[Reporter] One small sliver of the American South
has supplied the world with an endless harvest of music.
The blues, country, rock and roll. All born near the Mississippi Delta.
Bill "Howl-N-Madd" Perry describes in just one word
the deadly year that silenced so much music.
Hell.
♫ ♫
[Reporter] Now the fertile crescent of American song is sprouting back to life.
In Clarksdale, Mississippi as in much of America.
The show is back on and normalcy never sounded sweeter
This is what keeps the spirit inside of me alive.
Without that audience I'm lost, man.
You get used to something
and it is snatched away from you.
It hurts, it hurts real bad.
Oh and now it's back.
Now, it's back and I loved it.
[Reporter] This town is known for its blues.
Many clubs like Ground Zero have just reopened after sitting silent for one year.
It trickled down to nothing.
We went from a city that had live music every single day
to only one maybe two venues being open.
So what exactly are we looking at here. So these are plastic partitions.
[Reporter] It's back open with new protective glass and a new optimism.
Oh, I'm thinking about the brighter, the brighter days, the brighter side.
I think, I think in my heart of hearts... I think it's going to get better.
I think the vaccine, the vaccine is going to help a lot.
[Reporter] This region has been deserted once before.
Millions fled the South in pursuit of a better life to cities like Chicago, Detroit, New York.
Some stayed closer to home.
In nearby Memphis
BB King's blues club one of the city's best-known venues
almost went out of business.
But now it's half full again.
Customers are coming back and face masks are coming off.
You all excited to be here?
Yeah.
I'm Graham. I'll be your tour guide.
[Reporter] Tourists are returning to one of the city's best known destinations.
Sun Studio.
As we listen to tunes down here you'll be hearing them bounce off the same walls
that recorded them.
[Reporter] Guide Graham Winchester talks about the legends that got their start here.
BB King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Elvis.
We can listen in on the moment that he debuted Elvis on public radio.
♫ ♫
This is a room that people come from all over the world to stand in
and to think that even like one person couldn't get that experience
while we were closed bums me out.
[Reporter] But Graham doesn't just talk about music.
He can really, really play it.
♫ ♫
He plays in nine bands, teaches and gives tours.
In this past year, everything dried up.
To pay the bills he repurposed furniture.
Now Graham's gig schedule is filling up
and he's shared tears with fans at his first shows.
This pandemic has truly changed like the way that we feel about music
and how grateful we are to play it and go see it.
I mean it it's not just something
you say, it really is real.
[Reporter] A few hours east in Nashville is the Grand Ole Opry
the cathedral of country music
and its pews are packed again.
It's just reopened to full capacity.
Its mask requirement gone.
♫ ♫
[Reporter] Bluegrass star Rhonda Vincent is back playing for crowds.
The pandemic kept the Grammy winner from touring for the first time in decades.
My husband and I have been married now 37 years
so we had never been together that long you know consistently, continuously
in our 37 years because I had always been traveling
so I think at first it was like this is fun and then you know I think everyone
was after a while it's like, well you know don't you need to do something?
Don't you need to go somewhere?
[Reporter] Tonight, she's performing a parody song about being locked down at home.
♫ I ain't been nowhere man.
I ain't been nowhere...
♫ ♫
[Reporter] In downtown Nashville, the bars are hopping again, sidewalks are jammed
and masks here? Forget it. Those are long gone.
Never mind that this pandemic is not actually over
or that this region is among the least vaccinated in the country.
Fewer people here have gotten a first shot than in Canada.
I'm back, I'm ready to do what I love to do.
Howl N Madd got his shots and he's ready
like all the artists we spoke to to get back out on the road.
Ain't going to stop so when I stop they'll be pushing me in that oven.
You know to light up the fire and everything it'll be over with then.
Until that time I'm gonna be out here booking, joking and having fun.
OK.
♫ ♫
[Reporter] This pandemic has been a bit like a blues shuffle.
The chords keep repeating up and down again and again
but this country is more hopeful
that maybe this one uplifting high note might carry forever.
Alexander Panetta, CBC News, Memphis