I heard about a blues joint down near Cleveland, Mississippi called Poor Monkey's. Pronounced Po Monkey. They way they tell it, this is an "authentic" jook house, or jook joint. They say the proprietor, Mr. Willie Seaberry, has had the nickname Po Monkey most of his life, and he's been running this joint for 50 years. The story is that "way back in the day" houses were used on weekends for the "jook house." Someone on the farm would volunteer to let their house be the party house for the weekend, and that 'jook' is a derivative of an African word that meant "sin" or some such. They tell that Mr. Seaberry runs is place pretty much that way, choosing to live where he works, and using most of it for his party house, and saving a bit off to the back for his bedroom.
So I Went Saturday night down to 'Poor Monkey's' on Hwy 61 about 30 miles south of Clarskdale. They said it's not live music all the time, can't afford it. But I'd heard there was live blues Saturday and I had a wild hair to go. It was a good time. They said he has a d.j. most nights when he can't afford a band and the dj specializes in blues and r&b for him. Opens Thur, Fri, Sat. The door was $5, which I thought very reasonable for live music.
His bit of fun is to change into outfits all night long, but it was a slow night so he was just on his second set of clothes when we left. He's quite a character. The way they had talked about him, I thought he'd look way older and a bit crazy. But he was actually a very nice man, pretty fit and trim, with a wicked sense of humor. Don't go if you can't take a dirty joke. They say he's got over a dozen suits in his back bedroom that he changes into all night long.
If there was anything at all I didn't like, it was all the darned under aged college kids. I think I'm really just bitter because the guy at the door seemed to let them all in fer-free, and they were too young to even drink. And I heard him say something to someone else about not being able to afford a band all the time and I thought, 'Well, if all them darned kids had paid five bucks like me, that would be an extra $100 in the till for ya.' But it ain't my shop. And I don't know that those kids didn't . . . . I don't know. . . raise money at the school for the group, . . . or something. But if you take out that bitter moment of mine, it was great fun. The guy at the door was a guy from the blues foundation/delta foundation or whatever at a nearby college. So he knew all those kids.
The place is a shack. As my mother would say 'pur-dee' Just a pur-dee shack. (Pure, I'm not sure why the 'dee') It is as shacky on the inside as it looks on the outside. A hodge podge of tables, chairs, and a pool table, and the bathroom is, as they say 'for peeing, not pooping.' Plywood floors and a ceiling just covered with stuffed monkeys, old pictures, etc. Crazy place. Crazy.
Well worth the 100 mile drive from my house. I thought the blues band was real good and his beer was reasonably priced. Not trying to make a profit on the limited beer bar. There'a Smirnoff ice (normal red label) and Mike's Hard Lemonade for the girls, and probably 4 other kinds of beers. I think I saw Bud Light, Heineken, and something else, plus cans of Coke and Diet Coke. The bar is a half door looking into his kitchen with a plastic candy container nailed to the door frame for tips. They sell t-shirts for $20 and I wanted one real bad, but I just couldn't come off the $20 for it. I'd already budgeted a tank of gas for the trip and that was about all I could give to the cause.
They say on live music nights you have to get there early, but when we left about 10p.m., there still wasn't but 30 other people in there ~ most being those college people.
Po Monkey (Mr. Seaberry) had a lady running the bar, and his best friend from Marks, Mississippi was there. He's a white gentleman who makes some kind of iron artwork. And has a thick Louisiana cajun accent. At least to me he did. A friend of mine from Helena said she knew of the guy's artwork and had seen it driving through Marks.
On the way down 61, I can recommend stopping in Clarksdale at the old train depot and eating the ribs. They're delicious. Not really dry rub. Mose like smoked with a thick layer of black pepper corns rubbed in. I think the sauce on the side was just a KC Masterpiece or something. But the pork itself was delicious. The all you can eat rib buffet was $16 - the bones were big and meaty. If you don't make the mistake of filling up on cole slaw, you can get $16 worth of ribs easy. They brought them to you, didn't let you put them on your plate. But they brought them 'round as much as you could eat them. The cheeseburger was fine, as far as cheeseburgers go. You could tell the patty was handmade. I had the homemade chips. They were good, but I really needed something on them. But that's just me. The staff were all very nice, the waitress was just a doll. The owner, a Mr. Ledbetter, seemed very nice. He said, 'I've got the best cook in town' and I believe him.
The old train station his restaurant is in is pretty, too, in that old brick building sort of way. The institutional grey marble is original I'm sure. On the back, the brick porte co chere / patio is kind of pretty. The trains no longer run but the track is raised up on a levee. He told me the tunnel (chained off) was a walk throug tunnel and had two stairs leading up to the train. One for blacks, one for whites. Built in the 1920's. Mr. Ledbetter pointed out the window at the Greyhound station we had seen and said, "We used to have trains and buses. Now we don't have either." He also told me had to get away from blues because "locals don't come for the blues." So now he has karaoke on Wednesday nights and it's a full house. So he mainly gets live Blues during festival seasons for all the tourists.
The place is all rather too far from Memphis to go real regular, with the price of gas. But I think I'll go back, and it'll be worth the trip. It's just more of a save-up, considering the distance. But it's worth another trip.
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