Always Be Selling

Roger Stolle is every bit the promoter.

The Dayton, Ohio, native and longtime blues fan left a corporate marketing job to open Cat Head Delta Blues and Folk Art Inc. in Clarkesdale, Miss. Stolle's mission is "Promote from within," a strategy he uses to market his store, blues music and Mississippi. He said he doubts his venture would have been successful were it not for his 13 years of marketing experience.

Stolle's experience didn't go to waste. His Journalism Week presentation was informative and entertaining, but afterward I started wondering if he had been trying to sell us something. He played video clips from the documentary on blues musician Big George Brock and the new blues-pilgrimage movie "M for Mississippi," which was filmed in the Mississippi Delta this spring. Yes, they were perfect examples of the culture that Cat Head is trying to preserve, but was there another motive behind showing those clips?

I just wonder what Stolle thought when an audience member asked where he could buy "M for Mississippi."