Teddyâs Juke Joint, the world-famous music attraction in Zachary, celebrates its 45th anniversary on Saturday.
Teddy âLloydâ Johnson â the venueâs cowboy hat-wearing owner and DJ â has booked the Neal family for the special occasion. The Grammy-nominated Kenny Neal, his brother, Lilâ Ray, daughter, Syreeta, and more members of Baton Rougeâs first family of the blues will perform.
Alex V. Cook, the author of âLouisiana Saturday Night: Looking for a Good Time in South Louisianaâs Juke Joints, Honky-Tonks, and Dancehalls,â opens his guidebook with a visit to Teddyâs Juke Joint. Cookâs awestruck admiration for Johnsonâs outlandish establishment has only grown since his bookâs 2012 publication.
âTeddyâs Juke Joint is magical, the kind of place you canât believe still exists,â Cooke said last week. âWhen I first showed up there in 2006, it opened a portal to glittering Louisiana, a reason this place is special. Once you see Teddy carrying on in his cape among the million holiday lights while he rolls out his risqué toasts over R&B songs youâve never heard before, you are a different person.â
Johnson keeps Christmas lights glowing all year long. His jointâs other ornaments include disco mirror balls, mirror fragments, musical instruments, photos of blues musicians and, hanging from the ceiling, a baby carriage, tricycle and little red wagon.
âI decorated according to what I could afford to do,â Johnson said in a 30th anniversary story that appeared in The Advocate. âJust stuff I refuse to throw away, or somebody threw away, and I got hold to it. I have booths in here thatâs older than me.â
Johnsonâs fans include Johnny Palazzotto, the local music entrepreneur who founded Baton Rougeâs Slim Harpo Music Awards. In 2010, the Harpo Awards named Johnson one of its blues ambassadors.
âMorgan Freeman spent millions in Clarksdale, Mississippi, to duplicate Teddyâs Juke Joint and the other real juke joints,â Palazzotto said. âBut Teddyâs is the real home of downhome blues, the place where legends played.â
Johnson transformed the shotgun house where he was born in 1946 into Teddyâs Juke Joint. Heâs had a long run with the place but the past few years havenât been good. COVID-19 restrictions hit the business especially hard.
âItâs back to full capacity now, but people just ainât coming out for some reason,â Johnson said on a quiet weekday afternoon.
Despite sparse patronage, Johnson still presents entertainment seven days a week. Tuesdays feature blues band Route 61 at 8 p.m.; Wednesday is the Acoustic Circle with Dixie Rose at 7 p.m. The duo Jelly B and the Wolf appears some Sundays. Johnson spins records at 8 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and, when thereâs no live music, Friday and Saturday.
Before Johnson opened Teddyâs Juke Joint in 1979, he painted houses and traveled widely as a nightclub DJ known as the Painter Man.
âI was spinning records all over the country,â he said in 2008. âEverybody was saying: âWhy donât you open up your own place, Teddy?â I made up my mind to go ahead on and open up my place â and Iâm still with it.â
At first, his own record spinning was the only entertainment Johnson had at the venue heâd originally named Teddyâs Bar and Lounge. The policy changed when Big Bo Melvin and the Nighthawks became the house band. Members of the Neal family soon played there, too, including the familyâs late patriarch Raful Neal â who performed at Teddyâs until his death in 2004.
âKenny Neal and Lilâ Ray and Frederick, theyâve been playing here all the time,â Johnson said. âAnd I knew Raful way before I opened the place up.â
Other Teddyâs performers included the king of the Chitlinâ Circuit, Bobby Rush; Grammy-winner Chris Thomas King; Little Jimmy Reed; Smokehouse Porter and Miss Mamie; Doug Brousseau; Sam Hogan; SunDanze Dunston; Jonathon âBoogieâ Long; Mississippiâs Eden Brent, Christone âKingfishâ Ingram and D.K. Harrell; and New Orleansâ Sam Joyner, Mem Shannon and Guitar Slim Jr.
Johnson and his longtime juke joint have won honors and much media attention. In 2023, the Memphis-based Blues Foundation presented him with its Keeping the Blues Alive Award. National and international news coverage includes numerous New York Times travel stories, such as 2015âs âIn Baton Rouge, Theyâre Still Singing the Bluesâ and 2014âs â36 Hours in Baton Rouge, La.â
âIâve been around blues my whole life,â Johnson mused. âThe blues is life itself. And jazz and just about everything in America came out of the blues.â
As the 50th anniversary of Teddyâs Juke Joint grows near, Johnson hopes to preside over his lifeâs work âas long as I can hold out.â
Teddyâs Juke Joint 45th anniversary with the Neal Brothers, Kenny Neal and Syreeta Neal
7 p.m. Saturday
Teddyâs Juke Joint, 16999 Old Scenic Highway, Zachary
$20