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Or just play Springsteen, Creedence and Hank Williams all night long. Weighted with local anchors like Lightnin' Hopkins, Townes Van Zandt and Archie Bell & the Drells, it really is a jukebox for any mood, where Carole King's Tapestry or Peggy Lee's Greatest Hits might be easy-listening appetizer for a blues-funk meal of Johnny 'Guitar' Watson and Albert Collins. Within its leaves, Bob Seger's Beautiful Loser sits next to Ella Fitzgerald singing the Cole Porter songbook, and crooners Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett and Bobby Darin jockey for position with rowdier neighbors such as the Stooges and the Jam. The same is true of its jukebox, whose leaves preserve near-forgotten corners of 20th-century pop music like doo-wop (the Platters, the Ink Spots) and European chanteuses (Edith Piaf) all the way up until the Cowboy Junkies' 1988 album The Trinity Session. Said to be the oldest commercial building in Houston, La Carafe is encrusted with history, its walls brimming with old photographs, newspaper clippings and other artifacts.

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Provided you can find the place - look for the used-furniture store next door with the handwritten signs in the windows - it's probably the best $5 you'll spend all week. Gosey had to step down from hosting duties a couple of years ago, others, like Rockin' Douglas, The Lady D and Pee Wee & Pops, have kept the tradition going strong, and Geno himself (Chevis) is still serving setups and sodas behind the bar.

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(Its lack of a Web site should give you a small hint about its authenticity.) Gino's is a neighborhood bar all the time, but its real draw is the Sunday-night open jams - full of blues, R&B and soul that sticks to your ribs - that have been welcoming loyal regulars and curious onlookers alike since it opened. With Christmas lights on the walls, plywood partitioning and a small stage in the corner, Gino's feels more like a juke joint in rural Mississippi or East Texas than a bar in the fourth-largest city in America. Gino's in 1973, when the ramshackle but well-kept bar near 610 south and Cullen Boulevard opened.

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