GOD BLESS THE BACK ROADS

The Old Troubadour Keeps the Faith

“We know Elvis played here,” croaks the man on the stage. To his right is a fellow with an upright bass, and the man himself is hovering, arched like a question mark, near the piano he has played for an hour. “We can feel him in the building,” he mumbles, nodding to this giant room in north Louisiana. Wherever his house is—if a troubadour like him indeed has a home—there is a thick round piece of gold with the words Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes etched onto its reverse.

The old fellow smiles, and says “I’m not Elvis.”

Shreveport, Louisiana (all photos with Polaroid SX-70 and 2021)

BACK IN THE OLD DAYS the road was longer but there were more places. Now there are six lane interstates and every ten miles there might be a gas station with fourteen pumps the size of a small grocery store. Maybe a quarter mile from there is the shell of an auto parts shop or a shuttered country store. Seventy years ago there was a lot more muscle on the bone, and Elvis played a heck of a lot of these towns.

Paris, Texas

In 1955 the Hillbilly Hellcat and his gang would visit a new town nearly every day, many of them now faded from maps and memories: Odessa, Clarksdale, Helena, Booneville, Corinth, Ripley, Abilene, Paris. The names are beautiful and filled with desire, faraway and majestic: El Dorado, Alexandria, Texarkana, Amarillo, Hope.

This is the country I love, the road I wish to travel.

Choctaw County, Oklahoma

After the King of Western Bop hit the TV, his destinations transformed. Gone were the high school auditoriums in north Mississippi and Louisiana, reachable by a few hours’ drive from Memphis. The new places were named things like Fort Worth, Detroit, Tulsa, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Miami. The road he traveled changed.

Sawyer, Oklahoma

This is not to say there is not beauty in Duluth. I just think the ice cream tastes better on those old roads. And many of those places are still there, if you are willing to work to find them, and squint hard enough to see what remains.

Broken Bow, Oklahoma

One of the reasons I so loved watching that old fellow play piano on stage in Shreveport is because he loves these places, too. A friend told me once the troubadour missed one of the great cultural moments of our time because he was looking for a grave. There was a band from England and they were going to play on Ed Sullivan and it changed music the same way Elvis shaking seven years before had. Hold on, I’ll go get his text:

on the night the Beatles made their big TV splash [he] didn’t see it. He was in a motel room without a TV in meridian- he wanted to see where Jimmie Rodgers was from!!!

This was the day after he’d played Emory in Atlanta, headed to Jackson to play at Tougaloo. Just 23 years old, already traveling those backroads just like Elvis, trying to find the secrets of America.

Ashdown, Arkansas

So I was happy the troubadour played the site of the old Louisiana Hayride, where Hank played, where the great Elvis Presley played. To be in that space, to be with those ghosts, it enriched my life. I am sitting here, content if somewhat melancholy, telling you about it, wistfully, as if it happened years ago, and not just a couple weekends back. It already feels that special, and that distant.

THE GOLD MEDAL they gave the old troubadour was emblazoned with the legend (translated to the Mississippian) that he had done good by improving life through discovering art. That by the act of creation he made our very existence better.

I fully concur. Like in the song he wrote a little over forty years ago, and played in Shreveport to a quiet and rapt audience:

Then onward in my journey, I come to understand
That every hair is numbered, like every grain of sand.

“GOD BLESS THE BACK ROADS” is this week’s installment of GORJUS, a newsletter devoted to art and life in the South on instant film. If you like it, consider sending it to a pal. Just like anything, some weeks are better than others. I’m gorjusjxn on Instagram, and you can see more Polaroids at McCartyPolaroids.