CHIX at the CROSSROADS
June 15 - 29, 2024
The Riveter Chapter of the AMCA announces their next vintage motorcycle journey through Americana - this time through the mid and deep South exploring the rich musical heritage of this region. Click here for more information on how to participate.
In the South, the sun plays tricks on your eyes. One moment the landscape is saturated with deep hues, and you are drunk with the vibrant beauty of it all. The next moment a shadow falls across the land which becomes sepia-toned like a worn photograph from your grandmother's hope chest.
There are spirits here. Some say ghosts. Some say the Devil. There are some who say it is nonsense altogether. But you feel it in the music that rises, fully formed and fully rooted in this land. You breathe music here. It is in the air. You drink it in the sweet tea. It is the soul in soul food.
CHIX at the CROSSROADS
Building on the phenomenal success of their June 2022 event Chix on 66 - Powered by Harley-Davidson, the Riveter Chapter of the AMCA is planning another journey through Americana called Chix at the Crossroads. This time, the Chix will travel through the American South. Beginning in Maggie Valley, North Carolina at Wheels Through Time Museum, the Chix will depart North Carolina for Tennessee, spending the night in Chattanooga before traveling northeast to the musically rich city of Nashville for a couple nights.
Heading southwest from Nashville, the Chix will ride a portion of the Natchez Trace Parkway to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, on to Tupelo, Meridian, and Natchez, Mississippi, before turning north on the Blues Highway toward Clarksdale, Mississippi, where they will pause for a few nights to take in blues history, both living and preserved. Finally the Chix will end their musical tour in another southern city rich with history - Memphis, Tennessee.
The southeastern United States, with its mountain ranges, vast farmlands, rivers and swamps, often unfriendly weather, and punishing social structures provided creative souls with much raw material for their music. Out of this primordial cultural gumbo came country, blues, folk, rockabilly, soul, later R&B, southern rock, and pop.
Beginning with the John and Alan Lomax field recordings of African American work songs, the musical output of this region has been documented almost from the beginning of recording technology. Later, small studios all over the Southeast tapped into local musical resources, and produced literally thousands of songs that became hits - many becoming cultural touchstones.
If you want to join the next Chix adventure, click here for more information.
©2023 by Riveter Chapter of the AMCA, Inc.