Down on Hastings Street: A Cultural Study of a Black Community 1941 - 1955

John Cohassey

History 803

December 21, 1992 I'm going to Detroit get myself a good job Tried to stay around here with the starvation mob.

"Detroit Bound " Blind Blake, 1928 Located in the heart of Black Bottom, Hastings Street remained the center of Detroit's black nightlife scene up until the early postwar era. For decades, its clubs, restaurants, and taverns featured the finest local and national jazz and blues talent. Blacks and whites flocked to Hastings Street to gamble and watch elaborate floor shows. Like New York's Fifty- Second Street and Memphis's Beale Street, Detroit's Hastings Street represented a colorful urban black music scene in the mid-twentieth century. In his Michioan Quarterly Review article "From Hastings Street to the Blue Bird," music historian Lars Bjorn offers one of the only sources concentrating on Hastings Street's blues and jazz musicians. But as Bjorn points out, a true picture of the street and its musicians cannot be brought about until "we know more about the specifics of Detroit History." The following work is an effort to explore the social historical significance of Hastings as well as the blues and jazz communities which emerged on the street between

1941 and 1955. 1 Organized in topical form, the study will begin with providing the historical background of Black Bottom, euphemistically known as Paradise Valley. After discussing both origins of the lower East Side community, there will be an effort to outline the history of Hastings Street in regard to its role in the economic, social, and cultural prosperity of Paradise Valley, as well as its significance 1n the 1943 riot. From this point, the discussion will move to the entertainers and nightspots on Hastings, emphasizing the distinct

1 Lars Bjorn. "From Hastings to the Blue Bird." Quarterly. Vol. XXV, (Spring, 1986), p. 267. blues and jazz communities which thrived on the street. Such an investigation will help provide a better understanding ol the urban black experience, and how music reflected the diverse cultural and social aspects of black lite in northern industrial centers in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1826, Hastings Street first appeared on the Detroit City map. Named in honor ot Connecticut-born Detroit banker and philanthropist Evortas P. Hastings, the street became the main thoroughfare in Detroit's Jewish quarter during the eighteen­ eighties. The Hastings Street community stretched over one hundred city blocks, bordered by Orleans on the east, Brush on the west, Watson on the north, and Monroe on the south. Running north and south, Hastings served as the main center tor business and community lile. 2 With its rows ot small shops, groceries, bakeries, and eateries Hastings became Detroit's "Jewish port of entry," welcoming 45,000 German and Eastern Jews who settled in the surrounding community by 18903 Although most business on Hastings were owned by Jewish proprietors, one could walk down the street in 1909 and lind the manes of Moscovitch, Johnston, Bonilideo, and Podizikovski on doors next to those ornately decorated with Yiddish characters.4 Near the

2 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Michigan. Detroit: 1897. Vol. 4; Robert A. Rockaway. The Jews of Detroit: From the Beginning 1762-1914. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986), p. 59; Silas Farmer. History of Detroit and Early Michigan: A Chronological Encyclopedia of the Past and Present. 3rd ed. (Detroit: Silas Farmer & Co., 1890), p. 942; "1l1e Who, Why, and Wherefore of Detroit's Streets Names." Detroit News. (May 20, 1926), p. 41. 3 Sidney Bolkosky. Harmony & Dissonance: Voices of Jewish Identity in Detroit, 1914-1967. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), p. 76. 4 Detroit News. (Feburary 2, 1909), p. 10; "The Ghetto! Where the jews of Detroit Congregate!" News Tribune. (March 19, 1905), p. 23. corner of Hastings and Napoleon, Jewish families passed neatly dressed blacks on their way to worship at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which, since 1889, served as the center of black religious, educational, and economic activity. 5 On adjoining residential streets, blacks lived alongside Italian immigrants. These Italian newcomers often competed with blacks for jobs as stevedores, barbers, artisans, and small businessmen. 6 The population of blacks around Hastings greatly increased in 1915 when a wave of Jewish migration to northern and western sections occurred simultaneously with the influx of thousands of southern blacks .7 By July 1916, one thousand blacks arrived in Detroit every month.s In May of the following year, an Urban League report found that the area bounded by Brush and Hastings contained a population numbering seventy percent Jewish and twenty percent black. The failure to build new homes forced blacks to live in inferior structures, usually without inside toilets or baths. 9 During the early to mid-nineteen twenties, overcrowding caused blacks to take up residence in rooms converted from basement, garages, and stables. Because of the severe shortage of rooms available for rent, blacks paid fees for privileges of sleeping on pool tables or in the back of gambling houses.JO Drawn by the promise of "Ford's Five Dollar Day" and better educational opportunities, most black

