About The BBC
The Bradfordville Blues Club experience is like no other. It combines a truly unique location and atmosphere with the best the Blues has to offer. Hidden in a rural part of Tallahassee, the experience begins when you travel down the winding dirt roads and up the hill that lead to the Club.
Surrounded by fields of tall stalks of corn and old majestic oak trees dripping with moss, the one room cinder block “juke joint” has hosted an impressive list of nationally renowned Blues acts. The more than 50 original portraits autographed by the “Kings and Queens” of the Blues, which serve as table tops and wall hangings, attest to the quality of our entertainment. The Club is open on Friday and Saturday nights and offers a good selection of ice-cold bottled beers and wine.
For the serious Blues fan the BBC has a different artist each weekend, usually with different touring acts on Friday and Saturday nights. Club appearances in the past have included such notables as Bobby Blue Bland, Bobby Rush, the late Jimmy Rogers, Duke Robillard, Kenny Neal, Big Daddy Kinsey and the Kinsey Report, Big Jack Johnson, E.C. Scott, Eddie Kirkland, Johnnie Marshall, Darryl Nulisch, Sandra Hall, Ms. Lavelle White, Son Seals and a host of others.
The bonfire burns nightly under the large oaks and provides a great atmosphere for romance. You can usually meet the artists as they too enjoy the rustic surroundings out by the fire or you can just sit back and relax during the set breaks. So, please come join us for a memorable Blues experience at the Bradfordville Blues Club.
Just follow the tiki torches down the dirt roads till you reach the juke joint under the stars. We’ll keep the bonfire burning, the beer ice-cold and the music hot!
The Back Story
(by: Mark Hinson)
Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra’s brand new conductor, David Hoose, arrived in North Florida in 1994, the Boston native was new to the South.
Being a fifth-generation North Floridian, I offered to show the maestro around.
“Do you know where we can get some good barbecue?” Hoose said when I picked him up at his hotel in the evening.
I sure did.
We drove from downtown to Bradfordville, took a right and headed deeper into the boonies. The charming and talkative Hoose got a little quieter when the street lights disappeared. When I turned onto a dirt road, marked by a flickering tiki torch, he wore a nervous smile. The dirt road turned into a pig trail road — as it’s called in my native Marianna — as I navigated the pot holes and washed-out ruts. I think Hoose thought I was taking him out in the woods for a ritual killing.
When we arrived at our moss-draped destination, Dave’s C.C. Club, the conductor was silent. The modest concrete-block building — which is now known as the Bradfordville Blues Club — looked like a road house where you’d meet burly guys named Knuckles and Ice Pick. Hoose, a bonafide city boy, was clearly out of his element.
The boisterous and outgoing David Claytor, who owned the club in the ‘90s, met us at the door with a grin and an unlit tiki torch in his hand.
“Oh, hey, guys, I’ve got to light another torch out at the road, but go on in,” Claytor said. “We’ve cooked up some great ribs tonight.”
Dave’s wife and business partner, Elizabeth Claytor, served us two plates of ribs that were obviously cooked by a barbecue artist. A satisfied smile came across Hoose’s face after one bite. He and Elizabeth began chatting. The Claytors’ daughter was a member of the Tallahassee Youth Symphony. Played the cello, if I recall. They talked and talked until the live music started. Guitarist Eddie Kirkland, who sported a turban, took the stage a few feet away and ripped into it. The vibe was perfect.
I had to drag Hoose out of that place.
Tune into the BBC
The Claytors ran Dave’s C.C. Club from 1992 to 2002. It was named after the racially integrated C.C. Saints baseball team that used to play in the open field not far from the front door. When the Claytors moved north to the Carolinas, Gary and Kim Anton stepped up to keep the Tallahassee institution — and the blues — alive.
