Saine’s Blues Club – the delta review

On a Friday evening, after meeting a friend for dinner in Memphis, with nothing in particular to do, I headed out Poplar Avenue through Collierville and into Fayette County, which is the Tennessee county that most resembles the Mississippi Hill Country. Mississippi Fred McDowell was from Fayette County (Rossville to be exact), and if there is any fife and drum activity left in Tennessee (and there does not seem to be), it would likely be in that county. So I often venture out there to ride the backroads, take photographs, and see if I come upon any events, or flyers announcing events on the various stores along the roads. People in Fayette tend to be old-school and don’t use social media much to promote blues or gospel events.

One of the reasons that this has taken on such urgency with me is that the western portion of Fayette County is undergoing a process of suburbanization, as people move away from Memphis into the country. The resulting growth and subdividing has the net effect of destroying historic locations and buildings, so I want to photograph what is still around while I can.

Posters on the outside of stores in Rossville and Moscow announced a barbecue festival in Rossville and a car show in Somerville, as well as a Jubilee Hummingbirds concert at a church south of Moscow in Slayden, Mississippi. There was a also a poster announcing some kind of rap show at Saine’s, which is ordinarily a blues club. Signs along Highway 57 also announced that Terry Saine, the club’s owner, was running for the state legislature.

Out on the Cowan Loop between Moscow and LaGrange, I came to an old and somewhat historic-looking church called Anderson Grove. The place, set far back off the road in a grove, looked almost abandoned, but the area was fairly peaceful. Further west along the same road was another church, obviously abandoned, with no sign to indicate what its name might have been. Not far away, back on Highway 57 was an abandoned grocery store that must have at one time been a bustling place indeed. But I found no evidence of juke joints, ball fields or picnic spots.

North of Moscow, along Highway 76, I came to Saine’s Blues Club, and stopped there, in the hopes of perhaps catching up with Terry Saine. Saine was a civil rights activist in the 1960’s, and in my belief likely old enough to have been aware of Black fife and drum bands in Fayette County during his youth, and perhaps also able to fill in some gaps about the Fayette County blues musician Lattie Murrell. But Saine was not there, perhaps out campaigning for office, so I headed on into Somerville.

There, around the square, young people were setting up stages, booths and barricades, getting ready for the Cotton Festival, which was to be held the next day. Nothing was going on at the moment however, so I headed over to Betty’s After Dark blues club, but found it fairly quiet, although open. They were having a large T. K. Soul show the next night, after the Southern Heritage Classic game in Memphis. Nearby, however, was a restaurant with outdoor tables and colorful lights, that seemed to be packed with people. It looked like something transported from Destin or Orange Beach to Somerville, and proved to be a new seafood restaurant called Big Fish that I realized will deserve a future visit.

On out Highway 59, Fayette-Ware High School was clearly playing a football game at their stadium, but I wasn’t particularly interested in that, and I headed on to Brewer Road where I knew there was a club. But all I found was a group of young people at the end of the road on four-wheelers just hanging out, and if there was anything going on at the club, it was obviously a hip-hop event geared to youth.

Likewise at Mason, the Log Cabin and Blue Room had large crowds, but just DJ’s as best I could tell, and by now I was thoroughly tired. So I gave up looking for anything to get into and began driving back toward Bartlett on Highway 70, as lightning and rain began to develop.

If you travel due north from Holly Springs in Marshall County, Mississippi, you will come to Fayette County, Tennessee, a rather similar county in many respects. Both counties once were extensively cotton-growing regions, both have rugged, hilly terrain, and both have overwhelming Black majorities. But while Marshall County, Mississippi is known for the Hill Country blues, Fayette County, Tennessee has remained little known for music. Bengt Olsson spent some time there in the 1970’s, recording obscure musicians like Lattie Murrell. One afternoon of recording at a bootlegger’s house near Somerville yielded an incredible album that has recently seen release on the Sutro Park label out of San Francisco, which owns all of Olsson’s field recordings. The Tennessee State Archives found fife-and-drum musicians in Fayette County in 1980, recording Ed Harris, Emanuel Dupree and James Tatum both in Fayette County and at the Chickasaw State Park Folk Festival. But aside from Mississippi Fred McDowell, whom most people associate with the town of Como, Mississippi, few blues artists from Fayette County have any degree of fame.
Yet, much like Marshall County to the south, Fayette County is a hotbed of blues, and the best place to experience it is at an authentic club on Highway 76 between Moscow and Williston called Saine’s Place.
On Highway 76, north from Moscow, Saine’s appears on the left-hand side of the road as a low, lighted building with plenty of cars out in front. Occasionally, barbecue smoke fills the air nearby. On the first Saturday of each month, the club features a live band, the Hollywood All-Stars from Memphis, featuring Big Don Valentine and Booker Brown. The Hollywood All-Stars have a long, venerable tradition in Memphis blues, and on the night I came, the band had a horn section consisting of trumpet and saxophone, and sounded very good indeed. But would-be visitors need to be aware that Saine’s is technically not open to the public, as signs at the front make perfectly clear. Admission is by permission (the club is officially “members only”), and costs $10. Charles and Terry Saine, the owners, seem welcoming to visitors, but do not permit photography or videography in their club, so be respectful and leave the cameras at home. That rule is something of a pity, though, as Saine’s offers an authentic, rural blues experience that is really not available elsewhere, certainly not in Memphis. The music consists of blues, soul and Southern soul,and by midnight, the dance floor is full. At one in the morning, the party showed no signs of winding down. For true fans of the blues, Saine’s Blues Club is not to be missed.