5 Ulysses W. Boykin. A Handbook of Negro Detroit. (Detroit: The Minority Study Associated, 1943), p. 35; The Detroit Herald. (November 30, 1920), p. 2. 6 Detroit News. (February 2, 1909), p. 10. 7 Bolkosky, p. 97. 8 Richard W. Thomas. Life for Us)_,; What We Make.!!: Building Black Community in Detroit 1915-1945. (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 90. 9 Boy kin, p. 54. 10 Detroit Herald. (November 30, 1916), p. 2; Thomas, p. 99. newcomers hailed from , Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, , Florida, and the Caribbean Islands. The YMCA, YWCA, Urban League, and storefront churches provided industrial environment. Black and white social workers hoped by exposing migrants to the more established black middle class that the newly­ arrived migrants could develop urban survival skills, so as to replace what they considered as backward southern cultural traditions.11

The migrational wave caused a transformation in the ethnic composition of Hastings and the lower East Side community. While Hastings still accommodated numerous Jewish shops and stores, by 1926 few Jewish families resided on the street. To escape increasing crime perpetrated by the growing population of uneducated youths, Jews moved to new centers along Oakland Avenue and Twelfth Street.12

As the Jewish community established a "second front" beyond Hastings, the local Detroit press acknowledged the shift in the racial population by referring the the Hastings Street area as Black Bottom.13 In 1930, the number of blacks on the lower East Side rose to 120,000. Still without new housing to compensate for the increase in population, blacks paid high rents for substandard dwellings. Black ministers in the lower eastside struggled to contain the rampant gambling and the prevalent black-on-black violence sweeping the community.14 A health survey published in The

11 Boy kin, p. 15-19; Thomas, p. 26, 100. 12 Bolkosky, p. 97. 13 Ibid, p. 13. 14 TI1omas, p. 17, 26. Detroit Times in 1934 found the average life span for the 23,000 blacks living between Hastings and Beaubien to be twenty-nine years old. In addition, the report stated that black families living within this ten-block area suffered a three times higher risk of death from pneumonia than the average for the rest of the city.1S The same year, the Detroit News reported that the population in Black Bottom suffered a 1 .5 times higher infant mortality rate and a 71.5 higher death rate from tuberculosis as compared to the numerical average for the rest of the city.16

Amid the economic and social deprivation of the Depression era, blacks did, however, make strides in forming a sense of community in Black Bottom, or what became known at that time as Paradise Valley. Residents of Paradise Valley, like those of Harlem and Sepia City in Toledo, elected their mayor. Despite the mayor's unofficial status in city government, he was expected to campaign against crime, stage charity drives, and generate jobs for the unemployed.

