Category Archives: history

South Carolina’s beautiful Lowcountry

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Spoiler alert: There is nothing we didn’t like about the Lowcountry just outside Beaufort called the Sea Islands, a collection of small islands huddled together, separated by tidal creeks and connected by short bridges.

The definite highlight was our stay at beautiful Hunting Island State Park – we loved it so much that we extended our visit for an additional five days. We’d set our alarm to a pre-sunrise hour, walk five minutes to the beach and be there for the sunrise over the Atlantic. In the distance there were shrimp boats (no doubt harvesting our dinner that evening). Rigby was fascinated by the small fiddler crabs scuttling along the sand (South Carolina beaches are on-leash dog friendly). The beach is long and luxurious, anchored by a lighthouse at one end and a sweeping curve of sand at the far reach. The early morning sun cast a warm glow on the palmetto palms that line the back of the dunes. It set up each day perfectly.

In addition to the natural beauty of the Lowcountry, this region is steeped in history.

There is a long tradition of shrimping. We’d stop at Gay Fish Co. (just at the bridge from St. Helena Island to Hunting Island) to buy the freshest shrimp we’d ever tasted. Half-a-dozen shrimp boats were tied to the rickety docks. Inside, the woman weighing our daily ration told us their docks stood in for the Alabama coastline in the filming of the shrimping scenes in the hit movie, Forrest Gump. On the wall there’s a framed photo of Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise playing out a scene from the movie.

We visited the Penn Center Historic District, preserving the Gullah community on St. Helena Island. The Gullah people – the descendants of enslaved Africans – are known for their unique culture and traditions imported from West Africa (including the weaving of beautiful sweetgrass baskets). Before bridges were built, these islands were isolated and the culture was protected and thrived. Gullah culture is all over the Sea Islands, but the Center is the only spot where the buildings remain intact and protected as a National Historic Site. When the program at the site opened it was the first school in the nation to provide formal education for freed African slaves; a path to liberation. Over time, the focus shifted to civil rights and social justice issues. Now, the Center is a part of the National Park Service’s Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, preserving this unique culture, traditions and heritage.

One of our favourite meals was at the modest Gullah Grub Restaurant. Our lunch started with squares of rich cornbread, still warm from the oven, and glasses of “swamp water” (a mix of sweet tea and lemonade, called an Arnold Palmer on the mainland). Traditional Gullah dishes are based on whatever is seasonally available – rice, tomatoes, okra, fish. We ate local: a starter of she-crab soup, barbecue ribs and fried chicken with a side of collards doused with vinegar for some extra tang.

We’ll be back . . . again and again and again.

Beaufort . . . is amazing

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It’s not hard to see why the beautiful South Carolina town of Beaufort is a mecca for film shoots.

This is a lovely little – and rather prosperous – 300-year-old city sparkling with real estate that makes natural settings for Hollywood films. The Big Chill was shot here. The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini and Forrest Gump were also shot in and around Beaufort. The town has a stunning natural setting looking out over the Port Royal Sound, enframed by small islands that conjure up a history rich in Antebellum and post-war prosperity and peace.

Named Best Small Southern Town by Southern Living, a Top 25 Small City Arts Destination by American Style, and a Top 50 Adventure Town by National Geographic Adventure, this second-oldest city in South Carolina, chartered in 1711, is a collection of well-cared for boutiques and small enterprises along a couple of nicely manicured downtown streets that converge onto the beautifully planned and executed Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park – almost worth visiting on its own.

But the real value resides in walking the residential side streets and drinking in the luxurious architecture and laneways lined by Spanish-moss draped live oaks – some of which are so old and large that thick branches actually bend to the ground in places. It’s a fascinating sight.

We took a short drive from Beaufort to Parris Island, home to the east coast boot camp for the United States and the only boot Marine camp for women. We were headed to the museum, an expertly curated history of the Marines and a comprehensive overview of the history of Santa Elena, the Spanish colony that founded the island community back in the mid-1500s.

The town opens its doors for dog owners. We had lunch on the patio at Panini’s on the Waterfront and were introduced to an Arnold Palmer, a typical Southern drink made of half sweet tea and half lemonade (our new favourite). A bowl of water appeared tableside for Rigby. The restaurant also has a special menu for dogs. We kept to our shrimp-every-day creed and had delicious Shrimp Cheese Steak sandwiches piled high with local shrimp (did we mention the “Alabama” shrimp boat scenes from Forrest Gump were filmed just a few miles away?).

