Grand Opening of the West Baton Rouge Museum’s Juke Joint Exhibit

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Lucie Monk Carter

A new permanent exhibit at the West Baton Rouge Museum will interpret the rich blues heritage of West Baton Rouge. The Juke Joint grand opening is a tribute to Slim Harpo with living legends Henry Gray and Carol Fran along with tomorrow’s legends Carter Wilkerson and the Riverside Blues Band and Rudy “Trey” Richard, III. The museum will be frying fish and serving up Juke Joint beer from Tin Roof and the all new “Baby Scratch My Back” cocktail invented just for the new joint by Cane Land Distilling Company.

Juke joints have a history that is deeply rooted in small towns throughout the south. West Baton Rouge was famous for the juke joints that provided relief to the workers coming in from the sugarcane fields and long hard days of work on the Mississippi River. The night time establishments in West Baton Rouge Parish drew crowds as the Blue Laws of East Baton Rouge did not apply on the west side. You could hear live music playing all night through open windows across the canebrake. Ernest Gaines is quoted in his memoir, Mozart to Leadbelly, “Baton Rouge was a dry town on Sundays; so I…would go across the Mississippi River into Port Allen, into The White Eagle bar.” Gaines recalls hearing Bobby Rush, Bobby Blue Bland and Ernie K-Doe in The White Eagle.

Be prepared to dance and share your juke joint stories from West Baton Rouge Parish. 6:30 pm. westbatonrougemuseum.com. Read more about the museum in our April 2018 feature on Port Allen.