Elected for a term of one year by a newspaper poll, the mayor of Paradise Valley attended an inaugural ball at the Graystone Ballroom an elegant Gothic building on Woodward Avenue.17 The increasing role of black business on Hastings in the early thirties also contributed to a strong sense of racial pride in Paradise Valley. Numerous black medical professionals opened private practices on Hastings like Dr. J. W. Collins specializing in

15 "Report Slum Menace to Life." Detroit Times. (january 4, 1934), p. 4. 16 "Why Slum Clearance." Detroit News. (january 3, 1934), p. 1. 17 "Brown Mayors: Unofficial Negro Mayors Elected in Regular Polls and other Functions as Chief Consultants on Racial Matters in White Cities." Ebony. (December, 1949), p. 44; Graystone jazz Museum (Handbill). Detroit; "The Great Black Strip." Detroit Free Press. (january 7, 1973), p. 11; "The Past Prologue: Paradise Valley." Detroit Discovery "painless extractions" and Dr. C. C. Strickland who treated "private diseases. "18 But because most blacks did not have means to acquire substantial capital, most business along Hastings remained small­ time operations. A great number of blacks borrowed money from loan sharks to start shoeshine parlors, barber shops, and newspaper stands. 19 Black-owned rib shacks and shrimp huts sprang up on almost every corner on Hastings, filling the street with a thick spicy smoke which hung in the air for blocks.2o After working in apprenticeship positions under Jewish businessmen, many blacks opened their own tailor shops, groceries, and fish markets.21 A 1937 survey found that blacks in Paradise Valley owned 48 groceries, 97 eating places, and 27 drug stores.22

Given the new status of many black middle class businessmen, they, similar to their Jewish counterparts, began moving to outlying residential areas, primarily on the West Side and Eight Mile Road. By the early 1940s, seventy-five percent of black merchants did not live on Hastings. Of the eighty-five percent of the East Side owned shops, over half were located on Hastings of which the majority remained under Jewish proprietorship.23 In 1942, the Urban League

18 "Dr. C. C. Strickland." (advertisement). The Detroit People's News. (December28, 1930), p. 3; "Dr.). W. Collins." (advertisement), Ibid, p. 3. 19 Detroit Discovery. p. 9. 20 Betty DeRamus. "Innocence and Vice on Hastings Street." Detroit Free Press. (December 4, 1980), p. 10. 21 Barbara Hoover. "Paradise is Found in Neighborhood Renunion." Detroit News. (February 28, 1989), p. 5. . 22 Boykin, p. 111. 23 Dominic Capeci Jr., and Martha Wilkerson. Layered Violence: The Detroit Rioters of 1943. (jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991), p. 28; Robert Conot. American Odyssey. (New York: Willian and Morrow & Co., Inc., 1974), p. 377. reported that blacks in Paradise Valley owned 25 barber shops, 71 beauty shops, 30 drug stores, 3 furriers, 57 restaurants, 11 shoe repairs, 49 tailors, 151 physicians, 47 fraternities and clubs, and 5 beauty schools. 24

Even with the rise of black business, the black and Jewish population continued to enjoy a traditional pattern of peaceful relations on Hastings. Jews claimed they exhibited little animosity toward blacks, and often pointed out that they were among the only white ethnic groups to accommodate black customers. Most Jewish businessmen commuted to Hastings from outside neighborhoods, returning to the street during the day to collect rents and sell merchandise.2s "The only white people we saw," recalled local black historian Herb Boyd who grew up in Paradise Valley, "were insurance men and bill collectors knocking on doors."26

Unfortunately, this pattern of race relations was not representative of the conditions existing throughout the rest of the city. Despite Senator Charles C. Diggs's effort to pass a stronger civil rights law in 1937, blacks still faced discrimination in downtown hotels and eating places. White restaurant owners often opted to pay a city fine rather than serve black customers. In downtown theaters blacks paid higher ticket fees than whites. Those not turned away at the door they usually sat in segregated sections.27

24 Boy kin, p. 111. 25 Bolkosky, p. 266. 26 Deramus, p. 26. 27 Thomas, p. 129-130. In 1943, racial tension increased as blacks and whites clashed in schools and on factory shop floors. Blacks employed in factories found FOR's equal opportunity order did not stop big business from keeping them out of 55 of the 185 wartime industrial plants. 28 On June 11, several hundred black and white youths, many of whom were dressed in zoot suit garb, clashed at the Eastwood Park amusement grounds.29 During the same week, the Detroit News featured an article revealing how many of Detroit's 170,000 black residents blamed the agitation over housing on oppressive white policies.30 Within a week of the Eastwood Park incident, a wave of violence swept Hastings Street. On June 20th, police used tear gas to break up an angry crowd of young black males arid white sailors near Belle

