Clarksdale Blues no more

Volume 6 Number 7 July 12 - August 8 2010

John Henshall’s personal recuperation also involved his guiding the cradle of the Blues – Clarksdale, Mississippi – back to good health. Photo: Peter Casamento
John Henshall’s personal recuperation also involved his guiding the cradle of the Blues – Clarksdale, Mississippi – back to good health. Photo: Peter Casamento

Once home to legendary musicians Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, the birthplace of the Blues had lost its rhythm, alumnus John Henshall found when he arrived in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The streets were empty, businesses closed and the buildings rundown. But the urban economist and planner fell under Clarksdale’s spell when he discovered the famous music scene was still thriving – and he put up his hand for a project to breathe the life back into the dishevelled town. Fiona Willan reports.

While on a road-trip from New Orleans to Memphis in 2001, a description in John Henshall’s USA guidebook caught his eye. The place known as ‘the cradle of Blues music’ was a short detour off Highway 61. The lifelong Blues fan decided to stop overnight in Clarksdale to check out the local juke joints.

As he drove into Downtown Clarksdale, Mr Henshall was taken aback to see the streets lined with boarded up shop windows and dishevelled buildings, with few locals and zero tourists in sight.

“It was the most nondescript town you can imagine, with a Downtown area that was half vacant,” Mr Henshall (BCom 1969 GDipPD 1976) admits.

Fortunately, first impressions did not deter him from checking into a hotel and taking a closer look. He visited a “real-deal juke joint”, perused the local record store and visited the studio where Early Wright, the first African-American disc jockey in Mississippi, DJ’d for 50 years. Three days later, he was still in town.

“Clarksdale just captures you. It’s the people, the music, the hospitality – and the fried food,” he says.

One evening he dined at a local restaurant co-owned by multiple Oscar nominee Morgan Freeman and struck up conversation with the actor’s business partner, Bill Luckett.

“I remember him saying Clarksdale was in need of some good economic planning,” Mr Henshall says.

“At the time it didn’t occur to me that I would someday be back there doing that.”

With a background in both town planning and economics, Mr Henshall has decades of experience developing plans to boost local economies. It was a career combination he discovered accidentally as a commerce student.

While studying in the University’s Baillieu Library for his final economics exams, he stumbled across past exam papers for the town planning course and was immediately intrigued. After graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce, he completed a Post-Graduate Degree in Town and Regional Planning, and in 1997 launched Melbourne-based economic consultancy firm Essential Economics.

 The company develops land use plans, tourism strategies and economic impact assessments for many major developments, including Federation Square and, more recently, the Windsor Hotel refurbishment. He has also taken on economic development projects in some of the world’s poorest countries, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Nevertheless, when Mr Henshall visited Clarksdale for the seventh time, in 2008, the trip was intended for purely personal reasons. He was planning to write a book on the how the town’s Blues culture was gradually bringing people back into the town and revitalising local businesses. This led him to a community meeting, chaired by Bill Luckett, on the revitalisation of the Downtown.

Bill told the community the town needed a Clarksdale Revitalisation Board to lead the town’s revival.

“We know what we want for Clarksdale. But we don’t have a plan,” he said.

Listening from the back row, Mr Henshall suddenly thought: “This is what I do for a job – I may as well write up the plan.”

He abandoned his book project to develop a plan for the economic revitalisation of Clarksdale. The project would have cost the town around US$50,000, but Mr Henshall did the work free.

“This is a very poor town, in socio-economic terms,” he explains.

Mr Henshall spent three months interviewing local residents, musicians and businesspeople – enlisting high school students to interview visitors to the town’s annual Juke Joint Festival – to identify key issues and hopes for the town.

He compiled important statistics and information that had never been accessed, such as census material and data on the number of tourists who visited Clarksdale.

“When I started out, you couldn’t even get a base map for the Downtown showing where the streets were,” he says.

When the final report was delivered in September 2008, its message was clear. The community needed to attract businesses and shoppers to Downtown Clarksdale via a number of proposed strategies. The town needed to promote itself as the heart of the Blues and Delta culture and arts. For the plan to work, it also needed a better education system.

Clarksdale adopted the plan, and Mr Henshall was awarded a key to the city for his generous efforts. But the greatest reward came when he returned this year to find a different Clarksdale. New juke joints had sprung up across town. Shops had been renovated and new restaurants opened. The Blues Museum was now a buzzing tourist attraction. Most importantly, the main streets were busy.

Many local organisations had applied for State and Federal Government grants, using the plan to demonstrate issues and opportunities in Downtown Clarksdale.

But Mr Henshall refuses to take credit for the changes.

“All these initiatives are individuals acting on their own, with the support of the plan if they need it,” he says.

“The plan is important because it gives them written guidance. It just helps the community to understand there is a market for this.”

http://www.unimelb.edu.au/alumni/