STREET JAM

story by Robin Y. Richardson | photos by Les Hassell

Arare treat of weekday entertainment can be found year-round in downtown Marshall as the “Monday Night Pickers”, a group of stringed-instrument players serenade audiences, beginning at 6 p.m. each Monday.

“I’ve been going to it since about 2008-09, maybe, and it’s been going for a long time,” said Ricky Maxey, who plays the guitar and sings. “It’s Monday night. We generally meet at the Telegraph Park unless it’s raining. If the weather is good, we meet up there and we play from 6 until everyone gets ready to leave.”

With instruments in tow, the group, ranging anywhere from six to 20 players, assemble on the square most Monday nights to play and sing a selection of songs of their choice.

“Mostly it’s acoustic string instruments, but occasionally someone brings a drum or snare drum,” shared Maxey. “We’ve had people bring saxophones or clarinets, but most acoustic instruments like the guitar and mandolin and sometimes the banjo — those kinds of things.”

For more than a decade, the Monday Night Pickers have been a part of the downtown entertainment scene, meeting first in front of the Weisman Center, then around eateries on the square, then returning to North Washington Avenue, to now making a home by Telegraph Park.

Sitting in a circle, participants take turns picking the day’s songs.

“You can play and sing or you can take turns,” Maxey described. “When it’s your turn, you decide,”

“It’s truly a street jam,” he said

The Monday night event was founded by fellow musicians Pap Watson and Grady Lee to give the players a platform to not only come together to share their love and passion for music with each other, but anyone who would like to stop and listen, too. Maxey said the Monday night event has drawn not only local listeners, but travelers, too.

Monday Night Pickers, a come-and-go group of musicians who host an open jam session in downtown Marshall every Monday night, perform.

“A lot of the hotels occasionally send people that are looking for something to do on Monday,” he said.

Many of the regulars hail from Carthage, Longview, Shreveport, Atlanta and other surrounding areas. Tourists come from Lake O’ The Pines, too.

“We draw a good crowd,” said Maxey.

The Monday Night Pickers group invites all to come and enjoy the weekly music and fellowship.

“If people just want to come and sing, we let them do that, too,” said Maxey. “It is a fun fellowship. It’s a good, clean thing for people to do. People are friendly.

“We’ve got relationships that are built out of this circle,” he continued. “As the years go by we’ve become family.”

To learn more about the group, check out the Marshall Monday Night Pickers Facebook page.