Isle Park 3 1 Later that evening, thirty-five year old Leo Tipton walked through the door of Sunny Wilson's Forest Club on the corner of Hastings and Forest where jump blues sensation, Louis Jordan, was scheduled to perform.32 Driven by rumors spread by the day's events, Tipton, dressed in a dark suit and carrying a briefcase, made his way through a crowd of seven hundred dancers. Once on stage, he grabbed the microphone and identified himself as Sergeant Fuller, announcing to the crowd that a black woman and her baby had been thrown off the Belle Isle Bridge. "Get your guns .... there's free

28 Conot, p. 378. 29 "Youth Gangs Fight in Park; Tear Gas and Clubs Quell Disturbance." Detroit News. (June 16, 1943), p. 1. 30 "Better Homes Urged." Detroit News. (June 11, 1943), p. 21. 31 Conal, p. 379. 32 Capeci, p. 7;"Louis jordan and Leroy Smith." (advertisement). Michigan Chronicle. (June 19. 1943), p. 18. transportation outside," cried Tipton. Suddenly hundreds of patrons rushed out of the club, only to find the street empty. Making their way down towards Belle Isle, the crowd found that the police had blocked off the area. After returning to Hastings, the restless mob began throwing rocks at white motorists. In the early morning hours, thousands joined in destroying the windows of Jewish shops, turning the street into a pathway of splintered glass.33 On Monday morning, a mile long stretch along Hastings bounded by Adams and Medbury lay in shambles.34 To stop looters and white mobs from entering Hastings, the police sealed off the area. Untrained in riot control, policemen conducted sporadic raids, firing random shots into buildings--to ward off the looters. On the corner of Davison and Hastings, two black rioters were killed by police. One of the victims received seven bullet wounds.35 At six-thirty that evening, Governor Harry F. Kelley went on the radio to announce a state of "martial law." The lack of military reserve units, prompted President Roosevelt to send Federal troops to restore order. On the twenty-second, armored cars and jeeps filled with troops in full combat gear patrolled the length of Hastings.36 Out of all the areas of the city damaged by rioters,

"Hastings presented the most complete picture of destruction through its entire length, " reported the Detroit News, denuded "clothing dummies hung from store signs, door frames lay

33 Capeci, p. 7; Donald Chaput. "The Detroit Race Riot of 1943." Michigan History. Vol. LIII. (Fall, 1969), p. 189; Conot, p. 381. 34 john Wood. "Vandalism Follows In Wake of Bloody Riot." Michigan Chronicle. (June 21, 1943), p. 1. 35 "Partial List of Victims in Detroit Riot." Detroit News. (June 21, 1943), p. 1. 36 "City to Remain Under Curfew." Detroit News. (June 22, 1943), p. 1; Conot, p. 384. shattered," and discarded food and store merchandise littered the sidewalks37

Although Jewish businesses incurred the most damage, they did not blame the violence on their black customers; rather they believed the riot stemmed from the actions of outside hoodlum mobs. In fact, a Wayne University study published in 1944 reported that Jews in the Hastings Street area (the poorest section surveyed) showed a far more "tolerance of blacks than gentiles" and that competition between Negro and Jewish business did "not lead to conflict. "38

Within a week of the riot, Detroit city officials pushed to restore a state of "normalcy." Despite the death of 11 whites and 17 blacks in the three days of violence, the local papers evoked a "business as usual" attitude, encouraging Detroit to channel their difference to foreign enemies. Demands for workers to fill the wartime industry continued to draw southern blacks to Detroit, whose hope for economic advancement overshadowed their tear of potential racial violence. During the year, the population of blacks in the city reached 200,000. Due to Mayor Jefferis's segregationist policies, blacks occupied only 2,000 of the 45,000 permanent and temporary housing units. 39

