shipping out to Viet Nam. Some of us formed a mini-convoy: Stan Cherry and his wife, Paul Fellencer and his wife, Norm Kidd, who would later die in combat, traveling solo, and me, also traveling solo. I was driving a 1959 Chevy with 39,999.9 miles on the odometer, the same number it had when I bought it 2 years before, and the same number it would have five month later when I totaled it.
We traveled on I-20 through eastern Texas, Arkansas, into Mississippi and ended up stopping for the night in Meridian. We were all young, Yankee and pretty full of ourselves after having learned to master the devilishly difficult TH-53 training helicopter. We weren't expecting much from this backwater Mississippi outpost.
The details of our adventure escape me after all these years, but I vividly remember we ended up in this roadhouse with a raucous live band and some of the most real people having the best time that I had seen before or since.
But what stuck with me most was the music. I had grown up with do-wop and the early Elvis. I was less than satisfied with the bubble gum music of the early British invasion. This Mississippi music was raw and gritty. I felt it as much as I heard it.
Our trip resumed the next morning. The hangover lasted most of the day. The music stayed with me a lot longer.