The Mojo Triangle, a geographical and cultural area located within a triangular connection between New Orleans, Nashville and Memphis, is the birthplace of country, blues, jazz, and rock and roll. The Mojo Triangle has creative artists, not just in music, but also in literature and films.
Origins of the Mojo Triangle
Blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz and country—all potent brews of the swamp. This alligator-bearing cypress swamp bumps against the Natchez Trace just outside Jackson, Mississippi, in the heart of Mojoland.
The phrase "Mojo Triangle" was first coined by author James L. Dickerson in his award-winning 2005 book, Mojo Triangle: Birthplace of Country, Blues, Jazz and Rock 'n' Roll.[1]
A fiddle tune named "Natchez Under the Hill," which originated in the joints along the docks in Natchez, was one of the first original songs ever published in America, according to Dickerson. Published in 1834, it was re-titled "Old Zip Coon," only to later morph into "Turkey in the Straw." With that song began a tradition that inspired the creation of a musical dynasty.[1]
Natchez remained a musical cauldron throughout the 1800s, blending traditional folk music from Europe with the exotic rhythms and harmonies of the Choctaw and Chickasaw, and the unique phrasing vocalized by slaves from Africa. But it was not until the late 1920s, when Jimmie Rodgers began recording what would later be recognized as America's first country music that the first blend of European/Native American/African music took hold.[citation needed]
Ten years later, Robert Johnson took the music recorded by Rodgers and moved it a step further by recording what we today call blues music. Both Rodgers and Johnson owe an enormous debt to the Choctaw. "Both use 6/4, 5/4, and 4/4 time signatures, and both use short 6/4 introductions that quickly change to 5/4 or 4/4 after one or two bars. For example Johnson's 'Little Queen of Spades' has a one bar introduction in 6/4 that changes to 4/4, an identical time signature to the Choctaw's 'Wedding Dance,' which also goes 6/4 to 4/4."[1]
Musicians in New Orleans incorporated the music of Natchez and added Caribbean influences to produce jazz, a free-flowing instrumental interpretation of the same influences that birthed blues and country. In the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore and Bill Black took the work of Rodgers and Johnson and gave shape to rock and roll, creating an unbroken circle of creativity that continues to this day.[citation needed]
James L. Dickerson, a native of the Mississippi Delta,[2] is the author of twenty-nine books. He has worked as a magazine editor and publisher, newspaper editor, reporter, columnist, book critic, and social worker. His book, Mojo Triangle, was the winner of a 2006 IPPY award (Independent Publisher Book Awards) in the non-fiction category. Two other books, Goin' Back to Memphis: A Century of Blues, Rock 'n' Roll and Glorious Soul and That's Alright, Elvis, were finalists for the Gleason Award, given out annually by Rolling Stone magazine, BMI, and New York University. In the mid-to-late 1980s, Dickerson was the publisher/editor of Nine-O-One Network Magazine, the first magazine located in the Mojo Triangle to obtain newsstand circulation in all 50 states. He co-owned and produced a radio syndication, Pulsebeat—Voice of the Heartland, which focused on the music produced in the Mojo Triangle.[3]
Other music historians who have written about musicians from the Mojo Triangle are Stanley Booth (The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, Rhythm Oil, and Furry's Blues); Peter Guralnick (Sweet Soul Music) and Robert Palmer (Deep Blues). None of those writers were born in the Triangle, but all wrote extensively on the blues. Palmer, who died in 1997, was a music writer for The New York Times and spent the last years of his life living in the Mojo Triangle. Booth, who lives in Georgia, has contributed to Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Esquire. Guralnick is probably best known for his two-volume biography of Elvis Presley.
