I was all prepared to post "Been to Swamp Guinea" a week or so ago, but my current sporadic access to my computer (which should be resolved in about a month, I hope) allowed our Glorious and Benevolent Ringleader to scoop me. That said, I don't believe she has this. In the interest of strict accuracy, what is advertised here is not the original, long-defunct Athens location of the song, but their other, still-extant location a bit further north. I've only eaten there once, but I would recommend it. This particular ad is from a 1972 edition of the Anderson (SC) Daily Mail. Fun fact: the Daily Mail not only ran Criswell's column, their subsidiary, Droke House Press, was his hardcover publisher. I don't know how that occurred... Anderson is a long way from Hollywood!
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Wait, so the original Swamp Guinea was in Colbert, right? I have eaten at the one in Hartwell, but Jim and I also ate at a Swamp Guinea in, I believe Thompson, Ga? They had all the tools and antiques on display and knew the Burroughs who sang/spoke the jingle. The food at both was great despite the user reviews on my last post! Regardless, it's the best jingle ever written for an all you can eat fish fry.
Yeah, I was being imprecise by saying "Athens". Obviously, you'd take the seventy-two highway out of Athens Gee Ay for ten miles or so....then take a right at the Guinea sign, and away you'd go. I was just shorthanding it. As to the other location you went to, I don't think it still exists.
I have really vague memories of eating at some out of the way, distressed wood planks, farm implements all over the walls, catfish place when I was but a wee tot being trucked all over GA and SC with my folks to visit relatives and such. Maybe this is the place.
How many of these 45s still exist?
I've had 7 or 8 (one badly cracked) pass through my hands in the last 18 years, for what that's worth.
I also want to know if the chick's name was really Launa or did someone screw-up and misprint Laura? So many mysteries surrounding this 45.
I ate there quite a bit as a youth. My extended family would meet up there once every couple of months (they were all from the Washington, GA area, as Devlin knows). My copy of this record has my mom's name written on the label, which is appropriate, because it used to be hers. She bought it from the Swamp Guinea before I was born.
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