Blues traveler: explore the byways of the Delta on a unique driving tour.

The Mississippi Delta is black-earth-rich in blues lore, and Tad Pierson knows where to dig for this music genre that was born around its mule barns and cotton gins.

Pierson conducts personalized tours to where the blues came to life and met up with rock 'n' roll. He drives blues aficionados-some from as far away as Norway, Brazil, and Australia--in a two-tone 1955 Cadillac dubbed "Mansfield."

Pierson believes the adage that "the Mississippi Delta begins at the fountain of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends at Catfish Row in Vicksburg." His Delta Day Trip begins in the Peabody lobby but normally doesn't dip below Greenville. His research--at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale and the Blues Archive at Ole Miss--assures him that he has most blues bases covered.

Pierson often stylizes his tours to the tastes of his passengers. Those who love the music of Muddy Waters, or maybe have more interest in the Robert Johnson legend, may get side trips to assuage their special interests.

Folks often request to see the crossroads where Johnson reputedly sold his soul to the devil for guitar lessons. "I doubt this happened," Pierson says. "It is a metaphor for the dark night of the soul. When tourists insist on going to the crossroads, I tell them, 'I can't show you the exact crossroads, but I can take you to some places where it may have happened."'

It is easier to guide tourists to the Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, where Muddy Waters lived in a sharecropper cabin before emerging as a premier blues performer. Sometimes Pierson drives his fares to the Dockery Farms outsiden Cleveland, where Charlie Patton grew up.

On his way out of Memphis, Pierson gives a quick account of the three "kings" of the city: Martin Luther King, Jr., Elvis Presley, and B.B. King. He relates the stories of the latter two coming from Mississippi, and he notes that they were once friends on fabled Beale Street.

Along the way, Mansfield passes the stomping grounds of Hound Dog Taylor and Floyd Dixon. In the plantation town of Robinsonville, Pierson stops the car at the Hollywood, an old juke joint memorialized in song by Marc Cohn.

When Pierson gets midway of the Arkansas bridge leading into Helena, he tunes the radio to KFFA at about the moment "Sunshine" Sonny Payne begins his "King Biscuit" program. Blues addicts all know about Sonny, an arbiter of the Delta blues for half a century.

"I don't tell the customers where we're going," Pierson says. "We get downtown and pull around the corner to where the studio is located. I say, 'Hi, there's the guy we're listening to,' and Sonny calls out for us to come in. He interviews the folks with me. It comes as a complete surprise."

Among those who have taken the Delta Day Trip are Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, supermodel Christy Turlington, soul singer Wilson Pickett, and the late Rufus ("Funky Chicken") Thomas.

The Delta Day Trip is one of several tours Pierson offers through his company, American Dream Safari. Pierson came up with the idea in 1989 when he inherited a 1950 Cadillac. He started his tours along Route 66, but he is now anchored in Memphis. "Essentially what I was looking for was...something classically American, and the blues certainly qualifies."

Above all, Pierson says he has fallen in love with the Delta, and he wants the world to learn about the blues legends who helped make it famous.

The cost of the Delta Day Trip is $225 per person (2 person minimum), including breakfast, lunch, and museum entrance fees. Call 901/527-8870 or see www.americandreamsafari.com.