The second annual Mississippi Blues Marathon & Half-Marathon makes tracks in Jackson Saturday, with a heaping helping of its signature music to boot.
Friday, the Blues Expo in the Mississippi TelCom Center trots out prime blues, courtesy of some the state's best in the genre. Jesse Robinson, Bill Abel and more will entertain at the Blues Expo, as vendors peddle running-related and select Mississippi merchandise. That event's free and open to the public.
Born out of struggle, blues offers a heartfelt heartbeat for runners racing against time, elements, injuries and fatigue to go the 26.2-mile distance - or even half that.
Plenty are due in for the course. Earlier this week, the count was 1,649 runners from 40 states and the District of Columbia and nine countries coming for the race.
And some of the globetrotting entries - from Australia, Ireland, Iceland and Switzerland - aren't elite runners. "I feel pretty safe in saying they're not coming this far simply to run a marathon in Mississippi in January," says John Sewell, spokesman for marathon presenter BlueCross BlueShield of Mississippi.
"It's a pretty safe bet these are people who are fans of the blues. ... It may be more of a pilgrimage for them than a place to come to a race." The hope is, they'll rent cars and take in other blues draws, such as the new B.B. King Museum in Indianola or the Delta Blues Museum and the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale.
Race day and post-race in Jackson, blues music will get the runners off to a good start, welcome them in for a big finish and spur them on at seven stages along the route.
Blues also rocks the post-race party at Hal & Mal's, with Louis "Gearshifter" Youngblood, Homemade Jamz and Jesse Robinson's 500 Pounds of Blues Band.
"The music just puts the icing on the cake of a lot of activities," says Robinson.
He played outside in the cold on Lakeland Drive for last year's inaugural Mississippi Blues Marathon, "a great experience," he says.
"The energy level was really good because of the music and the people running. And the type of music I was playing had some rhythm to it. They could get into it and they would wave at me," Robinson says.
With the marathon's global draw, it's a great opportunity to expose the state's indigenous art form to a host of folks who may not have run across it before.
"People really still come to Mississippi to look for the real thing when it comes to blues and blues musicians and they get a chance to be exposed to that because a lot of the musicians playing are very good, seasoned musicians," Robinson says.
For them, "it creates a good morale as far as knowing that somebody cares," says musician Louis "Gearshifter" Youngblood of Jackson, who'll entertain at the post-race party.
"The race is international and the blues has become so international," notes musician Bill Abel of Duncan. Of his starting line gig, 7 a.m. in the historic Fondren district, "it's as early as I've ever been up to play," he says. "I think I'm playing when they shoot the gun. So I'll start playing, and everybody will run away," he jokes.
The blues music/marathon pairing may have a sort of opposites-attract appeal. Blues music often finds a comfy home at smoky, late-night clubs with ready access to alcoholic beverages. The Mississippi Blues Marathon pulls it into the light of day and uses it to accent the activities of some seriously fit folks.
Runner Ray Gildea, 55, of Madison, who's celebrating 30 consecutive years of marathon running this weekend, calls it "a whole new blues vision." It didn't come to him easily. Last year, lungs sensitized by a hard run didn't react well to cigarette smoke at the post-race party.
"The idea that blues is not the exclusive domain of those unhealthy lifestyles and we can try to create a transformation where the rest of us can lay claim to that as well is kind of an interesting social challenge," Gildea says. But it's a brilliant idea and "blues sounds pretty good while you're moving."
For both veteran and new blues fans, the marathon attention introduces more ears to the music and its current practitioners.
"Everyone in Mississippi knows that the blues is from Mississippi ... but I think it's unfortunate nowadays that very few know many of the contemporary artists," says blues columnist Scott Barretta. "We still have a very rich blues tradition here and it's nice when these guys are getting their due.
"There's a certain degree to which, because blues is all around us, we don't tend to view it as exotic," Barretta says.
But it is. It's our hallmark.
"Mississippi has finally started going beyond passive acknowledgement of the blues and is actively promoting it."
A portion of proceeds from the race will benefit the Mississippi Blues Commission.
