Blind Buddy and Mojo's Blues Band

Chapter One Saturday night and a full moon can be a menacing combination at any night spot on the low side of town where folks are throwing off the restrictions of a hard work week and partying without boundaries. Such a place was Aunt Martha’s Blues and Barbecue Shack where the crowd filled every seat, stood two deep at the bar, and lined the walls. All the elements for trouble echoed in the rumble of voices and raucous music that rose up and reverberated out into the night. In the days before World War II, they would have called a place like Aunt Martha’s a juke joint. Today, it is an unpainted plank building on the edge of Memphis frequented by working class black folks and white blues lovers. None of the chairs matched and some of the tables were discards from people’s houses. In the old days they sold bootleg liquor in jelly jars. Now, the bar offered only beer and wine. But there was a kitchen that served barbecue smothered with a spicy red sauce and chunky home fries ordered through a square cut in the interior wall. Pork ribs, catfish and chicken were cooked out behind the building on an oil drum cut in half and filled with hickory chips. Its smoke bellowed gray against the dark night and a rich aroma filled the air. A jump blues tune went on, blasting out the door propped open with a chair wedged against the knob, providing breathing air and cooling relief for the sweating bodies on the dance floor. The beat could be felt in the hard-pack dirt parking lot where whiskey was drunk from bottles tipped up and passed around; where murky deals involving drugs and contraband went down; and couples had sex in cars because waiting until they got home seemed unreasonable and not nearly as exciting. The place wasn’t owned by anybody’s Aunt Martha, but by a short, chubby black man named Jake Washington who wore multiple diamond rings on his fingers and carried rolls of hundred dollar bills in the bib pocket of his overalls. He was a shrewd and successful man who preyed on his own people; a slum lord who dabbled in numbers, drugs and prostitution. He moved in a dangerous world. In this world, on this Saturday night, Blind Buddy and Mojo’s Blues Band took the stage at Aunt Martha’s Blues and Barbecue Shack.