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On January 8, 1935, Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi

Mississippi is a state well known for Music, and the Mississippi Truck Driver, brought a new era of music to the world, Rock and Roll, his fame and music are still the favorite of many people, even years after his death, his music will live for  centuries. He was a big man with a big heart, he will not be forgotten soon.

Historic river towns like Vicksburg and Natchez provide good reasons to stay off the interstates, and blues fans will need no encouragement to go exploring sleepy Delta settlements such as Alligator or Yazoo City.

Mississippi has very nice large Gambling Casinos along the Delta.

Along the Gulf Islands National Seashore , four beautiful barrier islands boast brilliant white sand and clear blue waters, while the 26-mile artificial Harrison County Beach runs parallel with the busy coast road between Biloxi.

Twelve thousand residents and eleven thousand students enable OXFORD , an enclave of wealth in a predominantly poor region, to blend rural charm with a busy nightlife. Its central square is archetypal smalltown America, but the leafy streets have a vaguely European air - the town named itself after the English city as part of its campaign to persuade the University of Mississippi , known as Ole Miss, to locate its main campus here.

When cotton was king - and slavery was as yet unchallenged - MISSISSIPPI was the nation's fifth wealthiest state. Since the Civil War, however, it has been the poorest, its dependence on cotton now a handicap that makes it victim to the vagaries of the commodities market. Widespread poverty has long endured alongside pockets of enormous riches, and white Mississippi was notorious for violent resistance to black political participation. Not until the early Seventies did the church bombings and murders come to an end, and no one could claim that racial tension has ceased to exist. To some extent, the economy has regenerated since Mississippi's first Republican governor in a century, Kirk Fordice , decided to legalize gambling; the giant casinos may be lumbering eyesores that seem pitifully out of place on the sweeping Delta flatlands, but they're sucking considerable revenues across the state line from Memphis, Tennessee. Even today, you only have to take a detour down some rural side road to encounter pockets of truly scandalous black poverty, but with the profits from gaming being ploughed into education in Mississippi's poorest counties, the state may finally manage to shake off its appalling reputation for inequality.

While the major city is the capital, Jackson , historic river towns like Vicksburg and Natchez provide good reasons to stay off the interstates, and blues fans will need no encouragement to go exploring sleepy Delta settlements such as Alligator or Yazoo City.

That Delta" is not in fact a delta at all; technically it's an alluvial flood plain, a couple of hundred miles short of the mouth of the Mississippi. The name stems from its resemblance to the fertile delta of the Nile (which also began at a city named Memphis ); the extravagant meanderings of the river on its way down to Vicksburg deposit enough rich topsoil to make this one of the world's finest cotton-producing regions.

The Delta is a land of scorching sun, parched earth, flooding creeks and thickets of bone-dry evergreens, best seen at dawn or dusk, when the glassy-smooth Mississippi waters reflect the sun and the foliage along the banks. Just containing the sheer volume of water is a never-ending battle, with giant levees struggling to protect the farmland. Though the main thoroughfare south is the legendary Hwy-61 , exploring is best done on the back roads, which are characterized by huge, silent empty views interrupted only by roadside shacks, tiny churches and the sound of the blues.

Mississippi's hundred-mile strip of coast is utterly unlike the rest of the state, culturally as well as physically - a strong Mediterranean (Catholic) heritage is conspicuous amid the subtropical beauty. Some of the towns are scarred by hurricanes, but the beaches are often superb. Along the Gulf Islands National Seashore , four beautiful barrier islands boast brilliant white sand and clear blue waters, while the 26-mile artificial Harrison County Beach runs parallel with the busy coast road between Biloxi , the major resort, and laid-back Pass Christian , with its fine live oaks.

Cutting its way south through Mississippi, I-55 acts as an approximate boundary between the Delta and the luscious green forests of the northeast . Of the area's small market towns, the most appealing are the old-style shopping center of Columbus , and Holly Springs , whose oak-lined streets hide one of the most extraordinary attractions in the state. The only other places of major interest in the region are genteel Oxford and tidy blue-collar Tupelo , birthplace of Elvis Presley

South of the Delta, the rich woodlands and meadows of central Mississippi are heralded by steep loess bluffs, holding engaging historic towns such as Vicksburg and Natchez . Driving is a real pleasure, especially along the unspoiled Natchez Trace Parkway - devoid of trucks, buildings and neon signs - which runs through Jackson and on up to Tupelo.