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In this series, renowned pianist Jools Holland travels through the USA in search of the roots of jazz, blues, soul and rock’n’roll. In each programme he visits a historically significant building in a different city and talks to fellow musicians, historians and other interested parties to build up a picture of how a particular music has developed, and to explore the communities that grow up around those musics today.

And because it’s Jools, he can’t turn down the opportunity to play a bit as well!

In this third episode Holland drives from Nashville to Clarksdale in Mississippi to visit the Riverside Hotel, the place where the great blues singer Bessie Smith died and which gave shelter to virtually every great African American musician during the Jim Crow era.

He learns the secrets of the hotel – including a visit to the room where rock’n’roll was invented! – and tours the surrounding area to explore the history of the plantation town where the blues comes from, and whose former residents include Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sam Cooke, Ike Turner and – perhaps more surprisingly – playwright Tennessee Williams.

Jools spends a riotous night at Redd’s, the last surviving juke joint in the area and whose barman is Clarksdale’s Senate representative and sits in with the teenage guitar prodigy Kingfish for an electrifying set proving that the blues is in safe hands today.

Image: The Riverside Hotel, Clarksdale (Credit: Getty Images)