This
Telegraph
writer follows the blues through the American South by treading the trail of some great American musicians who
moved from the rural South in the early 1900s. Riding Amtrak he heads through MIssissippi, New Orleans, Jackson
and on to Chicago.
Eleven coaches long, silver and huge, 20 hours out of New York, the Crescent pulls into Atlanta soaked in its own
romance. Mr Turk, a smart, ebullient man much given to shaking hands, shows me my sleeping compartment: fold-down
basin, lavatory, movies, recliner, fold-down table with chessboard, air-conditioning, call button to summon free
drinks. It’s not quite the style of my travelling bluesmen, but I’m riding the rails they once knew.