Junior Kimbrough’s Juke Joint Blues (Video)
A 1990 Field Recording of Junior on His Home Turf
Early in the afternoon of Sunday, September 23, 1990, Peter Redvers Lee and I arrived at Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint a few miles outside of Holly Springs, Mississippi. At the time, I was a Visiting Southern Studies Scholar at the University of Mississippi’s Blues Archive. Peter was the Editor of Living Blues magazine. Our mission that day was to film Junior Kimbrough.
Even from 50 yards down the Mississippi highway, we could hear Junior’s Yamaha electric guitar and Fender Twin Reverb amp loud and clear. His juke, a rough-hewn log building, pulsed with his reverb-drenched notes and the bassist and drummer’s driving big beat. With Junior’s permission, I set up my 8mm video camera and began filming.
As he entered the front door, a field worker, refreshed with “corn liquor” moonshine peddled from a car trunk, threw up his hands and broke into a spontaneous Snake Hips dance. For nearly ten minutes, bass and drums pounded out a wrenching vamp beneath Junior’s potent, plaintive blues, which he often sang in unison with his single-note guitar lines. The next song worked a similar riff.
At the conclusion of his first set of the day, Junior stepped outside for an impromptu interview with Peter and me. “I play a different type of music from other people’s,” he told us. “They play the other kind of blues, and I’m playing cotton-patch blues. Ain’t nobody now can play the type of blues that I play.” Asked if some of the songs he played weren’t suitable for dancing, he responded, “Yeah. I play a lot of blues and write some blues where there’s no dance – real slow stuff. But they don’t want that. They want this music goin’ fast enough for ’em to cut up. They want to get out there and shake a little bit! It mostly be women, though, want to shake it like that.”
Good thing we arrived early. By the time our conversation ended and Junior resumed playing, so many patrons had crammed into his juke that it was impossible to get a clear shot of him playing. Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside and family continue to play until well after dark.
Here’s a link to the interview we did immediately after Junior’s performance: Junior Kimbrough's Juke Joint Interview
Thanks to Peter Redvers Lee for being my guide during my Mississippi sojourn, to Nik Hunt for prepping this video, and to Steve Weiss and Shaw Lentz at UNC’s Southern Folklife Collection.
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