E.C. White, formerly of the Hard Luck Café tends the bar and Don Valentine and the Hollywood All-Stars play Sunday nights. Entry is $5, with $2.50 domestic longnecks and BYOB set-ups. If you're in this for gutbucket ambience, the Hot Spot isn't your place. It's a standard motel bar, decorated with phony oversized gas-lamps, and a few panels of mirror on the ceiling. Hookers might work here. I don't know for sure, but I'm just saying. On the plus side, the Hot Spot definitely has some kitsch, the seating is more spacious and comfy than regular juke joints, and the music and party crowd are every bit as fine as in a more traditional hole in the wall. The spot even has some funky juke-centric artwork. It's especially recommended for a few cold ones after Sunday dinner. You can still get to bed at a decent hour, since the band starts around 8:30, and make it out of bed and to work on time Monday, if that's your sort of thing. The Juke Joint All-Stars, featuring the legendary (locally speaking) Lawrence Long on guitar play Wednesdays. To summarize, while it's not a wild, sweaty, smoky, old joint, the View actually has solid live entertainment kicking off at a decent hour on weeknights in a laid-back setting. The cover's cheap, so tip the band and keep them happy and playing. As always, tell ‘em we sent you, and receive some befuddled looks.
Update: E.C. White no longer works here, and the entertainment options seem to shift with the wind. It's definitely still on, with more regular and varied live music than any other Memphis juke joint. September 7, 2007, Memphis doo-wop groups the
Mad Lads and
Chille and the Climates took us "down to the streetcorner," in the words of leading Mad Lad John Gary WIlliams, via the View. Bar-Kay trumpeter, and an electric performer in his own right, Ben Cauley regularly plays, as do the Don Valentine Band, and Willie Covington.