How it works
9 PM
Every Thursday a different local band hosts the jam. They open the night with a set of their own and bring their crowd in with them.
Then
After the host set, musicians from the room sit in and the jam takes off. Bring your instrument; the backline is here. [Add any details on how players get called up.]
12 AM
The jam usually goes until about midnight. Listeners, grab a table early. It fills up.
1986 · 2026
One of the longest running blues jams in the country, every single Thursday since 1986. Blues legends cut their teeth on this stage, and they still come home to play it. A different local band hosts every week, kicking things off at 9 PM, and the jam rolls on until about midnight. Bring your axe and come on out.
"It's special to have one gig running 40 years."
Joe Hall, to The Advocate, 2026
The history
Shannon Williford, with Jim George, Troy Turner and Joe Hunter, launches a Thursday blues jam that finds its forever home at Brady's. Players raised on Tabby's Blues Box now have a schoolhouse of their own.
When Shannon Williford moves to Nashville, guitarist Johnny Rossetti steps in as jam manager and keeps Thursdays rolling for the next three decades. His rule: "At Brady's, you never know who you're gonna see. Just let the jam roll."
The kid who used to slip in to hear the bands buys the bar. Joe keeps Thursday sacred for the blues and opens the weekends to rock, zydeco and beyond. A younger crowd finds its way in, and the jam grows into a major weekly show.
Jay Michael, who walked into his first Brady's jam as a teenager in 1986, succeeds Johnny Rossetti as jam manager. "To have come from a place where I was totally intimidated to running the whole show, it's amazing."
On July 30, founder Shannon "Bayou" Williford came home to host the 40th anniversary jam alongside jam manager Jay Michael, playing his original song "Ghosts of Phil Brady's" for the players we've lost. It's still the place Baton Rouge musicians come to learn, sit in, and come home to.
In memory
For the players who gave this stage their lives: Johnny Rossetti, Luther Kent, Jo Monk, Mamie Porter, SunDanze Dunston, MZ Jones (aka Big Lisa), Tabby Thomas, Raful Neal, and every musician we still hear on Thursday nights.
Videos
Videos from the jam are on the Gallery page.
Photo: Travis Spradling
Meet the owner
Joe snuck into Brady's as a teenager to hear live music. In 2003 he bought the place. He protected the Thursday blues jam, opened the weekends to rock, zydeco and more, and brought a whole new generation through the door. Buddy Guy has stopped in to watch. So has the mayor. Everybody is here for the music.
"We never know who is going to walk through that door."
Joe Hall, owner since 2003
The full Brady's story
