The Flowing Fountain 816 Nelson Street Greenville, Mississippi 38701 Blues fan, if you ain't been to the Flowing Fountain on Nelson Street in Greenville, well, hate to say it but you ain't been anywhere.

Let me say something else--white people are a strange breed. We go to Europe and we think it's funny if a pimp walks up to us and says, "Hey, Meester. Wanna f__ke my seester?" But if we're in any city in America and a black pimp walks up to us and says almost exactly the same thing it scares us to death. Why? Couldn't be racism, could it? My point is the fact that anything you read and anyone to whom you talk will say, Don't go to Nelson Street. The attitude of whites toward Nelson Street is so bad that, just to gauge their reactions, I go out of my way to inform Greenville whites that I'm going to Nelson Street. If you listened to them, you'd think all the graveyards in Mississippi were full of white people that went to Nelson Street. Who you gonna listen to? Them or me? I've been to Nelson Street, oh, maybe twenty times, about half of those times at night--some at midnight--and I'm alive and doing fine. The problem is the fact that white people cause the problem. 99.9 % of the white people who go to Nelson Street at night are looking for sex or dope. A pimp or a pusher sees a white face in a car and sees a sure sale. One night about midnight I took a young white couple to the Flowing Fountain. They weren't happy about going, but they went anyway. I had to park about a block east of the Flowing Fountain. Before my car stopped, a pimp/pusher was tapping on my driver-side window and another one was tapping on the couple's passenger-side window. The couple was terrified. Both of them, talking at the same time, muttered, "Oh, damn. Oh, damn. Let's go. Let's go." To their further terror, I rolled down my window. The pimp/pusher, his face in my window, asked me, "Hey, man, you want some pussy? Need some weed?" I calmly said, "No, man. We're going to the Flowing Fountain." His face fell, and what passed then can best be described as a pregnant pause. During that moment of silence, I believe his racing mind considered two questions: 1) Oh, shit, is this white guy a narc?; and, 2), Oh, shit, is he gonna tell Perry Payton I tried to sell pussy and weed so close to the Flowing Fountain? His face jerked from my window, and he muttered, "Sorry, man, sorry," and walked away, fast. I finished parking my car while the young white couple continued begging, "Let's go. Let's go." I shut off the motor, and silence descended from both the car and the couple. Black people milled along the sidewalk. The two pimp/pushers stood on the sidewalk, looking innocent, the strolling crowd moving around them. Far down the sidewalk the lights of the Flowing Fountain blinked invitingly, almost seductively. I paused for a moment to give the silent couple time to catch their breath and stop their racing hearts, then I said, "See? Nothing happened." They finally gathered the courage to open their door, and we got out of my car and joined the crowd on the sidewalk. I looked at the still-nervous pimp/pusher, and his eyes quickly avoided mine. For the benefit of the still-nervous couple, I said, "Hey, man, would you watch my car for me?" With a look of mild shock, he answered, "Sure, man, sure." The couple and I enjoyed ourselves in the Flowing Fountain, of course. When we left at about 2 am, the pimp/pusher was still standing on the sidewalk beside my car. I gave him a little salute and a, "Thanks, man." He gave me a grin and a thumbs-up and went on with his business. To be truthful, I would not go alone at night to the area on the east end of Nelson Street. That's where most of the pimps and pushers hang out. To again be truthful, I would not hesitate to recommend to my only daughter that she visit the area of Nelson Street in the vicinity of the Flowing Fountain Lounge at anytime, day or night. As an anthropologist, I believe that Nelson Street, during Festival Week and especially the night before the festival, is one of the greatest cultural attractions in the United States. It's like an all-night, one-night-only, all-black Bourbon Street. People in lawn chairs line the sidewalks alongside every vacant lot. Seemingly on every corner on both sides of the street, a downhome entrepreneur sells bar-b-que from a back-yard charcoal grill or fried catfish from a cast iron pot on top of a back-yard butane fish-cooker, all by the light of a Coleman lantern or a flashlight. Thousands of black folks line both sides of Nelson Street, and they watch not a Mardi Gras parade of gaily decorated floats but a parade of people and automobiles. Such waving and yelling you've never seen and heard. Such honking of horns you won't believe. This black Mardi Gras is due to one influence--the Delta Blues Festival. Over the years, the Delta Blues Festival has become not just a festival but the major African-American cultural event in the United States. It is a nationwide African-American homecoming. Black folks from Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, etc., etc., return to their Delta roots. Many of them do not even attend the festival, but they do renew their cultural roots. It's the time to re-establish kinship ties, friendships, religious beliefs, connections with ancestors, to remember the past and to dream of the future. If the powers that be--white folks--ever take control of the festival away from the black folks, then every African-American will lose something. But that's enough from Junior's soapbox; let's look at the Flowing Fountain.       