If anything, Beaufort is made for walking. We fantasized about renting a house here for the Canadian winter months, a place where we could write, where we could be assured of some sunshine, where the roadways were not choking with traffic (or slick with ice) and where the general level of prosperity ensured that we could feel safe and intellectually stimulated. In short, we loved it.

In fact, we stretched our stay in this area by several days, just to take in the Gullah history, lovely beaches and campground on the Sea Islands near Beaufort. More on that next time.

Charleston - a city of grace

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Charleston, South Carolina, evokes the very best of the South. It is a stunningly beautiful city – it was once the richest city in the United States (by a factor of eight) with the fourth largest population. It shows.

The city was a gift to several British lords from King Charles II; it grew to be the largest slave port in the Americas and one of only three walled cities on the continent (the others are St. Augustine and Quebec City). And this extraordinary wealth is still on display along street after street of vaulting mansions, the largest of which is 24,000 square feet of floor space and includes three Louis Tiffany chandeliers. The rich and the uber rich – slave traders, cotton brokers, ship owners, bankers, rice or indigo magnates – used this perfect port city as their summertime retreat from their inland operations where malaria and yellow fever wiped out thousands of people.

 

Like the wealthy class of every era, they travelled extensively across Europe bringing back with them the architectural styles and fashions of the very rich across Greece, Italy, France and Spain. And they combined these early modern and classic styles with adaptations from the Bahamas where living quarters were designed to maximize every breeze, dissipate the summer heat and capture the winter warmth.

We rode through the city in the back of a mule driven wagon with Matthew who works for the Palmetto Carriage Company. It’s a dog-friendly, one-hour carriage ride during which Matthew riffs on the many interesting historical aspects of this city’s neighbourhoods. The city only permits 20 carriages on the streets at any one time, so every different carriage driver has to queue at the bingo machine and await their route assignment. This lottery system turns out to be fair for everyone, limits the number of carriages slowing down ordinary traffic and gives Matthew his first opportunity to amuse and inform us of the idiosyncrasies of his work as a historic guide.

So many interesting things to note. For example, many buildings feature what look like large bolts in their façade and exterior walls. These, Matthew tells us, were products of a massive 7.3 magnitude event that provoked home owners to pass massive steel rods through their houses to pull them upright and into alignment again after the earth’s rumblings. “No one knew they had earthquakes here until a whopper hit in August 1886.”

Being a port city, Charlestown has known more floods than it can count and being so close to the sea many parts of are actually several feet below sea level. The cobblestones – over which we rattle under the energy of our mules, Hit and Run – arrived to Charleston in the holds of ships as ballast for trans-Atlantic voyages. The Old Exchange and Customs building – a symbol of Britain’s oppressive imperial control over the colony – was the last building erected by the British in the Americas before the American Revolution. Over the years it has served multiple roles, including as dungeon during the era of piracy and the Civil War.

The Civil War left its mark in other ways too. Large parts of the city – particularly those within range of ship borne cannons– were reduced to burned out rubble before being re-built post-war. We stroll along the Battery, the point where Southerners in their finest clothes gathered with drinks of Planters Punch to watch the opening salvos of Confederate cannons on Fort Sumter – clearly visible from the old neighbourhood – that inaugurated the American Civil War on April 12, 1861. They thought this glorious little war could not last more than a few weeks, months at the most. No one foresaw four devastating years of war that pitted families and neighbours against each other.

Every seat on our wagon is taken. The ride is fascinating. Matthew is interesting and congenial. Even Rigby enjoyed it. She napped underneath our feet for the entire hour.

On the edge of town we stayed at the very dog-positive James Island County Park Campground with an enormous off leash area that included a dog beach and special events like Yappy Hour.

 

Music museums you don’t want to miss

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We love museums and exhibits curated with care. We never pass up a chance to visit one – and some of them are worth more time than we can give them. In no particular order, some of the best we’ve seen include:

B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center (Indianola, Mississippi) is built onto an old cotton gin where young Riley (that’s his real name) ran a tractor as a boy before evolving into Blues Boy King … and the rest is history. Before his passing in 2015, B.B. King made substantial contributions from his personal archives, and it hugely enhances the experience for the visitor. Indianola is not “on the beaten path” – it’s between Greenwood and Greenville in the Delta – but it’s well worth any detour. We rate this a three-hour museum: it’s text and artifact heavy, including his personal papers, video clips and even his 60s-era tour bus. Musicians will want an extra hour to salivate over the guitars.

