{"id":1065,"date":"2024-06-27T01:37:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T01:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1065"},"modified":"2024-05-05T14:14:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T14:14:52","slug":"that-night-at-reds-juke-joint-third-daily-dose-of-the-mississippi-south-of-winona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1065","title":{"rendered":"That Night at Red’s Juke Joint [third daily dose of The Mississippi south of Winona]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That Night at Red\u2019s Juke Joint<\/span>\u00a0 [third daily dose of The Mississippi South of Winona<\/i>]<\/p>\n

Juke Joints are whatever you want to imagine, they just sound good even before you see one.*\u00a0 Red\u2019s doesn\u2019t look like much from the outside, no lights, just an old weathered sign.\u00a0 Walking in, it\u2019s like a basement, only on the first floor.\u00a0 $5 bucks at the door and $3 bucks for a beer \u2013 help yourself out of the ice chest.\u00a0 Red is lying on a couch watching the NBA on TV while the band is playing just to his left.\u00a0 There\u2019s no bartender, just a guy sitting in the audience to take your money, and no bar \u2013 just a bunch of tables and chairs and a counter stretching from front to back (maybe 25 feet) to set beers down on, all in a tender red glow of neon lights.\u00a0\"Reds<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s crowded and rowdy and everybody\u2019s friendly, like we\u2019re all in Red\u2019s living room and known each other forever.\u00a0 There was Mariana from Mexico, a guy from Amsterdam, Celia from NYC doing a piece for NPR on the catfish farm inspection issue, a rock band promoter from Florida, and his girlfriend, and even another twosome from Minnesota, Pam & Grant, plus maybe a dozen others, mostly local denizens.\u00a0 The Heather Crosse Trio<\/i> was playing old time soul, R & B, Boogie-Woogie and the Blues.<\/p>\n

From one end of the place to the other it was easy to start great conversations, and it really is the magic amongst the people as much as the music that makes a juke joint great.\u00a0 Not as much dancing as I\u2019d hoped, mostly just dancing in place, but then she walked in the door and I knew she was the one to ask to dance, beautiful, in her 30s and with her mom & dad \u2013 or so I thought.\u00a0\u00a0 Since the other two looked so much older I just assumed she was a wonderful daughter, bringing her mom & dad to see a juke joint.\u00a0 Being the conversationalist I am, I thought I\u2019d start with \u201cThis must be your mother and father,\u201d but no, with a rather icy glare I learned it was her fianc\u00e9 and a friend \u2013 so much for dancing.<\/p>\n

Turns out the Florida couple had checked into the same motel as me & Rich, so we ended the night hanging with them.\u00a0 Next morning on to Fred\u2019s Lounge in Mamou, Louisiana, the Cajun music capital of the world, and another Dawkins faux pas<\/i>, but that\u2019s another whole story.\u00a0 (Fred\u2019s is famous for its Saturday morning<\/span> dancing and has a sign, \u201cNo Standing on the Jukebox.\u201d)<\/p>\n

______<\/p>\n

*We all know what a jukebox is.\u00a0 Some of us know a shifty football halfback can \u201cjuke\u201d a tackler and run for a touchdown.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a nickname for jizz.\u00a0 But the actual derivation is from a Gullah word \u201cjoog\u201d meaning rowdy or disorderly – or, some say, from a Gaelic word spelled\u00a0d-e-o-c-h and pronounced \u201cjook\u201d meaning a drink.\u00a0 No matter the name, the places derive from plantation days and Jim Crow days when sharecroppers needed a community space to relax after a hard week\u2019s work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 That Night at Red\u2019s Juke Joint\u00a0 [third daily dose of The Mississippi South of Winona] Juke Joints are whatever you want to imagine, they just sound good even before you see one.*\u00a0 Red\u2019s doesn\u2019t look like much from the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1065"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3169,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions\/3169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}