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Blues Front Cafe, Bentonia, MS
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On this sunny, early weekday afternoon, in the midst of a 4,400 mile road trip, I crossed some railroad tracks and pulled up to a windowless, cinder block building in Bentonia, Mississippi, population 318. Here, in the shadow of the large, corrugated steel Blue Front Cotton Gin building, was is said to be the oldest juke joint in Mississippi -- and probably in the world, looking like it probably barely changed since opening in 1948. The tiny community of Bentonia has become of genre, "Bentonia Blues," developed by Henry Stuckey and Skip James, and inherited by Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, the owner of the Blue Front Cafe since his father died in 1970, and currently making his way inside the joint. On my road trip I would see several great historical bars across the south, a number of beautiful antique back bars, tiki bars, beach bars, and some of the most enjoyable craft cocktails I've ever had. But it was this place, utterly authentic and wearing its history as if preserved in amber, that was my favorite stop of the trip, and one of my very favorite bar stops ever.
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Jimmy "Duck" Holmes
Bluesman and owner of the Blue Front Cafe |
I felt immense good fortune to find Jimmy there during my visit, and to have the opportunity to chat with the legendary bluesman and bar owner. Jimmy's parents Carey and Mary Holmes founded the Blue Front in 1948, serving "buffalo fish" and moonshine to Yazoo County cotton workers, along with blues played by locals and itinerant bluesmen traveling up Highway 49. The place is old enough that Jimmy's parents weren't allowed to serve Coca-Cola. "... nor could black customers purchase it or other items reserved for whites anywhere in Bentonia; African Americans were allowed only brands such as Nehi and Double Cola." (
msbluestrail.org) Perhaps ironically or perhaps not, the sign now out front is framed by Coca-Cola logos.
The particular brand of haunting blues music that arose in these parts is largely defined by it's tuning.
"It’s where Henry Stuckey and Skip James traded licks, and where both men indoctrinated Jimmy in the style known as Bentonia blues. That genre is the result of Stuckey learning open-minor-key tunings from Bahamian servicemen during World War I, and incorporating them into the sounds of home—then teaching his music to Skip James, who remains the style’s most famous exponent. (Check out James’ “Devil Got My Woman” for a case of the Bentonia willies.) Rarely can we point to a single town, let alone a single place, where a distinctive musical style ignited and was nurtured, to eventually reach the world. Bentonia and the Blue Front are such a place." (
premierguitar.com)
"Bentonia is a strange, more ominous idiom. Its unsettling sound hinges partly on a guitar player’s spidery fingerpicking, which frequently requires the use of all ten fingers. Perhaps most important, the Bentonia style is played in a minor-key tuning, making it sound tense and dark, with repeating motifs and ringing open strings plucked without a hand on the fretboard. The result is a droning, hypnotic character. And unlike the comfortingly predictable 12-bar blues most people are familiar with—think of “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley or “The Thrill Is Gone” by B.B. King—Bentonia blues has a loose structure. There is no chorus, no set number of times to repeat a musical pattern. The overall effect is “spooky in a way, but really beautiful,” says Dan Auerbach, frontman for the blues-rock group the Black Keys, whose Nashville-based recording label Easy Eye Sound produced Holmes’ 2019 album Cypress Grove, which was nominated for a Grammy Award." (
Smithsonian Magazine)
Jimmy Duck was born in 1947, just one year before his parents started the place, and one of ten children and four cousins that grew up in his parents’ home. He's now 76, I believe, but still on top of local music enough to recommend a place that night a few blocks to my hotel in downtown Jackson. Since 1972 he has hosted the "Bentonia Blues Festival on the third Saturday of June, attracting blues fans from around the world. Fans also come to the bar from around the world, although on this day it was a smattering of locals hanging out. And increasingly blues artists and other performers have come to jam and sometimes record (e.g.
the Black Keys).
On this lazy afternoon, Jimmy chatted about the place and, upon learning where I was from, about places he'd played in Pennsylvania, with me often straining to hear him over the news blaring from the television above. I loved that I had this time to chat with him, but I also feel like I won't really know the place before I've come on some evening when the music is playing and the joint is hopping. That's going to go high on my list of priorities for future trips.
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