Disaster struck Natchez, Mississippi the night of April 23, 1940. About 300 mostly African-American dancers packed the Rhythm Club to swing to the popular Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians Orchestra.
As the Natchez Democrat reported next day:
“The dance hall was decorated with hanging moss. This caught fire at the front of the building and quickly enveloped the entire hall. The [patrons] made a mad dash for the front, those who were weak went down under the thundering feet of others.”
Spanish moss, which grows in picturesque abundance throughout the area, was strewn decoratively around the dancehall and through the rafters of the corrugated tin structure. The windows to the club had been sealed to prevent anyone from sneaking in free of charge to hear the popular band. The front door facing St. Catherine Street was the only exit.
Before the concert, someone doused the moss with kerosene to repel mosquitoes. It’s speculated that once the club filled, a smoker tossed a match or cigarette butt near the dry moss, which ignited in a burst, devouring oxygen and spreading flames in the explosion.
The band reportedly continued playing “Marie” as the inferno blazed. Only three bandmembers survived. Barnes, a respected Chicago-based bandleader and former Chicago Defender entertainment columnist perished, along with over 200 others. The exact number of dead varies slightly depending on the source. The Adams County coroner reported 208, though, and that seems like the most reliable figure.
Julius Hawkins a Democrat employee who escaped the fire described a horrifying scene in graphic detail. “Everyone was trying to get out and crushing each other as fire was burning them. All were crying and yelling and after a while I could smell the burning meat. I hope I never see anything like it again.”
Reports of the time say that the rescue and recovery efforts succeeded in saving numerous lives. The president of the National Colored Medical Association congratulated the superintendent of the Natchez Charity Hospital on its “yeoman service caring for the burned and injured.”
The Democrat later published a list of donors to a relief fund that included generous contributions from local businesses and citizens.
The Natchez Civic and Social Club of Chicago erected a monument adorned with 203 names of victims on September 15, 1940 on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River just off Canal Street.
The rusty remnants of a coin-op car wash occupy the address on St. Catherine Street where the club once stood.
A longtime Natchez resident who helped with the mostly futile rescue efforts said that he saw people walking around Natchez with scars from the fire for years afterward, though most seem to have died off or moved on by 1990.
In an odd twist, we know far more about Mississippi blues because of the Natchez fire. Folklorist John Work of Fisk University in Nashville proposed a field study in Mississippi to, in part, to document folk songs inspired by the Natchez Rhythm Club fire.
A team of Fisk scholars conducted the project jointly with the Library of Congress and its ambitious curator of the archive of American folksong, Alan Lomax, in 1941 and 1942.
Lomax wrote later that he sought out Robert Johnson for the project (who knows what Lomax actually thought at the time, master of self-centered revision that he was), and learning that the bluesman had died, focused on Johnson associates Son House, Willie Brown, and, most significantly to modern blues fans, a plantation juke house operator and guitar picker who went by the name Muddy Waters.
Whether or not you believe that Muddy Waters heard his voice on the record Lomax made and blew right on up to Chicago (he may well have gone anyway), the field recordings produced on the Fisk/Library of Congress project and the interviews taken with witnesses like S.L. Mangham, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, and Sid Hemphill represent critical links in our understanding of blues history, and conceivably, turning points in the way that history unfolded beyond 1942.Those in the business of Lomax bashing should recognize that they could be selling insurance if not the efforts of the Fisk/LOC group.
The Natchez Rhythm Club fire inspired plenty of musical tributes, beginning with at least three in 1940, including Leonard “Baby Doo” Caston’s “The Death of Walter Barnes,” Gene Gilmore’s “The Natchez Fire,” The Lewis Bronzeville Five’s “Natchez Mississippi Blues.” Later, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, and current Natchez bluesmen Elmo Williams and Hezekiah Early waxed tributes as well. The 1941-42 field trips didn't record any fire ballads that I'm aware of.
(Natchez Rhythm Club after the fire)
I visited the site of the Rhythm Club fire on a May 2009 swing through Natchez and snapped a few photos. I was pleased to see the dignified, matter-of-fact historical marker there. Most of the vacant lots I take pictures of lack signage to vouch for their significance. Note the buildings nearby, most of which appear to have been there the night of the fire. The club sat on the concrete slab visible in two of the three shots below. Finally, the fire and bandleader Walter Barnes are discussed in much greater detail in my book The Chitlin' Circuit. Stay tuned for news on that project.
