“We had to ask the owner of Abe’s BBQ in Clarksdale how to get there. His hand-written directions on the back of a napkin was our GPS for this shack at the edge of a cornfield. Don’t expect signs to point you there. Heck, don’t even expect signs with road names. It opens around eight and gets going at about nine or ten. There was a $5 cover charge. Give the lady at the door a $20 and tell her to keep it. It will be worth double that. The place is a tiny two room shack that has a ceiling so low in the middle that you have to bend down to get from one side to the other. If it is hot outside, it will be hot inside Po’ Monkey’s. The tables are covered in sticky shelf liner that is peeling. The chairs range from school cafeteria rejects to bench seats from an old pickup truck. A whole army of stuffed and dusty monkeys intertwined with Christmas lights cover the ceiling. This isn’t meant to be retro cool decor. This is years of careful collecting by Po’ Monkey himself. Mr. Seaberry made us feel more welcome than we have ever felt any place in my life. It felt like he was sincerely glad we came. We stayed for hours and loved every minute of it.”

TB, North Carolina. Trip Advisor (Summer, 2016).

When he shuffled off this mortal coil in 2016, the small part of the world mourned. Po’ Monkey wasn’t a musician, or a singer, though he loved the blues. And he didn’t go out of his way to make himself — or his shack — an international name, let alone a local one. It kind of just happened that way. Po’ Monkey, alias Willie Seaberry, was a simple country guy who loved the concept of family in its broadest sense and making sure y’all had a good time. It didn’t matter if you were Black, or white, or any colour for that matter. Po’ Monkey had seen and entertained them all, and he was just glad you came by. But now with Bolivar County’s iconic figure gone, it was the end of an era in this part of the delta, and another nail in the coffin for the juke joint as an authentic institution.

A DYING BREED

OK, so they do still exist, at least in a fashion. Urban juke joints were a thing for a while, appearing in places like St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago after the Black Migration headed north up the Mississippi and its tributaries. But eventually those establishments disappeared. Same thing happened on the east coast. Today there are still reminders in the big cities of the importance of juke joints as social hubs. Consider the House of Blues, modelled loosely on the Hard Rock Café concept. These are highly commercialised chains of course. Homage is paid to Deep South history but with all the modern comforts, slick merchandising and air conditioning expected by its patrons. No three-dollar beers to be found here.

Meanwhile back on the Mississippi Delta, there are still a few juke joints left, dotted around for music enthusiasts and Blues Trail road trippers to discover, but be quick as they won’t be here forever. Each joint has, or did have, their own unique charm; the Blue Front Café in Bentonia is one survivor that has been operating since the 1940s, and remains a favourite with road trippers who like their experiences a bit off the beaten track.

Po’ Monkey’s had a particular local and historical significance though. Even when word got out and it was in danger of becoming overrun by tourists, the little country shack lost none of its rustic simplicity, or its soul. That was the core of its appeal.

ORIGINS

The origins of the juke joint go back as you’d care to explore. These informal establishments of social necessity provided a welcome respite to the searing heat, sweat and humidity of the day. They were essentially an extension of the one-room jookhouse dwellings, where field workers and sharecroppers could wind down after a hard day in the rice and cotton fields.

Going back further to the days of slavery and early emancipation, plantation community rooms and barrelhouses of farms performed a similar function. The provision of these facilities were less an expression of the slavemasters’ or employers’ concern for the social welfare of their workers, than a way to make sure that everybody was accounted for and present on site.

When the 20th century arrived, the juke joint served as a Jim Crow-free shelter for drinking, gambling and dancing. It was also here in the Delta where the blues was born of course, with the likes of Robert Johnson, Son House and other great early musicians and singers cutting their teeth in these dens of iniquity.

PO MONKEY’S JUKE JOINT

Po’ Monkey’s place was perched in an isolated position on the edge of a flat cornfield, at least a mile from the nearest town of Merigold, population 379. Originally this was Choctaw land before it was appropriated by white farmers. Bolivar County records indicate that just under 1000 people lived here in 1840, featuring a high ratio of Blacks to whites — and only one freed Black man.

Twenty years later, around 90% of the population had been assigned to one of the 47 slave owners in the county. Post emancipation, sharecroppers settled in the area, working the same fields they or their ancestors had done during captivity.

