A delta is, IIRC, the area of low, usually marshy ground often formed at the outflow of a river. Originally named for the triangular shape of the Nile Delta. So the Yazoo can very well have a delta. (Jill, send my brownie points to…)
The other point is that residents of an area can name it whatever the heck they want to, and the rest of us have to live with it. After Hurricane Floyd, Rocky Mount NC was largely under water. Why? Because it lies on the coastal plain. AFAIK, there is nothing rocky or mountainous anywhere in the vicinity. (BTW, the city’s name is pronounced Raw-kee Maount, with the vowel from “tao”)
I’ve been to a wedding on the Mississippi Delta (ex-girlfriend’s uncle). I thought I would be on a triangular-shaped piece of land at the mouth of a river. In fact, I was on an area of flat land, with no river in sight. Here are some maps of the delta. http://www.leveeboard.org/district2.htm
The web site refers to it as the “Yazoo Mississippi-Delta,” but my ex-girlfriend and her family always refered to it as the “Mississippi Delta” or just “the Delta.”
Although, if I’d read the mailbag article, or at least sung some Allman Bros lyrics in my head, I would have realized that the Mississippi Delta that I discussed and the “Delta” in the song (mouth of the Mississippi River - in New Orleans) are two different areas. Duh. OK, I’ll shut up now.
> The point that the Yazoo meets the
> Mississippi is the Yazoo Delta, not the
> Mississippi Delta.
Man, doesn’t anybody do research anymore? The area Scott and I referred to is indeed the Mississippi Delta (between Vicksburg and Memphis). That’s what the people who live there call it, and that’s what any musician who refers to it certainly means - as it is famous as the birthplace of many Blues greats. These include Muddy Waters, BB King, Willie Dixon, Son House, and many others.
> When you factor in culture, it’s easy to
> call the Mississippi Delta, the area all
> the way back to Memphis. BUT, to try to
> exclude Louisianna from “the Delta”, I
> think is a mistake. (sorry Jill) I don’t
> think that the state of Mississippi has any
> claim on the Mississippi Delta except that
> a lot of the state is included.
Sorry, but you’re just wrong. As far as popular usage and history (and music) the term “Mississippi Delta” refers to the area mentioned above. It maybe contains a tiny piece of Louisiana, but nearly all is in Mississippi.
Check out the National Geographic article I mentioned above. That is certainly not the only source, but it’s an easy one.
MikeZ (who trusts National Geographic over strangers on the Web when it comes to geography)
C’mon, MikeZ, you hang around here long enuf, you’ll find lots of people who know better than Natl Geographic, Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and other so-called “authorities” … they know 'cause their gramma or best friend’s cousin told 'em.
Ok, I concede. I made a mistake in trusting the dictionary (not gramma or my best friend’s cousin) for the definition of delta . And somehow, without thinking it through, I thought deltas were named for the rivers that created them, with or without having the word “river” in the name. And if all musicians refer to “the delta” as from Vicksburg north to Memphis, then the musician that wrote the Ramblin Man’ went from Nashville to New Orleans because the Delta women loved him so, … well he missed the whole area. I have lived in the south all my life and had always considered “the delta” to include all of the lower Mississippi River area, both sides of the river and all the way to the Gulf. But, obviously, since National Geographics has it’s definition, there is NO discussion on that subject or “the administrator” will insult you.
Well, it’s not just National Geographic’s definition, as I stated earlier. I agree that it doesn’t seem seem correct or logical - but it is so.
Note that in the song, they don’t use the term “Mississippi Delta” (only delta). I’ve only been arguing about the meaning of that phrase, not where the singer was actually heading.
i think the real question is 'what is so appealing about greg allman, that delta women love so much?'have you ever seen him? and where can i get some of that charm?
Well shucks, I don’t look in on this forum that often, so I forgot about this thread. I have that issue of NG and sure enough, as MikeZ points out, p. 49 of that issue has a map that depicts an area running from Memphis to Vicksburg as the Mississippi Delta.
Trouble is, I run into the term almost weekly and nobody I’m talking to is talking about that part of the world. They’re talking about the Mississippi Delta that begins (I’m not looking at a map right now) about at Lake Ponchatrain and drags on out into the Gulf. They don’t stick “River” in there when they talk about it. So, I decided to query a denizen therein, my little sister, and ask her what “Mississippi Delta” meant and her response coincided with what I had thought. So, there are at least two parts of the USA regionally thought of as the Mississippi Delta.
The Allman Brothers having been a band of good ol’ southern blues-rockers, surely they must have been tuned into the Mississippi Delta as per NG. Right? Makes sense that that’s what they’re referring to.
Until you look at the verse in question.
“I’m on my way to New Orleans this mornin’
Leaving out of Nashville, Tennessee,
They’re always having a good time down on the bayou,
Lord, them Delta women think the world of me.”
Both the New Orleans destination (well w/in the alternate Mississippi Delta) and the bayou reference have got me thinking nobody but Dicky Betts can answer the question of which Delta women he referred to.
