lesson, i m meeting up with blues legend. you have probably seen clarksdale change a lot. what was this like? shoulder bumping on both sides of the street. so many people out here. all of the shops were open. it was a town that was alive, went to sleep. woke back up again. what do you think is keeping it afloat, keeping it going? the blues. the blues. if you got the blues you can make it through anything. now, restaurants, record stores and blues museums are trickling in and the tourists including me are lining up. did you get it? awesome, lady. when super chicken isn t on the road, he is home often jamming at the blues club which opened in 2001. uppest west side manhattan new york. it s owned by the mayor and morgan freeman. this business was one of the first to spark the town s economic rebirth. i m on the clarksdale revitalization board and our
this town alone pulled in $54 million from visitors last year, people tracing the history of blues and rock through a string of historic sights throughout the region called the blues trail. kappi allen is with the county tourism commission. this year, so far we ve seen an increase of 13% in our tourism tax numbers. reporter: all of that in the middle of a recession? absolutely. we are open for business. reporter: some say the surge is because the blues speak to folks in hard times. some say it s because people here are doing a better job marketing their attractions. but bill luckett, an owner of the blues club here, says whatever the cause, the results are undeniable. how important do you think that is to building up this part of america in these hard times? well, we have lost a lot of our factories, a lot of our base manufacturingwise. blues music and tourism, an interest in blues music is replacing that as an industry.
dozens of foreign countries, that it will soon be expanded to more than twice its size. this town alone pulled in $54 million from visitors last year, people tracing the history of blues and rock through a string of historic sights throughout the region called the blues trail. cappie allen is with the county tourism commission. this year, so far we ve seen an increase of 13% in our tourism tax numbers. reporter: all of that in the middle of a recession? absolutely. we are open for business. reporter: some say the surge is because the blues speak to folks in hard times. some say it s because people here are doing a better job marketing their attractions. but bill, an owner of the blues club here, says whatever the cause, the results are undeniable. how important do you think that is to building up this part of america in these hard times? well, we have lost a lot of our factories, a lot of our base