In this spectacular album of full-color photographs Birney Imes reveals a previously unexplored domain: the black juke joints of the Mississippi Delta. Imes transforms this phenomenon of Delta cultural life into something rich and strange. Introduced by Richard Ford.

Outside of Merigold, Mississippi, off an unmarked dirt road, stands Po’ Monkey’s, perhaps the most famous house in Mississippi and the last rural juke joint in the state, now closed to the public. Before the death of the lounge’s owner, Willie Seaberry, in 2016, it was a mandatory stop on the constant blues pilgrimage that flows through the Delta. Seaberry ran Po’ Monkey’s Lounge for more than fifty years, opening his juke joint in the 1960s. A hand-built tenant home located on the plantation where Seaberry worked, Po’ Monkey’s was a place to listen to music and drink beer—a place to relax where everyone was welcomed by Seaberry’s infectious charm. In Po’ Monkey’s: Portrait of a Juke Joint, photographer Will Jacks captures the juke joint he spent a decade patronizing. The more than seventy black-and-white photographs featured in this volume reflect ten years of weekly visits to the lounge as a regular—a journal of Jacks’s encounters with other customers, tourists, and Willie Seaberry himself. An essay by award-winning writer Boyce Upholt on the cultural significance of the lounge accompanies the images. This volume explores the difficulties of preservation, historical context, community relations, and cultural tourism. Now that Seaberry is gone, the uncertainty of the future of his juke joint highlights the need for a historical record.

In the swamps and juke joints of Holmes County, Mississippi, Edward Tillman Branch built his empire. Tillman's clubs were legendary. Moonshine flowed as patrons enjoyed craps games and well-known blues acts. Across from his Goodman establishment, prostitutes in a trysting trailer entertained men, including the married Tillman himself. A threat to law enforcement and anyone who crossed his path, Branch rose from modest beginnings to become the ruler of a treacherous kingdom in the hills that became his own end. Author Janice Branch Tracy reveals the man behind the story and the path that led him to become what Honeyboy Edwards referred to in his autobiography as the "baddest white man in Mississippi."

Juke joints in the state of Mississippi used to be as plentiful as cotton fields and dirt roads.Unfortunately, they are being torn down at an alarming rate and we have scoured the state to photograph and sharer some information about the ones that we were able to find.

Founder of Stovetopkisses, Danni Rose became an internet sensation after sharing favorite childhood memories and recipes synonymous with her fathers southern juke joint. Haywood's Place, Juke Joint Comfort Food will take foodies and their tastebuds on a flavorful, memorable and affordable experience throughout the southern belt of cooking! The book is filled with 50 plus mind blowing recipes using things you can find in your pantry. Like Danni Rose, her recipes are electric, unexpected, and packed with pop!

A graphic novel series chronicling the evolution of American music and culture from the 1930's to present.

Before there were guidebooks, there were just guides—people in the community you could count on to show you around. I'll Take You There is written by and with the people who most intimately know Nashville, foregrounding the struggles and achievements of people's movements toward social justice. The colloquial use of "I'll take you there" has long been a response to the call of a stranger: for recommendations of safe passage through unfamiliar territory, a decent meal and place to lay one's head, or perhaps a watering hole or juke joint. In this book, more than one hundred Nashvillians "take us there," guiding us to places we might not otherwise encounter. Their collective entries bear witness to the ways that power has been used by social, political, and economic elites to tell or omit certain stories, while celebrating the power of counternarratives as a tool to resist injustice. Indeed, each entry is simultaneously a story about place, power, and the historic and ongoing struggle toward a more just city for all. The result is akin to the experience of asking for directions in an unfamiliar place and receiving a warm offer from a local to lead you on, accompanied by a tale or two.

What's the real meaning of juke joint? Explore these special places for a special brand of the blues. Juke joint - two words often used, often abused. They convey an inherent promise of something real, edgy, from another time. All juke joints are blues clubs, but not all blues clubs are jukes. Here, artist recollections and insights delve below the murky surface to tell the tales, canonize the characters and explain the special brand of blues bottled in these quasi-legal establishments. Author Roger Stolle works from the inside to educate and entertain with a mix of history, anecdote and discovery. It's a wild ride.

The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake ("the devil's music"), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings. In this groundbreaking study, Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as "the crossroads" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own.

In this debut collection, Chanda Feldman's stunning poems unveil her childhood as well as that of her parents. Memories of desegregation, the days after the assassination of Dr. King, and what life was like for sharecroppers-- including the weddings, family feasts, and hardscrabble conditions that composed their lives-- unfold in this beautiful collection. Both timely and timeless, Feldmen presents a thoughtful and resonating first book.