Comments (0) Best Place To Catch The Blues On Monday Nights - 2000

Tobacco Road

On most Monday nights after nine, you can slip into Tobacco Road's beery downstairs barroom and enjoy the public rehearsal of Iko-Iko, this town's most seasoned and reliable blues ensemble. The band, led by local heavyweight Graham Drout, is a five-man Cajun-inflected Miami sound machine with a busy national tour schedule and official fan clubs in a dozen states, including New Jersey, California, and Kentucky. But on Mondays the boys are usually at home, comfortable in the bosom of the Road, chewing on good burgers, talking about working on their cars, and chatting with their hard-core fans. These nights are a tradition established more than eighteen years ago, when Drout began celebrating Monday at the Road with his pre-Iko group, the Fat Chance Blues Band. It's great to be there when the fellows grab an accordion, or whatever instrument is handy, catch a downbeat, and ease their tunes into the musical pocket as easy as a good riverboat captain navigates the waters of the nearby Miami River. They'll move you through several hours of home-brew music, mostly blues based, but all mooshed up with the sounds of Louisiana and spiced with the whine of old-time country harmonies. No cover, and the rack of lamb is cheap and good. They don't call it Blue Monday for nothing.