It was rechristened as The Bradfordville Blues Club, or the BBC. It no longer serves barbecue but you can buy a plate of Miss Ernestine’s fried catfish and hushpuppies at her fry shack out by the bonfire in the yard. Her full, prophetic name is Ernestine Fryson.
Over the years, I have seen so many great shows in the intimate club, which can hold around 120 music fans, that I have lost count. The standouts include the New Orleans Suspects, Tallahassee guitar wizard Rick Lollar, outsider artist-guitarist Super Chikan and the hellishly entertaining Mississippi showman Bobby Rush.
“That place (the BBC) is like home to me,” Rush told me two years ago. “I just do what I want to do when I get there because I feel at home there.”
New Orleans Suspects bass player Ray Scanlan also sang the BBC’s praises: “There is no way you can have a bad gig in here, it’s just one of those places. And if everybody else went to the same trouble to find it, you know that they know good music when they hear it.”
Scanlan is absolutely right. The BBC is hard to find but impossible to forget.
Unfortunately, not enough people are making their way up the dirt road this fall to hear the live musical acts on the weekends.
‘Keep this jewel alive’
The Antons took to Facebook on Nov. 4 with this dire message: “Can’t sugar coat it. Short, plain and simple: Attendance at the BBC is down so much that the survival of the club is in jeopardy. If you haven’t been out in a while, come on back. If you have been coming out, we thank you for your continued support. Please know that we could not have come this far without you. We want to continue so please help us keep this jewel alive!”
So, what’s the problem? Have people fallen out of love with great live music, cold beer and fried food?
“Football season sucks the oxygen out of the room,” Gary Anton said during a phone chat. “It has hurt us more this year than any other year. We haven’t broken even since football season started.”
The Downtown GetDowns and Friday Night Block Parties, featuring free live music, put a drain on Friday nights. The games kill the audience attendance on Saturday. The Antons refuse to put televisions in the club for fans to watch football because it would be a distraction.
“Everything is focused on the music and the band,” Gary said. “We’ve never had a TV in here and we never will, not on my watch. I think the bands like it because it makes for an appreciative audience.”
Another blow hit the BBC in the spring when Gary traveled to Shands Hospital in Gainesville to undergo a liver transplant. The major surgery, which had a few post-op complications, sidelined the Antons for more than three months.
“We lost $11,000 at the club in two months,” Anton said. “We had a nest egg set aside but it wasn’t enough. We’re still in the hole.”
The Antons have made a few adjustments in hopes of luring the fans back. They’re starting the shows earlier at 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturdays. The bands will play at lower volumes because it gets sure enough loud in that cinder-block shack. The cover charges — which run in the $15 and $20 price range — will remain intact.
“The beer prices and cover charge keep the riff-raff away,” Gary said.
He’s right. In the 23 years that I have been watching shows the C.C. Club and the BBC, I have never seen a shouting match, fist fight or barroom brawl. It’s the most well-behaved juke joint in the South.
Don’t lose the history
There are more venues for live music in Tallahassee these days after the opening of the amphitheater in Cascades Park and The Pavilion at the Centre of Tallahassee. Those places are fine but they don’t have the rich history and authenticity of the BBC.
The property where the club stands beneath the sprawling oaks was Free Man’s Land in the pre-Civil War days. Freed slaves used the property as a farm and gathering spot for music. During the early 20th century, a general store was built and the piano was its centerpiece. After World War II, black musicians who played The Red Bird Cafe in Frenchtown headed north to Bradfordville to keep the party rolling until sunrise.
In 1964, Allen Henry Jr. built the concrete building that still stands today. Legend has it such giants as Ray Charles, B.B. King and Chuck Berry played shows under its modest roof. During more recent times, big names such as Johnny Winter, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Son Seals have packed the shack, which is part of the Mississippi Blues Trail. In 2012, the BBC was singled out by Downbeat magazine as “One of the Top International Music Venues.”
And it’s right here in our backyard.
“The only way it can survive long term is by people coming through the door,” Gary said.