Correspondent Tom Wilmer reports from Louisiana's East Baton Rouge Parish, in the outback near the village of Zachary. Following a pitch-black night drive along on a gravel road, we have arrived at Teddy's Juke Joint for a visit with Lloyd Johnson Junior.
Known fondly throughout the South as Teddy, the 73-year-old has owned Teddy’s Juke Joint for the past four decades. In the past, juke joints were typically just a sparsely-decorated front room of a sharecropper’s shack, where friends congregated to sing the blues, dance the night away, and down a pint or two. These old havens for sharecroppers at one time dotted the rural countryside throughout the Deep South, but there are just a handful still operating.
You are invited to subscribe to the Lowell Thomas Award-winning travel show podcast, Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer, featured on the NPR Podcast Directory, Apple Podcast, the NPR One App & Stitcher.com. Twitter: TomCWilmer. Instagram: Thomas.Wilmer. Member of the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Underwriting support provided by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
