Explore the Photo gallery The Blues Highway: Ruta 61

1nashville 063 — Nashville Lower Broadway, honky-tonks signs.

1nashville 085 Mejorado Nr — Nashville, The Johnny Cash Museum.

1nashville 178 — Lower Broadway in Nashville, where it all happens.

1nashville 256 — Nashville, Historical RCA Studio B: Home of 1,000 Hits. Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Roy Orbison, and many more recorded at this legendary place.

1nashville 324 — Nashville, the area around Printer's Alley.

1nashville 393 Mejorado Nr — Nashville, The Stage.

1nashville 265 — Nashville, Historical RCA Studio B. Who knows how many hit songs have come out of this guitar amplifier.

1nashville 398 — Nashville, Layla's.

1nashville 426 — Nashville Lower Broadway, Tootsies Orchid Lounge.

1nashville 218 — Nashville, National Museum of African American Music.

2memphis457 — Riverside Deep Church parking lot, Memphis

2memphis356 — Memphis, South Main Arts District.

2memphis017 — Memphis. The Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was killed.

2memphis115 — Memphis, Central BBQ.

2memphis466 — Empty Jack Daniel’s flask, Memphis, Tennessee.

2memphis158 — Bridge over the Mississippi River connecting Tennessee and Arkansas in Memphis.

2memphis317 — Under a ceiling of legends. A collection of more than 200 instruments owned by music legends at the

2memphis223 — Sun Studio, The birthplace of Rock & Roll. Memphis.

2memphis130 — A recreation of the Stax Studio A, where icons like Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes recorded their timeless hits. Memphis

2memphis280 — Memphis. Lecture provided at Arrive Hotel.

2memphis452 — The gift shop at Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate in Memphis.

2memphis416 — The Music Room inside the Graceland mansion in Memphis, featuring Elvis Presley’s white grand piano.

2memphis315 — Memphis, Beale Street, Memphis Muse Shop

2memphis369 — Earnestine & Hazel's. Famous for its late-night blues, and historic dive bar vibes, Memphis.

2memphis320 — Rum Boogie Café, Beale Street. Memphis.

2memphis373 — Memphis. South Main Arts District, The Arcade Restaurant.

2memphis406 — Memphis. South Main Arts District, The Arcade Restaurant.

2memphis440 — The brick at the entrance gates of Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate in Memphis, covered in handwritten messages from fans.

2memphis150 — Jukebox at Stax Museum of American Soul Music.

3mississippi001 — A roadside sign welcomes travelers to Mississippi, the self-proclaimed birthplace of America's music.

3mississippi007 — Amish mother and daughter at the Blues Visitor Center in Tunica, Mississippi.

3mississippi024 — A railroad intersection in Clarksdale.

3mississippi030 — A 70's gas station remains functional in the abandoned Mississippi Delta.

3mississippi039 — Railway tracks coexist with barely paved streets in Clarksdale.

3mississippi035 — Clarcksdale, Ground Zero Blues Club, co-owned by Morgan Freeman.

3mississippi048 — Clarcksdale, Ground Zero Blues Club, co-owned by Morgan Freeman.

3mississippi032 — The Paramount Theater in Clarksdale, MS. Segregated until 1965, abandoned in 1976.

3mississippi031 — Parking lot, Clarksdale, MS.

3mississippi052 — Clarksdale, waitress at the Ground Zero Blues Club.

3mississippi059 — Clarksdale quietude. A yellow school bus and the town’s signature water tower in the heart of Mississippi blues country.

3mississippi057 — Clarksdale sanctuary. The weathered storefront of St. Mark Ministry Church.

3mississippi061 — Cradle of the blues. The rustic, tin-roofed facade of Po' Monkey's Lounge, a landmark of Mississippi's cultural and musical heritage. Merigold, MS.

3mississippi016 — Mississippi Delta cotton fields.

3mississippi068 — A railroad intersection in Yazoo city, MS.

3mississippi072 — Two local residents sit outside the historic B.S. Ricks Memorial Library in Yazoo City, Mississippi.

3mississippi083 — Parking lot, Jackson, MS.

3mississippi077 — Jackson’s Alamo Theatre. Serving the Black community through the segregation era, abandoned in 1983, and reborn today.

3mississippi105 — Industrial railways cutting through Jackson's Fondren district. Jackson, MS.

3mississippi107 — The End of All Music. Jackson’s premier vinyl hub in the historic Fondren neighborhood.

3mississippi121 — Jackson’s Tougaloo College.

3mississippi133 — Gospel at Jackson Revival Center Church, Mississippi.

3mississippi137 — Smoots Lounge Music Bar. Natchez, Mississippi.

3mississippi134b — The Blues Highway. Road signs split the historic U.S. Route 61 into North and South lanes under the Delta sky.

4louisiana007 — Confronting the past. The grandeur of Rosedown Plantation stands as a direct product of the enslaved hands that built it. St. Francisville, Louisiana.

Neworleans 0639 — Royal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Neworleans 1151 — Trad jazz girl playing music on the road. New Orleans, Louisiana.

Neworleans 1391 — Mardi Gras. A local brass band and grand marshal march through the streets during a traditional New Orleans carnival parade.

Neworleans 1492 — A pedicab driver. Frenchmen Street, New Orleans.

Neworleans 0753 — In the Treme neighborhood, people do things their own way—even the street signs.

Neworleans 1214 — Carver Theater, New Orleans. A segregated-era sanctuary closed in 1980, now thriving again in the heart of Tremé.

Neworleans 0976 — Street Art in NOLA.

Neworleans 1139 Mejorado Nr — At the concert venue "Le Bon Temps Roulé," the audience mingles with the musicians amidst frenetic rhythms.

Neworleans 1174 — Band of Jazz Cats playing in the streets of the French quarter. NOLA.

Neworleans 1001 Mejorado Nr — Musician playing at The Spotted Cat Music Club. Frenchmen Street, NOLA.

Neworleans 0414 — Police patrol on the hyper-touristy Bourbon Street. New Orleans

Neworleans 0683 — New Orleans keeps alive the legacy of Kerouac, Burroughs and the Beat Generation, which draws many young Americans every year.

Neworleans 1230 — Mardi Gras decorations on houses in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Neworleans 0314 — Views of the French Quarter of New Orleans from the Hotel Monteleone.

Neworleans 1302 — Jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins photographed at his legendary neighborhood venue, Kermit's Tremé Mother-in-Law Lounge. New Orleans.

U.S. Route 61, The Blues Highway

The story of American music is etched into this old highway. Along this route, gospel, blues, country, jazz, rock and roll and soul took shape.

I drove from Nashville to New Orleans, camera in hand, through the honky tonks of Lower Broadway, Tennessee’s recording studios, the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta, the gospel churches of Jackson and the legendary clubs of New Orleans, trying to turn sound into images.

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