Samuel P. Murphy, Jr.

DAY 045 Samuel P. Murphy, Jr., photographed exclusively for the 100 Men Hall People Project (100MHPP).

I took a band picture in front of McDonough’s warehouse back in the 70s. We would be on the tracks doing things we weren’t supposed to be doing. I had been friends with Guitar Bo since I was five years old and when I was a little kid I can remember Guitar Bo talking about playing at the Hall and he also called it the Pavilion. When I was a teenager, once I started playing music, there was no way you couldn’t know about the 100 Men Hall and living here I used to come sneak back here and the bar was where the kitchen was and I would stand outside the door and you could look through the door and see the band on the stage. Joe and Rudy Labat (Mary Labat’s daddy, Rudy) - I knew them from the community - used to sneak me in and let me stand and watch the band. I saw Earl King aside from Guitar Bo. John and I played here in the 80s. There was a Mardi Gras krewe around the same time we played in here. We had Anson Funderbergh and the Rockets (Mississippi Sam Meyers) – he was a blind harmonica player. They were based out of Dallas but sometime after they got started Sam started touring with us. We had them play here. I could remember when the band first got here to set up equipment; Sam had played in here years before like back in the 50s and 60s. Later my band, the Pat Murphy band, this was 2011, when Jessie and Kerry were here, we played and I was playing with some guys from Gulfport. Charles Fairley was one of the guys we played with and he had been with Otis Redding and Sam & Dave. Charlie lives in Moss Point and he played with us. When the VFW was here there was bingo in the back. A lot of the elderly people referred to this as the pavilion. To me there is no way as a musician that you could not feel the ghosts of the past, the vibes just reek old R&B music. Any familiarity with who played here, the people we verified, that were on that stage was the same stage that they played on was a pretty heavy deal. The acoustics are great too. Ken Murphy told me that he was on the board of the 100 Men Hall and I came to talk to the board and then I was on the board and president.

(Photo by: Gus Bennett | The 100 Men Hall People Project)

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