Musical Interlude: Juke Joints and Honky Tonks

Spaces of community and freedom.

Low-class people create their own spaces. These are places of freedom and community building. And just fun and respite from the hardships of life.

Within African-American culture, the Juke Joint is the standout example. Essentially these were a working-class counterpoint to the ‘supper clubs’ more affluent whites might frequent. With official (in the South) and unofficial but effective (in the North) segregation, Blacks built their own parallel institutions. Jukes were not registered or recognized establishments, usually operating out of someone’s home or the backroom of a business. They served up food, gambling, probably other disreputable goods, and MUSIC. A relative of mine ran an ‘after-hours’ gambling joint back in the day. From what I can tell, similar institutions still exist.

We might want to think of what building a stealthy para-institution looks like.

R.L. Burnside performance in a Juke, circa 1970 (interesting, given the setting and the subject matter, that this song basically follows a sacred path in its hypnotic repetition):

His grandson, Cedric Burnside, on the Juke Joint:

In the even more decentralized regions of Appalachia, the party moved around to various mining camps and revivals and whatnot.

Dock Boggs was a miner and traveling musician singing Country Blues in the 1920s (recorded here in the 60s):

Eventually, the Honky Tonk developed as the venue for ‘hillbilly’ music. The nomenclature goes back to earlier disreputable establishments, however, in its recent usage it basically refers to a low-cost venue playing country music and possibly offering dancing and possibly, again, more disreputable goods and services.

Both ‘juke’ and ‘honky-tonk’ may derive from ‘bawdy’ via different paths.Both Juke Joints and Honky Tonks are integral to the development of some of America’s best musical forms. Think I’ll go Honky Tonkin’ now (for the music)…

Happy New Year!