TUNICA RESORTS, Miss., May 20, 2014 — The iconic Hollywood Cafe became the latest site to be recognized with a Mississippi Blues Trail marker this month. The marker
unveiling was unveiled at the cafe on 1585 Old Commerce Road in Tunica Resorts, Miss.
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Hollywood Cafe |
The Hollywood Cafe had neither live
music nor a kitchen when Bard Selden opened the business as a bar in the summer
of 1969. But over the years the café began to offer dinnertime music as the
menu expanded to steak, catfish and the Hollywood’s signature dish, fried dill
pickles (a specialty of Bard’s brother, Tait Selden). Muriel Wilkins
(1923-1990), an African American schoolteacher from Helena, Ark., entertained
customers with a wide repertoire ranging from standards to spirituals both at
the original Hollywood, seven miles south of Robinsonville just off Highway 61,
and at its new location. After singer-songwriter Marc Cohn joined Wilkins
in singing “Amazing Grace” and other spirituals one night in 1985, he wrote
about the inspirational experience in “Walking to Memphis,” which became the
hit track from his 1991 debut album.
In June 1973, BBC television used the
Hollywood as the setting for blues performances on its program, “The
Friendly Invasion.” The show featured a trio from the Clarksdale
area with Robert “Bilbo” Walker (billed at the time as “Chuck Berry
Jr.”), Big Jack Johnson and Sam Carr, and a Memphis group led by Joe Willie
Wilkins with Houston Stackhouse, Sonny “Harmonica” Blakes, Melvin Lee and Homer
Jackson. Bob Hall, who purchased the Hollywood from Selden, brought in Muriel
Wilkins and also offered music by the Turnrow Cowboys. After the Hollywood was
destroyed in a fire on August 27, 1983, the Owen family bought the business
from Hall and reopened the Hollywood in Robinsonville. John Almond and Michael
Young acquired the Hollywood in 2006.
Both Hollywood buildings had originally been
plantation commissaries. The first Hollywood was on the Tate Place and had
also once been used an antique store. Delta blues icon Son House was living on
the Tate Place at the time of the 1940 census and also once resided on the
Harbert Place. Robinsonville resident Phoebie Taylor recalled that House
performed at the B. F. Harbert commissary, as well as at various houses, stores
and filling stations in town. The commissary became the new home of the
Hollywood Café in 1984. House often played together with guitarist Willie
Brown, his closest musical associate, and the local blues circle also included
Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Fiddlin’ Joe Martin, Leroy Williams, Woodrow
Adams, Willie Coffee and Sol Henderson. Wolf sometimes played at his aunt Lula
Prince’s house on the Harbert plantation, according to Taylor. Nolan Struck, a
Louisiana-born blues and soul singer, moved to Robinsonville in more recent
years.
Another blues event of note at the Hollywood
was attended by B.B. King on November 9, 2007, when AT&T presented a
$500,000 donation to the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center.
Jackson guitarist Jesse Robinson and the young Tupelo blues band, Homemade
Jamz, performed at the ceremony.
With over 175 markers, the Mississippi Blues
Trail, a program of the Mississippi Development Authority’s Tourism Division,
is a museum without walls taking visitors on a musical history journey through
Mississippi and beyond. The trail started with the first official marker in
Holly Ridge, the resting place of the blues guitarist Charley Patton, and winds
its way to sites honoring B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Son House and others.
Out-of-state markers are located in Chicago; Memphis; Los Angeles; Muscle
Shoals, Alabama; Ferriday, Louisiana; Helena, Arkansas; Rockland, Maine;
Grafton, Wisconsin; and Tallahassee, Florida. The first international marker
was erected in Notodden, Norway in 2012.
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B.B. King announces major donation for construction of his museum at Hollywood Cafe. |