Otis Redding Foundation and Mini Museum (Macon, Georgia) keeps burning the flame of this foundational soul singer. The small streetfront exhibit includes memorabilia and newspaper clippings but is the front end for an educational foundation created before Reddings’ 1967 death (age 26) and is lovingly managed by his widow Ms. Zelma Redding and daughter Karla. Look for a big event in the autumn of 2016 to commemorate his legacy on what would have been his 75th birthday. Take a walk to the bronze statue of Redding at Gateway Park in Macon.

STAX Museum of American Soul Music (Memphis, Tennessee) is another text and exhibit-heavy museum with a story that combines tragedy and triumph. Booker T. & the M.G.s were the STAX house band, providing tracks and arrangements for soul and R&B giants including Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, Albert King, Isaac Hayes (also one of the in-house writers), The Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett and countless others. You’ll get a lot more out of this experience if you familiarize yourself with the history of Memphis at the height of the STAX years, which is just before the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Sun Studio (Memphis, Tennessee) lays credible claim to being the birthplace of rock ’n’ roll. Give him his due, Sam Phillips had an ear for music and knew talent when it walked through his door. Among the names associated with this modest little recording studio are Jerry Lee “The Killer” Lewis, Roy Orbison, Carl “Blue Suede Shoes” Perkins, Johnny Cash and The King himself, Elvis Presley. This venue is considerably smaller than the STAX Museum, but you too may want to get down on your knees and kiss the X on the floor where, legend has it, Elvis recorded Hound Dog. Bob Dylan did. Purists may want to fondle the guitar amplifier that fell off the roof of the truck – damaging the speaker cone – that became the sound of Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 … the very first rock ’n’ roll song, depending on who you talk to.

The Earl Scruggs Center (Shelby, North Carolina) invites you to leave your banjo jokes at the door and open your mind to the story of this hardscrabble sharecropper’s son who became an international sensation. Scruggs did for the banjo what Jimi Hendrix did for the electric guitar: he showed what was possible. The Center, which opened in early 2014, is a state of the art tribute to the man, his art and the history of Cleveland County. The displays are rich with archives that span several generations, including original instruments, video clips, interviews and very engaging interactive displays (e.g. you can learn to play the banjo through a touchscreen or call up photographic images of musicians from the times). If, at the end of a couple of hours touring this excellent and well organized history of Scruggs’ life, you still feel the need to crack wise with the banjo jokes, you’ll at least have seen the full majesty of the other side. Highly recommended: but give yourself enough time to fully explore all the exhibits and spend some time with the banjo “petting zoo.”

Alabama Music Hall of Fame (Tuscumbia/Muscle Shoals, Alabama) will surprise you – as it did us – with the richness of its musical legacy. To take just a few of the better known names; Hank Williams, Lionel Richie, Martha Reeves, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Nat King Cole, Emmylou Harris and Jimmie “The Singing Brakeman” Rodgers. Turns out that a lot of great 20th century music – blues, rock, gospel, country, soul, funk and pop – came out of Alabama. In addition to the Hall of Fame portraits there’s a wealth of musical artifacts including early sheet music belonging to W.C. Handy (Father of the Blues) and the Southern Star tour bus belonging to the supergroup, Alabama.

Martin Guitar Factory (Nazareth, Pennsylvania). If you’ve listened to popular music in the last 100 years, you’ve heard a Martin guitar. Probably thousands of them. It is the most widely recorded guitar sound in the world because – for many millions of guitar purists and players – it is THE sound of an acoustic guitar. So you’ll love touring the Martin Guitar Factory in Nazareth, PA, where thousands of these beautiful instruments are lovingly produced for a worldwide market of pickers who grin. The tour takes you right onto the factory floor where you can see up close and personal the artful combination of cutting edge science with old fashioned finger-applied glue on wood. It is more interesting than words can capture, even for non-players, because the Martin sound so defines what the acoustic guitar has come to be. Whatever the genre of music, everyone will have heard Martin’s contribution to it.

Augusta Museum of History (Augusta, Georgia) is a terrific museum with sufficient floor space to do justice to an impressive variety of exhibits relating to the history, culture and politics of this fascinating part of Georgia. Of particular interest to music fans is the impressive – and still growing – collection, The Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown. One of the founding fathers of funk was an Augusta native – and an American dream original – who started on the streets as a shoeshine boy and climbed his way, through sheer talent, vision and a singular work ethic, to become a world-straddling ambassador for black American soul music. Ranked seventh on Rolling Stone’s list of its 100 greatest artists of all time, “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business” performed to his very last days and sang with as much testosterone in his later years as he did as a young man. Collection highlights span video of his performances and groundbreaking dance moves, his colourful costumes and capes and an audio tour of memories of Mr. Brown as told by B.B. King, Jesse Jackson, Dan Aykroyd and Fred Wesley. Take your time with this exhibit: it’s worth savouring.

