[QUOTE]Originally posted by Taike:
Barrelhouse Colloquialism describing the 'low' saloons
at the turn of the century (19th) that
served whiskey straight out of the barrel.

Originally, "Barrelhouse Music" was the
type of piano music (also called 'Fast
Western') played in those cabarets.

[QUOTE]

Someone got this one slightly out of kilter.

The "Barrelhouse" of the old "Chitlin' Circuit" days described an ersatz bar or nightclub for the extremely poor, in which a rather crudely constructed wooden single-room "hall" was used for the partyhouse.

A metal barrel or drum was placed in the center of the hall, on concrete blocks or bricks, and a fire was built in the barrel to heat the hall.

It was a barrelhouse in which BB King almost lost his famous "Lucille" guitar. There was an altercation over a woman and the barrel with the fire in it was overturned, setting the wooden building on fire immediately. Everyone ran out of the place, BB included, and then he remembered that his guitar was still inside the burning building and he raced back inside to rescue that guitar.

He named his guitar "Lucille" after the woman about whom the fight started.

Barrelhouses were the nightclubs of poor black workers -- and some poor white workers as well -- throughout the south up and until the advent of laws and regulations designed to promote better public safety came into vogue.

And they were named such because of the fire barrel prominently located near the center of the open space that was used to provide heat during the colder nights.