By Andy Furman
NKyTribune reporter
The move is temporary. The ghosts may be permanent.
Bobby Mackey’s temporarily relocating to Florence. (Photo provided)
Bobby Mackey’s Music World and nightclub is moving to Florence – 8405 US Highway 42 to be exact.
“We’ve been in Wilder 45 years,” Mackey told the Northern Kentucky Tribune, “And the building has been there forever.”
Mackey says he’s been embarrassed with the Wilder building for a long, long time.
“The front facing and sidings are just falling off,” he said. “I’ve been talking about this move for a while.”
That move becomes a reality when Mackey’s Music World has its soft opening Friday, March 8 and again the following day. The grand opening is planned for March 15 and 16.
Mackey’s new location (Photo provided)
The 75-year-old Mackey plans to attend the gala event with Mayor Valerie Jones of Wilder and perhaps Florence Mayor Julie Metzger. The symbolic hand-off to the new venue will be broadcast on Louisiana radio station KBEF, 104.5FM on the 15th.
As for Florence, “It just fit,” said Mackey, a native of Concord, Ky. in Lewis County.
“It should work perfectly. But it’s temporary. And I don’t plan on operating two venues.”
Mackey says he plans to tear down the Wilder building, “but keep one room in the basement. Then we’ll build it back all new. It should take a year or so.”
But what about the ghosts?
Mackey’s Music World has been promoted as the most haunted night club in America.
“The site was originally used as a slaughterhouse in the late 1800s,” he said. “The well on the satire features ‘The Gateway to Hell’,” Mackey said. “It is haunted by spirits including Pearl Bryan, whose corpse was found in a field 2.5 miles from the Fort Thomas location.”
Legend also claims a pregnant dancer named “Johanna” committed suicide with poison in the 1940s after her father murdered her lover Robert Randall, a singer at the club, by hanging him in the dressing room.
Investigations, however, have failed to find public records of any such events. No connection between Bobby Mackey’s and the Pearl Bryan murder has ever been established.
Mackey says he plans to leave the well exposed in his new Wilder building construction — and place a glass cover over it.
“I just hope the ghosts stay in that well,” he said.
Bobby Mackey will be inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame this year on October 27 at the Renfro Valley Entertainment Center.
Make it known he’s going in alone – not with any ghosts.
The post Bobby Mackey’s relocating temporarily from iconic Wilder home to Florence; soft opening this weekend appeared first on NKyTribune.