Attracted to a new life in the North, a twenty-eight year old Mississippian named joined the Southern migrants

37 "Paradise Valley in Ruins: But Traffic Flows Again." Detroit News. (June 22, 1943), p. 1. 38 Capeci, p. 106-107; Wolf, Paperon. eta!. Wayne University Studies in Inter-Group Conflicts in Detroit. (Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1944), p. 5. 39 Conot, p. 377; Allen Shocnfield. "Lift Negro's Lot, Is Plea." Detroit News. (July 2, 1943), p. 11; Michigan History. p. 205. who continued to arrive in Detroit in 1943. A guitarist and singer,

Hooker, like a number of rural bluesman since the nineteen-twenties came to Detroit to work in the local auto plants. Scattered among the wave of immigrants, southern-born bluesmen formed a small

musical community in taverns along Hastings. Their rough and tumble "barrel house" style remained popular among poor working class blacks living in Black Bottom.4o

Twenty years before Hooker's arrival, Detroit had earned a reputation for its vanguard of blues pianists. One of the most

famous of this first wave of bluesmen was Georgia-born Big Maceo

Merriwether who turned Brown's Bar on Hastings into a stronghold

for Detroit blues. Among other Black Bottom pianists were Will Ezell from Texas, Tupelo Slim from Mississippi, and Floyd Taylor from Tennessee.41 "I heard a lot of tellers that were playing along

Hastings," recalled Taylor, "most tellers had their own style but many used to learn from each other."42 An open exchange of musical

ideas helped foster new talent as well. Pianist Paul Seminole, for instance, took on a young understudy named Rufus Perryman. Known

as "Speckled Red" because of his albino pigmentation and red hair,

Perryman, a native born Louisianian, emerged as a formidable

keyboard stylist in Black Bottom's red light district. Near the end of

the decade, pianist Charlie Spand teamed up with guitarist Blind

40 William Barlow. Looking ]42 at Down: The Emergence of the Blues Culture. (Philadelphia: William Temple University Press, 1989), p. 284; Pete Welding. "john Lee Hooker: Me and the Blues as Told by Pete Welding." Down Beat. (October 3, 1968), p. 16. 41 Barlow, p. 283-284; Bjorn, p. 258. 42 Paul Oliver. Conversation with the Blues. (New York: Horizon Press, 1965), p. 138. Blake to record "Hastings Street," a musical tribute to the Detroit community.43

Outside of club dates, most jobs open to Detroit bluesmen remained in the wild atmosphere of the house rent or "barrel house circuit." Common to northern cities, house rent parties were the tenants answer to the extremely high rents charged by white landlords. When an individual failed to scrape together enough money for the month's payment, they often held a private party, charging their friends admission for jugs of liquor, platters of southern-style food, and dance music provided by a pianist or guitarist. Behind their domestic facades, many front rooms and tenement parlors earned a semi-permanent status as neighborhood drinking and dancing spots. This subculture was notorious for razor fights, drunken altercations, and gambling. Blues piano players and their occasional guitar accompanists performed until late night hours playing stomps, slow-drags, breakdowns, and boogies.44 Those who attended house parties were primarily southern-born blacks seeking a more private atmosphere not found in Hastings Street nightclubs. Le June Rogers, a prominent black booking agent, observed how some blacks in Detroit "exhibited a Deep South shyness of strangers." Not accustomed to urban nightlife, these people, according to Rogers, sought the company of close friends in their own home rather than the bright lights of city taverns.45

