Here in Clarksdale, however, the sound of a voice singing pure, plaintive blues spilled from a broken-down house on a recent afternoon.

"I say I'll marry you anywhere, anytime, all he does is give you a broken-down house and he's the one gets kissed."

It was just the two of them sitting before a fire in his broken-down house on the Cape.

"For a broken-down house," he said grudgingly, "they'll give you a million and get you out of there."

The remaining robbers land the plane and head for a broken-down house.

Me shooting off like this in a broken-down old house without even a cent to my name!

The poverty rate is 30 percent and above in both places, barely perceptible interruptions of broken-down houses on remote rural roadways.

When Martin is released, he buys a rotting, broken-down house in the middle of nowhere.

He remembers a childhood in Florida: broken-down little houses in the black section of St. Petersburg, nine kids, no food, no future.

I let myself in and moved silently through the gloom and tension of the broken-down house.