Hell yeah, it's the coolest hotel in America.
Where else will the King himself rock you to sleep?
Check it out for yourself in our mini-photo tour, bonus points if you find the stuffed hippo.
As Robert Johnson as my witness, you should visit the Mississippi Delta to eat at Abe's BarBQ, take in the blues at the authentic juke joint Red's Lounge, and most importantly, to sleep in a sharecropper's cabin at the Shack Up Inn.
Don't worry, the rooms are air-conditioned. Enjoy your August. Stay hydrated while you Wang Dang Doodle. All night long.
"I went down to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above, "Have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please"
-- Robert Johnson, Cross Road Blues
The spiritual heart of the Mississippi Delta is found at the intersection of routes 61 and 49, the crossroads where it's said that Robert Johnson traded his soul to the devil in exchange for becoming a legendary bluesman.
-- Robert Johnson, Cross Road Blues
The spiritual heart of the Mississippi Delta is found at the intersection of routes 61 and 49, the crossroads where it's said that Robert Johnson traded his soul to the devil in exchange for becoming a legendary bluesman.
Satanic mythology aside, the blues grew out of the hardscrabble life of the African-Americans who worked the cotton fields, toiling under the blazing Mississippi sun to eke out a subsistence living. The days of the sharecroppers are long gone, but in the Delta, poverty remains entrenched. It's the poorest region in the poorest state, where illiteracy and infant mortality are high, household incomes are low, and the population shrinks as more storefronts are boarded up and factories are shut down.
Solutions to the Delta's chronic ills are hard to come by, but one small bright spot in recent years has been an uptick in tourism. It's only in the last decade or so that Mississippi saw fit to capitalize on its music heritage, but there is now a well-traveled Blues Trail highlighting important spots throughout the state. One of the most popular stops is Hopson Plantation, the spread where the great (and still alive) Pinetop Perkins once drove a tractor and where wholly mechanized cotton farming was introduced. It changed the Delta economy for good, leaving lots of abandoned sharecropper's shacks as people went north looking for work.
Today, guests of the Shack Up Inn can spend the night in one of those authentic sharecropper's shacks, much like the one Robert Johnson died in, after being poisoned at the age of 27. Owners Bill Talbot and Guy Malvezzi didn't have to make any Faustian bargains to run what may be the coolest hotel in America -- all they needed was the karmic good grace that comes to entrepreneurs yearning to Wang Dang Doodle all night long.
"We started this place because we wanted a spot to drink beer, listen to the blues, and play music whenever we wanted," says Talbot, "You certainly can't accuse of us of thinking this through any step along the way."
(To read more of Shack Up Inn: The Coolest Hotel in America? click right here)
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