43 Barlow, p. 284; Rudi Bleshi. Shining Trumpets: A History of lazz. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1975), p. 311; . "Speckled Red 1892-1973." Living Blues. (Winter, 1972), p. 4. 44 Deramus, p. 26; Paul Oliver. Blues Fell This Morning: The Meaning of the Blues. (New York: Horizon Press, 1960), p. 164-165. 45 jim O'Neal. "Motor City News." Living Blues. (Autumn, 1972), p. 18. When Hooker began playing around the Hastings Street community during the forties, he played for tips at private parties and dances. Hooker represented the second wave of younger Detroit bluesmen following the piano men of the previous two decades.46 The newer generation of bluesmen were primarily guitarists versed in an electrified country blues style, characteristic of what music critic and historian Paul Oliver describes as an unpolished "urban folk sound. "47 Since few were full-time professionals, the Detroit blues guitarist found the majority of work on weekends playing parties and dances. Like the earlier piano players, the migrant guitarists possessed a talent for performing as a single act, enabling them to easily find work in the barrel house circuit. Some like Charles lssiah "Doc" Ross appeared as a one-man band playing guitar, harmonica, kazoo, and drums. In other instances, guitarists like Eddie Burns played in a two-guitar situation in which he doubled on harmonica.48 Detroit bluesman Buddy Folks, a former companion of Howling Wolf, explained that "if you had two guitarists you had a big band," for it made for a larger more driving sound.49 Because house parties and private dances offered only a meager income, bluesmen worked day jobs until their music could adequately support them. As opposed to migrant workers who viewed employment in industrial plants as a means to an end,

46 Barlow, p. 285; "john Lee Hooker." Living Blues. (Autumn, 1979), p. 14. 47 Paul Oliver. "Detroit Blues: The Early 1950s." (liner notes). Blues Classics No. 12. 48 Sheldon Harris. Blues Who's Who: A Biographical Dictionary of Blues Singers. (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1980), p. 95, 443; Oliver, (liner notes). 49 Stuart Tucker. "If You Had Two Guitars You Had a Big Band: Buddy Folks." Living Blues. (March/ April, 1989), p. 30. migrant musicians looked upon such work as temporary. 50 Guitarists like Robert Henry "Baby Boy" Warren and worked in wartime industrial plants. 51 After taking a job as an orderly at Detroit Receiving Hospital, Hooker later worked as a janitor "pushing a broom" at the Dodge Main, Cameo Steel, and Ford River Rouge plants. 52 One of the 11,000 black workers at Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Hooker found no trouble getting a job considered too hot, dirty, and low-paying for white workers.53 For he later explained, "At that time jobs weren't hard to get ... you could go anywhere anyday and get a job."54 Hooker's close friend Bo Bo Jenkins, an Alabama- born guitarist and singer, found employment as a gas station attendant, a mechanic, and later as an auto worker who joined the 1 ,850 blacks employed at in the early 1940s.55 At night, migrant bluesmen went to clubs along Hastings to sit-in with local groups hoping to attract the attention of bar owners and local established musicians. Working his way up from the rent party circuit, Hooker landed a job playing at Brown's Bar, the spot where Big Maceo previously held down a position as a house musician for nearly six years.56

Brown's Bar was one of ninety-one beer and liquor establishments sprawling across Paradise Valley during the early

50 Michael W. Harris. The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 50. 51 Harris, p. ; Oliver. Conversation with the Blues. p. 55. 52 Gary Graff. "A Long Blues Reign." Detroit Free Press. (September 8, 1991), p. 4; )as Osbrecht. "The Funkiest Man Alive!" Guitar Player Magazine. (August, 1992), p. 32; Welding, p. 16. 53 Thomas, p. 155-156. 54 Welding, p. 16. 55 Robert Palmer. Deep Blues. (New York: Viking Press, 1981), p.243; : Here I am a Fool in Love Again." .llig Star 11-33· Thomas, p. 156. 56 Barlow, p. 284. nineteen-fortiess7 On Hastings, Detroit-style blues flowed out of places like the Corner Bar on the corner of Hendrie, the Silver Grill between Warren and Theodore, Jake's Bar at the intersection of Forest, the Ace Bar between Bradley and Livingston, and the Three Star Bar at Brewster. To advertise up-and-coming acts, bar owners displayed handwritten signs in their front windows, usually scrawled on large pieces of brown paper.58 At this time, Hastings earned a national reputation for its blues clubs and musicians. "The street was known more than other streets in the U.S.," commented Hooker, "anywhere you'd go, you could hear people talk about Hastings Street."59 But he also stated that it was a "rough , wide-open" street which "had everything you wanted right there [and] everything you didn't want."60 For it teemed with prostitutes, gambles, and drunken male youths looking for a night on the town. A sign posted on a Hastings Street tavern gave evidence to the riotous nature of its afterhours visitors: "Please consider the neighbors in this district who are sleeping," it admonished, "refrain from making loud noises when going home late at night."61

