TUPELO TO NEW ORLEANS

Start the last leg of your journey around the Americana Music Triangle in world-famous Tupelo, birthplace of Elvis Presley. After seeing Graceland in Memphis on the Delta Highway trail, get a sense for the star’s humble beginnings—the rural region where he first heard the African-American rhythms, gospel tunes and hillbilly music that would become, with his help, the beginnings of rock and roll. On this section of the Gold Record Road, you’ll visit the hometown of the “Father of Country Music,” Jimmie Rodgers. Also influenced by African-American rhythms, he created and popularized country music in a way no one had done at the time, creating a legitimate genre for the combination of hillbilly and blues swirling about the fields of the Americana Music Triangle in the first half of the 20th century. This route along the Natchez Trace parkway is serene and scenic, with detours here and there to sit in on a decades-old community pickin’ jam, dip into mysterious blues history with Robert Johnson, experience a once-in-a-lifetime county fair and more. Travel through Jackson’s urban core for a glimpse of the “City with Soul” before heading back to Natchez and further south to Baton Rouge, the capital of Plantation Country.* End up right where you started, in New Orleans, with a new understanding of the Americana Music Triangle and the cultural exports that have literally changed the world.

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*Traveler note: If you’ve driven the Gold Record Road from start to finish, you’ll be retracing your steps in reverse order from Natchez to Baton Rouge and back through New Orleans. All the better to stay awhile this second time through, explore what you didn’t see the first time and soak up the rich history of the Gold Record Road.