True Blues: Wild Bill’s Draws Blues Lovers from Around the Globe

 

You can just imagine a young Elvis Presley walking through the door in the early 1950’s sitting in the corner of Wild Bill’s at 1530 Vollintine in Memphis. You could see him sitting at the long rows of tables in the dark smoky club as blues flowed out melodically or were pounded out with a frenzy by the musicians in front. The white high school student would have looked out of place in here in the segregated South, but he had been there enough that the regulars were used to seeing him.

That would make a great story. In reality the club has only been there since the early 1990’s. In its 1930’s building and its red-painted mixed with wood paneled walls it just looks like it has been there forever. Ask most people where in Memphis one can hear the blues and you will hear “Beale Street.” But many coinsurers of the blues instead say “Vollintine Avenue.”

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Founder William “Wild Bill” Story opened the club after running night spots since 1964. He died in July, 2007 and today the business is still in his family. His daughter, Gwendolyn “Gail” Blackwell and grandson Erick Williams were working Saturday night.

Saturday nights at Wild Bill’s start when many others are putting on their pajamas. At nine pm hardly anyone was in the club. About ten some early arrivals began showing up for the hot wings, beer and nonstop soul music coming from the juke box. Just after 11:30 the band started for a blues and soul journey traveling nonstop into the wee hours of the morning.

And to say this is a diverse group would be putting it mildly. Nonsmokers who would sooner be pepper sprayed than sit next to a smoker at their favorite café seem not to notice here. College students and senior citizens show up every night. Visitors to the city have heard of the place through visitor guides and for those traveling for the Memphis music scene not visiting here would be like an art lover going to France and missing the Louvre. An occasional foreign dialect can be heard.

Today the Scarpulla siblings from Brooklyn, New York were the furthest travelers to Wild Bill’s.  Stephen and his sister, Erica, came to visit their medical student brother, Justin, who is doing clinicals at Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “They had a great write up in the New York Times several years ago. We like to go off the beaten path when we travel and apparently this is off the beaten path,” Stephen said.

 

Saturday this crowd was tempered with a bit of solemnity. Long-time bass player for the Soul Survivors, Melvin Lee, died this month. As the house band Lee was a fixture at the club and a few of the fans learned of his passing during tonight’s performance. “I’ve been playing with Melvin Lee for seven or eight years and tonight I look to my right and don’t see him,” said guitarist and vocalist Chris Pitts to the crowd. Antoine Swift was taking his place and they dedicated a song to him. No one danced.

But the show went on and so did the dancing. The crowds in the small club made the best of the tiny dance floor. The dark-red lighting and a bunch of bodies cozied up to each other made club-goers forget outside was about thirty degrees.

Michael Jenkins was visiting with his wife and friends. As a student at University of Tennessee Health Science Center he constantly hears fellow students new to Memphis advising others to avoid the area. But he knows better and also knows what draws him to Wild Bill’s. “I have lived in Memphis all of my life and this is the most Memphis thing you can do.”