Video - Mr Tater
Mr Tater - at the crossroads
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions
Mr Tater comes from Clarksdale, Mississippi, a town that now finds itself firmly on the blues trail, as one of the possible location for the famous "crossroads" where, according to the myth, bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in order to be able to play the guitar with uncommon skill. The images are of Clarksdale, and nearby Tutwiler, Mississippi which claims to be "where the blues was born". Both locations feature in Out of the Frying Pan Part 2 of The Story of the Guitar, where Mr Tater helped illustrate the famous story of the moment when the Father of the Blues, bandleader WC Handy, first heard the sound of a guitar played with a knife, in other words, slide guitar. It was, he wrote: "the weirdest music I ever heard".
© MMIX