Delta Blues Museum (Clarksdale, Mississippi) is only steps from the fabled crossroads where, according to legend, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. No less a blues personage than Billy Gibbons (singer/guitarist for ZZ Top) has taken an interest in this exhibit. Gibbons is a walking encyclopaedia of the blues and a devotee of McKinley Morganfield, better known as “Muddy Waters,” the “father of modern Chicago blues.” The museum actually contains remnants of the cabin where Muddy Waters lived on Stovall Farms during his days as a sharecropper and tractor driver. Best known for electrifying the blues in Chicago, Bill Gibbons had a timber from Muddy’s shack made into a guitar in his honour.

International Bluegrass Music Museum (Owensboro, Kentucky) is more than a shrine to Bill “The Father of Bluegrass” Monroe, though that would be deserved. Your classic bluegrass ensemble consists of guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle and upright or string bass. Everyone plays acoustic – no electric instruments – and players move into and away from the microphones in a studiously choreographed ritual that has the effect of putting every instrument where it needs to be precisely when it needs to be there. What’s cool about this place is that the exhibit collection includes mint condition posters from concerts going way back into the 20th century. Bluegrass has a rich history and some of the better known players are equal to or better than musicians in any other genre. Many audio performances have been preserved and can be sampled in this newer and lovingly curated shrine to bluegrass music.

The Big House (The Allman Brothers Band Museum) (Macon, Georgia) – think shrine – is where The Allman Brothers Band lived as a family and band from 1970 to 1973. The band has always operated as an extended family, and the house provided a place for that family – including roadies – to live, for the band to rehearse, write and record and for the culture of the ABB to flourish. The Big House is overflowing with memorabilia lovingly curated to draw you through various stages of the band’s evolution, including artifacts and photographs of Dickey Betts – one of the two original guitar players who left the band in 2000. Honestly, with this band you either get it or you don’t – but if you do, you MUST visit The Big House. Give yourself three hours and another hour for the gift shop. You can also take the music history walking tour with Rock Candy Tours to get all the behind-the-scenes info.

Musical Instrument Museum (Phoenix, Arizona) is the most impressive display of musical instruments from all over the globe you will see anywhere. It’s hard to overstate the impact of this site for music lovers. The exhibits are designed to be viewed with headphones that activate as you approach the individual displays organized by country or region. You get to hear and watch the instruments as they are designed to be played and hear them in the context in which they are usually used. The variety of plucking, striking, bowing, blowing and vibrating things is just staggering. Had you any doubt that music was fundamental to the human condition, this museum will put that doubt to rest. You’ll need two things above all to do this venue justice: very comfortable shoes – it’s a sprawling space – and several hours to absorb the enormous variety of exhibits.

The Blues Archive (Oxford, Mississippi) is a part of the University of Mississippi. The collection houses one of the largest blues music archives in the country, including donations by B.B. King (his entire personal record collection of more than 8,000 records kicked off the collection). The archive includes the first commercial blues recording, in 1920, a song called “Crazy Blues” recorded by Mamie Smith. If you contact the archive before you arrive, they can produce some early recordings for you and you can talk with the curator himself.

Highway 61 Blues Museum (Leland, Mississippi) is a more modest exhibit close to the historic intersection of Highways 10 and 61 (the corners are marked by striking wall-sized murals that tell some of the story of the blues in this part of Mississippi). In the early 20th century Leland was known as “the hellhole of the Delta.” Saturday night bluesmen played on corners and in clubs until daybreak while thousands of people came in from the surrounding plantations for an evening’s blowing off steam. The museum’s small, but historically significant collection includes photographs, sheet music, instruments and posters.

Elvis Presley Birthplace Museum (Tupelo, Mississippi) is the real thing - the small community where Elvis was born, spent his formative years and became steeped in a love for gospel. The museum’s quiet grounds include the two-room, shotgun style house—on its original site, restored to circa-1935—where Elvis was born during the Great Depression, the family’s Pentecostal church and a state-of-the-art museum filled with artifacts and audio-visual clips. The church community is where Elvis learned to sing and play guitar. He was passionate about his first love, gospel music.