Po’ Monkey’s shack was originally a one-room sharecropper’s dwelling, possibly built in the 1920s, before some minimal extensions were added. The wooden panelled construction was propped on stilts, and consisted of a short stoop, tin roof, and corrugated sheet skirting to keep vermin out. Signs on the outside walls had a double purpose: to congratulate visitors on their success of actually being able to find the place, and to provide a few clear ground rules from management:

Welcome to the Poor Monkey Lounge…

No beer brought inside

No rap music

No drugs… by order of Poor Monkey

As to be expected, the inside was open-plan and cramped. Still, divisions and alcoves managed to house a pool table, some chequered cloth-covered tables, and a juke box (later replaced by a DJ stereo system). Walls were adorned with yet more posters, old photographs and other ephemera. Stuffed monkey toys and Christmas lights were suspended from the ceiling. The fans hung so low that you were in danger of being decapitated. The dim lighting and randomness only added to the atmosphere, providing endless sources of curiosity for first timers.

WILLIE SEABERRY

Mr Po’ Monkey was as much a part of the juke joint’s experience as the place itself. Willie Seaberry had been a farmer for the Hiter family for more than fifty years, and the shack had been handed to him in 1961 by them to occupy on a lifetime lease basis. Within a couple of years he had the notion of opening it up as a juke joint after he came back from a day of working in the fields, something which continued until his final days. Other than for facilitating private events, Po’ Monkey’s only opened once a week to the public. After all it was his home.

But Thursday night was Blues Night. That’s when the place really came alive. Without fail the shack was rammed, with partying continuing well into the small hours. By the early 1980s, blues music may have been in danger of becoming a forgotten genre by the American mainstream—but not in these parts as locals will attest. Po’ Monkey had a passion for the Delta blues. He made sure it was always in the ether, whether coming from the juke box or DJ, or played by a live band.

The 1990s had brought about a renaissance in the blues, partly stoked by a long-running underground interest in Europe and Japan, and with book authors, newspaper columnists and CNN documenting the tough but nostalgic times of the African American South. Before long, nearby Delta State University students, blues fans, and international tourists were making the pilgrimage to the tiny shack beyond the bayou to check it out for some old-time music, booze and fun.

COME AS A STRANGER, LEAVE AS A FRIEND

Willie Seaberry was a genuine bearer of that adage. The dutiful host could always be found going around each table, checking in on his guests to make sure they had a warm welcome and a beer in their hands, dancing with ALL the ladies, and disappearing periodically to reappear each time with a different suit on. Nobody really knew what the quick-change thing was all about, but it would always be an integral part the evening’s activities.

Po’ Monkey wasn’t really in it for the money. At least it wasn’t what drove him to open up every week. He made a little on the $5 cover, but hardly anything on the alcohol he’d bought in bulk from the grocery store in Merigold. His guests were like family, and this was his social time as much as anyone else’s.

After everyone had had their fun and stumbled out into the pitch black Mississippi night to try and find their way home, he’d retire alone. The bedroom, not much bigger than the bedstead itself, was located in another corner of the shack; the walls lined with suits and hats on hangers, and junk scattered on the floor. There was only space for one piece of furniture — a dilapidated paint-flaked green dressing table, probably as old as Po’ Monkey himself.

TIME WAITS FOR NO-ONE

Over time, the expectations of the modern cultural tourist were changing. Folks were now after everything on a plate. The fun, blues, beer, and tamales sold from a cart out front were always appreciated, but a few complaints were also broadcasted online, usually over the lack of plumbing and hygiene (…the rest room is grim. Bring your own hand sanitizer… The toilet paper has to go in the waste bin…), overcrowding (though didn’t that used to be called atmosphere?), and the fact that the shack generally felt like a death trap. Thankfully Willie didn’t care much for social media. Besides, this was his home.

Old Willie Seaberry was found dead in his bedroom on Thursday July 14, 2016. Nobody, not even the coroner, knew the exact story, though it sounds like he just died of a heart attack. Willie had been spotted going about his usual business earlier in the week. His body was only discovered when someone checked in on him to see if he was opening up as usual for Blues night.

With Po’ Monkey no more, the vibrant social hub for locals and visitors to Bolivar County disappeared overnight. Every few months or so a journalist might come by Merigold enquire about the shack, trying to gauge what the Hiters’ long term intentions might be. There was hope held by many for some kind of preservation to honour Willie Seaberry. The farm owner initially seemed interested in maintaining Po’ Monkey’s as an iconic piece of Americana. But year on year, for whatever reason, nothing was happening, and the shack was left to rot. It’s still standing, though only just.

Occasionally, passing tourists turn off Highway 61 and take the dirt road to have one last look at Po’ Monkey’s, reminisce about the old days and maybe take a couple of photos to post on Facebook. But the field’s quiet now. The posters, stuffed monkeys, Christmas lights and the old sound system were auctioned off a long time ago. The outside signs have all gone too. Only the old Blues Trail marker on the post out front provides a reminder that this pile of wood and metal once meant something to a lot of folks, and for a long time.

Thinking of visiting the Deep South? Check out Mississippi’s most popular hotels, the Blues Trail and more with Expedia’s Mississippi Travel Guide .

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