You see, just finding the Poor Monkey Lounge isn’t easy. I asked directions from an older gentleman wearing bib overalls and a straw hat as he walked down the shady side of First Street in tiny (pop 428), downtown Merigold, MS. “You ain’t from around here are you,” he responded, with a squint and just a bit of disdain. His face brightened slightly as he proceeded to give me directions. I got lost anyway.
Po’ Monkey’s sits on the edge of a cotton field, on a gravel farm road, just a few miles west of Merigold in Bolivar County. This is Mississippi Delta Blues Country and Po’ Monkey’s is a must stop for any blues aficionado traveling the Highway 61 Blues Trail. Originally a sharecropper’s house dating from the1920s, the Poor Monkey Lounge was opened in 1963 by Willie Seaberry. It is the only rural juke joint left in the Delta. You can count on Po’ Monkey’s to be open around 8:30 every Thursday with the music and dancing continuing until the wee hours of Friday morning. Many folks in the Delta believe the weekend starts then.
Sadly, Willie Seaberry passed away earlier this year and the fate of Po’ Monkey’s is anything but certain. But the blues will live on. That is certain.
Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.
___Amy Winehouse
RMW
27 Nov 2016Love all the signage, great photo collage
fotograffer
7 Dec 2016Thank you and thanks for visiting.
maristravels
27 Nov 2016God, I feel I just love that place.
fotograffer
7 Dec 2016It’s a place where you can get your blues on for sure. Thanks Mari
nomad, interrupted
27 Nov 2016Great sign, and the photo sets a moody atmosphere.
fotograffer
6 Dec 2016Thank you Cathy. 🙂
Bonsai
27 Nov 2016This is where the magic happens…intimately.
fotograffer
6 Dec 2016Indeed, and for many, many years. Thanks, Stacy.
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
27 Nov 2016I almost dropped the laptop! You’re in my the stomping grounds of my childhood! I have a scar on my leg from climbing the (shhhhh) Merigold water tower when I was in high school… a friend lived a short distance from tower, so over the fence we went one night and up to the top.. wow, such a great panaromic view of those Delta flatlands!
Are you in the flatlands now or was this from an earlier visit?
Z
fotograffer
6 Dec 2016I knew you were from the Delta, just not where exactly. What childhood memories. Have you been to Po’ Monkey’s? We drove the Blues Trail from Memphis to New Orleans a few years ago. Great trip!
shubhammansingka
29 Nov 2016This is so cool. That collage has an old world charm :))
fotograffer
6 Dec 2016Thank you so much. I am enjoying experimenting with compositing.