Cleveland A. Tyson Sr. is a retired attorney who was raised on the West Side of Chicago. A former Marine combat veteran and Chicago police officer, he was born into and lived the blues in his both his life and livelihood. He offers a spiritualistic take on the blues and the afterlife.
The recent film Sinners has moved the Juke Joint back into the awareness of the American public. While the film turns out to be a gory, vampire flick, this new book by Cleveland Tyson explores the idea that heaven can be, at least for some and certainly for those under the tutelage of the Angel Jali, a juke joint.
Tyson’s novella is a sort of travelogue of the blues, discussing their inception in the Mississippi Delta and Hill Country, East Texas and the Piedmont. Tyson takes us from these locales to the other crossroads the blues travelled through over time. Memphis, St. Louis and ultimately Chicago became stopping points for the transformations the blues underwent. He ventures into the influence of women on the blues and cultural appropriation, as the angel Jali undergoes his own struggles throughout the book.
Time in God’s Juke Joint is not what we sense. A week could be years and an eon could be just an overnight. Time fades to irrelevancy in God’s “Jook.” The joint is hopping each night, with the long evenings of music portrayed as the means to traverse eternity. The legends of the blues perform in God’s Juke Joint, but many are in attendance. The Devil is also a regular “customer,” stirring up trouble and always getting put back into his place as Jali and the legends of the blues never take his bait and make him back off.
One ongoing theme is that Satan wants Jali to come work for him and make his juke joint the best there is to usurp God. Jali’s struggles with being the juke joint bartender and shepherd for new souls is compounded by the offers from Satan for a better eternal life. But Jali and all the patrons know the Devil never shows all his cards and can’t be trusted and goodness wins out, although the struggle between good and evil goes on eternally.
The author eludes to the complexity of this heavenly existence with a higher Council that is arbitrator between Satan and Jali for the entry of new souls. As I read this I wondered how many different establishments there are in heaven to encompass all of the vastness of existence, or is God’s Juke Joint alone heaven itself? After all, the blues represent life and heaven is then the means to make sense with what we lived through during our lives on Earth. That is Tyson’s point.
As things progress, Jali resists the final offer of Satan and then we spend Sunday at the Gospel Brunch and Tent Revival, a short reflection on the Blues and Gospel. Tyson looks at the argument of which was first, are they the same or different, and notes that they can be both the same and different and that’s ok. Tyson concludes that God’s Juke Joint has a seat for everyone if you want to sit in it.
The novella is a quick read and a sweet voyage through the blues. The author expresses that the blues are a representation of life and no matter what our failings were in life, our eternal soul can overcome our failings and we can enjoy the music together forever.