The W.C. Handy Museum (Florence, Alabama) was established to celebrate the life of musician and composer William “W. C.” Handy (1873-1958), the “Father of the Blues.” Handy himself donated the seed money to set up the museum, which now includes several buildings and houses a large collection of memorabilia, personal items, and objects relating to his musical career. If you want to “go to the source” you’ll find your way to Florence. And while there, check out FAME recording studios in nearby Muscle Shoals.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (Nashville, Tennessee) is a shrine to the American dream: small town boy or girl discovers in themselves a rare and precious talent; pays their dues in the hardscrabble honky-tonks and bars clawing their way to a spot on the Grand Ole Opry before ascending to the summit of country music recognition on these hallowed floors in downtown Nashville. Truly, it’s a pretty impressive collection of exhibits with something for everyone. Those who only want to see the stage costumes – or luxed-out limosines — of the latest and greatest won’t be disappointed. Those more interested in the long history of this American art form will be rewarded too. Got some time to linger? Visit RCA Studio B, the recording home of historic music titans including Elvis Presley (more than 250 songs recorded here), Chet Atkins, Eddy Arnold, and the Everly Brothers.

A stretch called Down East

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Tearing ourselves away from the beauty of Ocracoke was no small task. It did, however, involve one of our favourite activities of this coastline trip: a ferry ride.

It’s a two-hour ($15 USD) ferry ride across the waters of the Pamlico Sound to Cedar Island on the mainland of North Carolina. The area is better known to locals as Down East – a collection of 13 different maritime communities holding dear to the traditions of the seafaring life. Their past is a colourful history of whaling, fishing, hunting, quilting and the craft of decoy carving.

It’s the decoys that drew us to the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center (right next to the ferry that crosses to the uninhabited shores of Cape Lookout National Seashore). Craig tried his hand at chopping away at a piece of juniper (a wood called white cedar in the north) under the tutelage of an amused Walter “Brother” Gaskill, one of the country’s best decoy carvers.

Brother instructed Craig to just chop away anything that “doesn’t look like a duck.” Afterwards Brother pulls out cutting knives and files to try to repair the damage, all the while smiling as he tells us – in a thick Down East brogue – about a local group of carvers who work with the museum to revive the art of carving decoys.

The second level of the museum – a building designed to resemble a cross between a large hunting lodge and a coastal life saving station – is like rummaging through your grandmother’s attic. Displays for each Down East community are filled with duck decoys, handmade quilts, black and white photos and household items.

From the top level there is a viewing platform with a great view of the Cape Lookout lighthouse, the only light station in North Carolina that stays lit night and day.

We found more maritime history (and, of course, more on Blackbeard) in the beautiful village of Beaufort (population: 4,000) at the North Carolina Maritime Museum. The region’s proud history of life saving stations, fishing, boatbuilding and piracy (okay, maybe proud is not the right word on that last one) is explained in detail.

But it was on two wheels that we really discovered the beauty of Beaufort (and it is very beautiful). We pedalled beach bikes from Hungry Town Bike Tours, a local bike tour company run by Betsy and David Cartier, two transplants from the northeast.

David gave us a snapshot of Beaufort: “OPALs. Older people, active lifestyle.”

Think a garden club with 160 active members. Wide, quiet streets that are perfect for biking or walking. Gorgeous homes that range from cottages to mansions. A stone’s throw across the harbour is the Rachel Carson Reserve and the historic Fort Macon, a well-preserved Civil War era fort. There are no chain stores in sight.

David has a theory on this. “Beaufort has stayed isolated, so it’s kept its charm. These houses were built by shipbuilders, so they can withstand the storms. You’ll see a lot of homes with two porches – one up and one down – it’s a West Indian style imported by the sailors.”

Indeed, Beaufort is made for those with a curiosity about history, food and culture and enough zip to pedal around town (easy pedalling along a very flat landscape and very light traffic on the side streets).

And about that “food” part … After pedalling and sightseeing all day we were primed for finding another seafood meal and, as it turns out, we ate dockside at the Front Street Grill at Stillwater, enjoying meals that were among the best of our trip to date.

The amazing Shrimp & Grits were made with stone ground cheese grits (flavoured with heavy cream and a sharp Vermont cheddar), sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and tasso (a gravy made from a base of ham drippings). Craig opted for the same-day catch of yellowfin tuna (cooked rare) in soft wheat tortillas and served with sides of black beans, rice and fried plantains. The restaurant has indoor seating, outdoor seating on the deck (dog-friendly) and a great view of the sunset.

It was a perfect way to end a perfect day!

