Club Desire, known for most of its tenure as New Club Desire, was a Canton landmark and one of Mississippi's premier blues and rhythm and blues nightclubs from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Founded by Clarence Chinn in the 1940s as the Blue Garden, it was rebuilt after a fire and renamed New Club Desire in the early 1950s. Chinn presented top national acts including B. B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Little Junior Parker, James Brown, Ivory Joe Hunter, Big Joe Turner, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, the Platters, Little Milton, Albert King, Ted Taylor, Memphis Slim, and Joe Simon, favoring touring blues and soul bands with horn sections and professional talent revues. Renowned for first-class entertainment in a celebratory but elegant atmosphere, the club enforced strict codes for dress and behavior and drew patrons from Memphis, New Orleans, Chicago, and beyond, especially for family reunions and gala holiday events. In January 1952, Modern Records of California rented the club and set up a portable tape machine to record several songs by Canton singer-guitarist Elmore James, with Ike Turner playing piano and likely contributions from Ernest “Frock” Odell and Precious “Little Hat” Whitehead; published accounts often mistakenly called the site the Club Bizarre. Although James and other local down-home blues musicians rarely played there, they did perform for Clarence Chinn's brother C.O. at his café on Franklin Street and for Frank Williams at a dance hall in the Sawmill Quarters. Clarence Chinn sometimes coordinated bookings with Tom Wince of Vicksburg's Blue Room so touring acts could appear in both towns. After Chinn turned his attention to real estate and housing, Leonard Garrett, George Raymond, and Eddie Newton operated the club. In the 1960s, it also served as an important meeting place for civil rights workers and hosted private parties and meetings of civic, social, and civil rights organizations before closing in the 1970s.