The Blue Room Essay Poem by Barry Middleton

The Blue Room Essay



The blues in Mississippi
were there in slavery days.
By 1937, the blues ruled
the juke joints and cafes
on the dark side of town.
I checked the local spots
in the wide open sixties
but never once dreamed,
I was a scant forty miles
from a sacred blues shrine,
the storied Blue Room.
I must forgive myself,
too young for the heyday,
I missed the best of it.
Half and half Tom Wince
owned the famous place,
opened as a beer stand
when he was twenty seven.
It grew, became his house,
ballroom and restaurant,
bar and rowdy dance hall.
The Jitterbug Den room
was lined in split bamboo.
Top acts played upstairs
in the Skyline Ballroom.
Tom's riding jodhpurs
ballooned to hide a pistol,
everyone knew that,
so there was no trouble.
It was a high class joint,
whites always welcome
along with wealthy blacks
or the poorest sharecropper.
Whites crowded the place
when Louis Armstrong played.
The talent was impressive,
I can't name them all here,
Ray Charles, Fats Domino,
B.B. King, Dinah Washington,
Little Milton, Muddy Waters.
Tom Wince's wide influence
extended to other businesses,
he was a blues promoter,
the biggest in Mississippi,
booking for Ruby's Nite Spot
and the New Club Desire
in nearby Leland and Canton.
Progress ended it all in 1972.
A new club was opened in 1974
but it wasn't the Blue Room.
Wince died in 1978,
a young 68 years old.
It all says to me don't wait,
look around you, go do it,
or it may be long gone
when you decide it's time.
The symbol of the Blue Room
was a star above its door.
Now the star emblazons
Tom Wince's quiet grave
in Vicksburg's cemetery.

Monday, May 16, 2016
Topic(s) of this poem: blues
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