Mason, Tennessee is a unique town in the middle of Tennessee’s most Delta-like region, close to the junction of Fayette, Tipton and Haywood Counties. Its central location in the middle of West Tennessee’s plantation and cotton producing region made it a gathering point for Blacks in the region, and the town developed a history for allowing partying, juke joints and blues music. Each fall, Mason holds a Fall Festival, usually in October, with live music, a DJ, giveaways, lots of vendors, classic cars, motorcycles and food trucks.
The theme of this year’s festival was a celebration of Club Tay-May, the legendary blues club that existed across the railroad tracks south of the Lower End, and with the weather pleasant and just right for such a day, there was already a large crowd when I made it to the event after a breakfast at Bozo’s on Highway 70. The vendors under tents were selling everything from jeans and T-shirts, hats and belts, to cookies, cakes, cupcakes, home goods and more. Some of the tables were selling plates for the benefit of local churches or the Prince Hall Masons at Poplar Springs. Down at the low end were the food trucks, one of which is famous for the fried biscuits with honey, which are wonderful.
On stage, John Marshall, a Mason native, was invited to give a brief talk about Mason history. It was good to get caught up with him, and he told me he is about to retire and start working more on compiling the history of his hometown. He introduced me to the granddaughter of Ocie Broadnax, the fife and drum band leader from the Brewer community just east of Mason in Fayette County. The disc jockey for the day was DJ Binky Boi, who, back in 1991 was just a young rapper from the community, and now is one of Tipton County’s most prominent DJs. In keeping with the theme of the day, he played a lot of the songs that were popular in the old Club Tay-May before it burned down.
The band for the day was the Travis Terry Band, a local group. The Terry family is quite prominent in the Mason area. But the band backed up two amazing and soulful singer, Bird Williams and Courtney Little, both from Memphis. They performed exactly the right mix of soul and blues to please the crowd of all ages, and Terry’s band was first rate in backing them up. Perhaps the highlight of the day was an old man, who did not look a day under 70, dancing with delight with a walking stick. Honor was also paid to Milton Dean Henning, a former cafe owner and educator and coach, who is now 91 years old. He looked vigorous and sprightly for a man of such age and waived to the crowd from a gold cart.
The Green Apple was sadly not open. It has not been open since the death of Richard Frank Boyland, but over by it, I was recognized by a man who said he was Boyland’s son. He was talking to me about wanting to reopen the building, but said that the town was throwing roadblocks in his path. We exchanged numbers, and some other people recognized me from the things I have posted in the past online about Mason, and the photos that I had shared from my visits to Mason in the early 1990s.
After the band had taken down, and kids were riding down Main Street on horseback, I walked up to Sugar Spoon Bakery and got cooled off and enjoyed a chocolate peanut-butter crunch cupcake. It was really good, but the biggest surprise was when I got back down by the Lo End club, because there I ran into Darryle Dowell, who went to the University of Tennessee at Martin with me, and whom I had not seen since those years. He is married now, and still lives on the same street I recall from my college days. He and his wife were able to walk back home. It was amazing and great to see him.
The event was winding down at 4 PM, and I wanted to get something to eat but I was not sure what I wanted. I thought about going to Gus’s, but their hours are so erratic in Mason, and I did not see very many cars there. So I went back to Bozo’s, this time to have a jumbo barbecue sandwich and fries. The place was relatively crowded, and I was there long enough to see Tennessee lose to South Carolina.
I had given some thought to going to the bonfire they were having out on Highway 196 near Gallaway. But they were charging $30 to get in, and they were having a DJ only, not a live band. And although the day had been thrilling, I was thoroughly tired. I actually struggled with drowsiness driving back to Bartlett, and when I reached the house, went straight to bed