“The Deltaz” may be from California, but they were so impressed with Clarksdale to the point where they decided to give their band a local name.
Guitarist Ted Siegel, his brother drummer and harmonica player John Siegel and bass guitar player Zach Zmed from “The Deltaz,” an Americana, blues and country band, played at Bluesberry Café Monday night. Ted and John Siegel are the singers.
Ted Siegel told the story of how the band’s name originated.
“We got it from right here,” he said. “I took a trip here when I was 16 years old and fell in love with blues music, fell in love with Mississippi Delta and decided to take our band name after this beautiful place here.”
“The Deltaz” band formed when the members were teenagers, but Ted Siegel said they came up with the name around 15 years ago. He was 17 years old at the time.
“My brother, he had the name for the Deltas and I had the Z,” John Siegel said. “It just made us unique.”
They put the word Delta and letter Z together and came up with the name “Deltaz.”
The band members grew up in Los Angeles, Calif., but relocated right outside of Nashville, Tenn. They moved to Nashville for the music.
Ted Siegel said blues is his favorite type of music. “The Deltaz” come to Clarksdale on and off, but had not been here in a couple of years.
“Part of the reason we moved to Nashville was so that we could be closer to here,” Ted Siegel said.
He said he and John Siegel travel six months out of the year throughout the country and overseas.
“We, for some reason, haven’t been in Mississippi as much,” Ted Siegel said. “I feel bad about it. I wish we were here more.”
He said his first visit to Clarksdale was for a Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival in around 2005.
“We learned about it (Clarksdale) from the music that we love,” Ted Siegel said. “All of our favorite musicians are from here.”
He named musicians Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Ike Turner and Sam Cooke.
Some of Ted Siegel’s favorite blues songs to play are "Rollin' Stone," “Love In Vain,” “Hell Hound on My Trail” and “Come On in My Kitchen.” He also likes William “Watermelon Slim” Homans’ songs.
“We just repeatedly had music experiences here that we just (enjoyed),” Ted Siegel said. “We met Slim here at Red’s (Blues Club) in 2014. We’ve played with him several times since, got to see him in Los Angeles.
“We have a lot of good musical memories here.”
