A Monday Walk about Town, Part 2...
...to a legendary downtown blues club.
The second half of a great Monday night in Lexington starts about 5 minutes (or an easy thirty-minute walk in my younger days 😉) from Kenwick Table to downtown 2nd Street at Elm Tree Lane. You’ll find a nondescript standalone brick building there that houses Tee Dee Young’s Blues Lounge.
I started this story with the wall mural above (since replaced) because that’s where this story starts for me. When we moved here, I bought a new camera and decided to do a study of wall-art around Lexington. The mural above was one of maybe 50 or so that I photographed around town. At the time, I had no real idea what it meant. It had a weathered, faded appearance and I wasn’t even sure it represented anything current. I wasn’t up on a lot of the local traditions. I just liked the way it looked.
As time passed, I gradually became of aware of Tee Dee on Facebook and thru occasional mentions or appearances here and there. My Kentuckians for the Commonwealth friend Tayna Fogle made a few FB videos from his club. I learned that he’s a Lexington institution and well established in the upper ranks of blues guitarists everywhere (turns-out that mural was on a functioning and very prominent place 😉).
It took me some while to manage a trip there. At my age and still fairly new here, it felt like a little late at night to be running-around downtown on my own and I didn’t know anyone to take with me. In April 2023, fate intervened in the person of national travel journalist Peter Greenberg. Mr. Greenberg was doing stories around the country touting ‘hidden gems’ in various endeavors. Tee Dee Young’s Blues Lounge was to be one of those stories.
The show had to be done on a Wednesday afternoon and not on the club’s usual Monday night schedule. That meant that many of the club regulars couldn’t be available, so a call was initiated for volunteers to help fill the crowd. I took my camera down for that, and the rest is history:
We had an eclectic joyous crowd, Tee Dee and his band were (of course) great, and Mr. Greenberg was pleasant and gracious (He sat for a tune or two on the keyboard as I recall). It was genuinely one of the memorable experiences of my life. I’ve returned many nights since. I’ve never once been disappointed. I always feel better when I leave than I did when I came in. It’s as welcoming in its own unique way as Kenwick Table, and that’s due in no small part to the personality of Mr. Young himself.
I don’ make any claim to know Tee Dee well, but I did come in a bit early one evening. I went out back to get a fish dinner and brought it inside to eat. It was early, slow, and quiet. Tee Dee noticed me sitting there and we struck-up a conversation (unlike me, he’s an easy and unhurried casual conversationalist. I’ve seen this over and over w. different people). I learned he has other skills aside from music: He paints and restores cars (see photo), and he’s worked construction and carpentry (basically renovated his current club). He’s a kind of Renaissance man. I won’t belabor my own background here, but we do share a few broad commonalities in that way.
This is a snippet from the Greenberg taping. It gives a good representation of the overall atmosphere of the club. Tee Dee also often features guest performers for a song or two. As he says, “You never know who’s gonna show.”
This brings us back to where we started, so we can update to the new mural. Some things change, but a lot stays the same:
_________________________