In 2007, Preston and photographer Justin Fox Burkes documented many of Memphis and North Misissippi’s venues, lounges, and nightclubs for their website The Backroads of American Music. Here’s the text, along with some of Preston’s photos. More are forthcoming and the archive is excavated.
(Select the summary to read the entire profile.)
L.D. Conley, runs three nightclubs on Thomas, also known as the "real Beale" including CC Blues Club and LD's Lounge up the street from Hughes. Conley's Club Pisces is located farther north at 3987 Thomas. All three are painted in green and gold -- L.D.'s a Packers fan -- and CC features some of the finest exterior artwork anywhere in the city, courtesy of the mysterious itinerant sign painter known as Zorro.
The Worm has a special vibe that begins and ends with patriarch Wilroy Sanders. He turns 74 in 2007. As far we can tell, Sanders is the elder of Memphis juke joint blues musicians. The producers of a 1999 documentary film about Sanders enthusiastically called him and his film "The Last Real Living Bluesman."
Well, well, well. Old reliable is still jukin' after nearly forty years. Somewhere in there, white people found that they could hang out, drink, listen to music, AND feel comfortable in Wild Bill's. Bill, for his part, will take $10 out of anybody's hand at the door.
Still, Bill's has its scars. In 2006, some crackhead (I'm guessing) pushed open the front door, demanded Bill's pile of tens, and emptied the clip of his 9mm into the ceiling.