More Ocracoke: Blackbeard has a bad day

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Almost anywhere you go on the Atlantic coast of South Carolina, the spectre of Blackbeard looms. Just the name evokes mystery, danger and terror — much more than does “Edward Teach,” his real name. Who could be terrified of Edward? Though only active for a couple of years, he cut a swath down this seashore that resonates in story and legend to this day.

What’s the big deal? You have to see the coastline and contemplate the enormous number of wrecks to understand why piracy was so appealing to those who engaged in it. The larger ships lay lower in the water – their captains did not know the perilous shoals as thoroughly as the lighter, higher riding, pirates. So it was easy pickings for those willing to risk an encounter with the British Navy.

In one consequential encounter of November 22, 1718, Blackbeard tricked a British Navy lieutenant named Robert Maynard into chasing him across shallow water with sixty men in two boats, which Maynard promptly ran aground. That gave Blackbeard, with only 18 men on his sloop, the opportunity to train his guns on Maynard and, in one broadside, kill or wound half of Maynard’s crew. As far as the locals on Ocracoke know, Blackbeard had never killed anyone before that encounter, though he captured something like 40 ships in less than two years of piracy.

But that November day did not end happily, as it turns out, for Edward “Blackbeard” Teach because Maynard – though outgunned and out-foxed in the shallow waters of the Outer Banks – managed to lure Blackbeard’s crew onto one of his disabled sloops where he had secreted 20 men below decks with muskets and swords. Blackbeard’s boarding party was overwhelmed and Blackbeard himself suffered no less than five bullet and 20 sword wounds according to the official report of his death. To seal the deal, Maynard beheaded Blackbeard.

Legend has it that the headless body of Blackbeard – dead in his late 30s – swam seven times around lieutenant Maynard’s ship. But the locals doubt he could have managed more than two. In any event, Maynard carried the head back to the mouth of the Hampton River where he posted it as a warning to others contemplating a life of piracy.

Local schooner captain Rob Temple is an expert on Blackbeard and has been part of a History channel series as well as contributed to a National Geographic series on pirates.

Words on the page

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Our stories and articles appear in Canadian magazines and online.

Spring and fall, we load the van - with everything from guitars to laptops - toss in a thick bundle of maps, several notebooks and roll down the road. We meet great people, gather wonderful story material and then write, write, write. Browse the links to some of our pieces in print:

BIG TRIP #1: ROOTS OF AMERICAN MUSIC: 9,000 km through the Southeast U.S.

  • Road Tunes: A Six-Week Odyssey Following the Scenic Music Trails of the Southeast U.S., CAA Magazine. Road Tunes
  • A Moment in Time, CAA website. A Moment in Time
  • Great Music Trails of the American Southeast: The Journey Begins, Zoomer
  • Travelling the Crooked Road Music Trail, Zoomer
  • Walking, Strumming and Singing in the Footsteps of History, Zoomer
  • New Orleans: Sensory Overload, Zoomer
  • Great Music Trails: Bayou Cajun Country, Zoomer
  • Great Music Trails: Louisiana’s Prairie, Zoomer
  • Feeling the Blues in the Mississippi Delta, Zoomer
  • Tennessee: Two Cities, Two Histories, Zoomer
  • Kentucky: Where North and South Overlap, Zoomer
  • Virginia’s Crooked Road is a journey through America’s musical roots, Canadian Traveller. Crooked Road
  • Sunshine Bound, CAA website
  • The Soundtrack to America, Canadian Traveller
  • Soul Survivors, Doctor’s Review

BIG TRIP #2: TUNES, RUINS & STARS: 13,000 km across the American Southwest

BIG TRIP #3: HUGGING THE ATLANTIC COASTLINE; MUSIC INLAND: 7,064 km

  • North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Zoomer
  • Sunshine Bound, CAA website
  • Outer Banks: Sky, Sea & Sand, Zoomer
  • Pirates of the Carolinas, Doctor’s Review
  • South Carolina’s Coastline Cities, Zoomer
  • Beaufort and the Beautiful Sea Islands, Zoomer
  • Strolling in Savannah, Zoomer
  • The Soundtrack to America, Canadian Traveller
  • Cumberland Island National Seashore, Zoomer
  • Soul Survivors, Doctor’s Review
  • Georgia on my mind: Athens, Macon & Augusta, Zoomer
  • North Carolina’s Appalachia: Steeped in Music, Zoomer
  • Our last loop: Virginia’s Crooked Road, Zoomer
  • Eat Your Way to Florida, CAA

MISCELLANEOUS