This is a shot of the Flowing Fountain Lounge taken from the center of Nelson Street and with the camera pointing approximately northeast. That's Perry Payton, the owner, standing in the front door.         This is Perry sitting in his normal spot and doing his normal thing--sipping John Handy Scotch and dispensing money and advice to the folks around the neighborhood. When some down-and-out asks for a loan, it is usually given, but it is always given with advice. During this very photo session a kid walked up to Perry and after a lot of hat-in-hand hemming and hawing, asked Perry for $2 so he could buy his girlfriend some flowers. Perry said, "Son, you can't buy no flowers for $2," and gave the kid $3. Notice the door behind Perry. It's labeled "Annie Mae's Cafe" and leads to the Flowing Fountain's band- and ballroom. About twenty years ago Perry bought the closed washateria next door and knocked an entrance between it and the Flowing Fountain. If you've visited JUNIOR'S JUKE JOINT before, you know that I believe the original Annie Mae's Cafe is the Disco 86 Lounge in Waterproof, Louisiana. But since Little Milton says in the song, "In my hometown they call it the Flowing Fountain," I won't argue with Perry's sign. He's mighty proud of getting mentioned in the famous song. Here's a look behind the door and inside the ballroom. The door is to the right of the camera. The table at which the nervous young white couple and I sat is directly beneath the camera. That night the room, empty in this picture, contained about 400 black people and exactly 3 white people. There is as much of the large room behind the camera as in front of the camera. The bandstand sits in the corner to the right.         Here's my combination buddy and psychiatrist, Willie Young, the Flowing Fountain's clean-up man. He's sitting beneath the fountain. Can you see what the flowing fountain flows? Yep. That's right. A naked black girl. I know lots of guys--and a girl or two--who'd like to have a fountain like that.             Here's Willie again. That's the entrance to the Flowing Fountain's kitchen to his left. We're sitting at the bar and watching Montel on TV. Willie's about to give me the damnest psychiatric analysis I've ever had. (Well, truthfully, I've only had two; one from Willie and one from a white guy with an M.D. and a Ph.D. Willie's was best, and it was free.) It started with him asking me, "Y'all got any rattlesnakes in Louisiana?"   This is Perry behind the bar. Those photos on the shelf above his head are all of Perry and somebody famous. You name the big-name black entertainer, and Perry knows them. They probably played in the Flowing Fountain. B.B. King. Little Milton. Ray Charles. Ike and Tina Turner. And one of my favorites, Little Willie John. "He was a little bitty guy," Perry informed me. "When he played here, he wasn't old enough to come in here. About sixteen, I think. His daddy had to come in with him."       I told Linda the barmaid that I was going to show her pretty smile to the world, so here it is world. Peaches, the other barmaid, hid from my camera. I don't think Perry knows it, but Peaches runs the Flowing Fountain.       This is some signs on the wall outside the kitchen. Look at the chitterling sign beneath the Howlin' Wolf stamp. Nope, I've never tried them. Nope, I'm never going to try them. If you don't know what they are, they're cooked hog guts.  Yuck!   Well, y'all, that's Nelson Street in Greenville, Mississippi, and the Flowing Fountain Lounge. If you don't visit it, you'll miss meeting Perry, Willie, Linda, Peaches and a bunch of other folks I haven't mentioned. You might find a band playing in the ballroom, especially during Festival Week. Sometimes during Festival Week, Perry hires a band to play out on Nelson Street. Here's John "Bud" Horton playing from the back of a truck directly across the street from the Flowing Fountain's front door. In my opinion, John Horton is the best bluesman in the Delta. He's like a living combination of Howlin' Wolf and Albert King. The day of this picture, the folks on Nelson Street saw him for free. Check out his Flying V guitar. Y'all, you should have been there when the sun went down and the full moon came up over that cotton oil factory you see behind John. John talked his dad, "Farmer" John Horton into getting up on that truck. It was like having Howlin' Wolf/Albert King--John--and Muddy Waters--Farmer John--singing a duet. Now, I ask you: Does Nelson Street sound like your kind of place? Thought so. You shouldn't listen to any white people but me and your momma.