Neighborhood vice, however, failed to deter black and white "cabaret-goers" from frequenting the Hasting Street nightlife scene. White cab drivers continued to bring adventurous out-of-towners and regular nightlife patrons to Black Bottom. 62 "When violence did

57 Boykin, p. 99. 5S Detroit Yellow Pages. (Detroit: Bell Telephone Co., 1940, April1945); Polk's City Directory Vol.ll Detroit 1954. (Detroit: P. L. Polk Co., Pub., 1954), p. 2027. 59 "'john Lee Hooker."' Living Blues, p. 18. 60 Obrecht, Guitar Player Magazine, p. 32. 61 Bill Lane. "'Swinging Down the Lane."' Michigan Chronicle. (October 14, 1950), p. 23. (,2 "'The Great Black Strip."' Detroit Free Press. p. 11. break out it had the quality of a sporting event," reminisced Chuck Golding, "as long as the battles were black police would not interfere." Golding recalled "watching two men fight with axes while police leaned against cars eating sandwiches."63 The black policemen assigned to the area were known to be "partial with the night crowd," but their friendly rapport never interfered with the policy of maintaining "absolute order."64

The excitement and wild atmosphere of Hastings Street was captured on several recordings in the postwar period. In 1947,

Detroit tenor saxophonist and former Ford autoworker, Paul Williams recorded the composition "Hastings Street Bounce" for the

Savoy label. Williams's subsequent hit "35-30" took its name from the Hastings Street address of Joe's Record Shop.65 In the backroom of the shop its owner, a pioneer black entrepreneur and recording engineer Joseph Von Battle, recorded a number of local bluesmen from Eddie Burns to obscure Detroit street musicians like One- String Sam and Brother John Hairston. Known for driving down

Hastings in his gold colored Lincolns, Von Battle boasted that his store was the "largest outlet for race records in the country," featuring 25,000 discs of which blues outsold all other music "ten to one."66

63 DeRamus, p. 10. 64 "Great Black Strip." Detroit Free Press, p. 11. 65 Bjorn, p. 262; "Hucklebucker Weekends at Valley Ballroom." (advertisement). Michigan Chronicle. (November 19, 1949), p. 21; "Star Match Makes Top Show." Michigan Chronicle. (Feburary 25, 1950), p. 20. 66 "joe's Record Shop." (advertisement). Michigan Chronicle. (September 4, 1948), p. 9; Roy H. Stephens. "Stemmin' with Steve." Michigan Chronicle. (November 27, 1948), p. 11; Oliver, (liner notes). Von Battle also recorded pianist Bob "Detroit Count" White. Originally from Chattanooga Tennessee, White moved to Detroit in

1938 where he worked in the construction trades until taking a job in a Hastings Street restaurant. While performing in clubs in the area listeners began to dub him the "Count Basie of Detroit," thus giving rise to his title Detroit Count under which he recorded

"Hastings Street Opera" in 1948. A piano/rap number, the tune offered listeners a vaudevillen-like tour of the Hastings Street scene:67 Down on Hastings Street ... Hastings street Bar the only place where bartenders shoot everybody after two o'clock

Dixie Bar, one way out never go in that joint ...

Leland and Hastings, Leland Bar where the bartenders carry pistols68

In the first three weeks of its release, Von Battle's record shop sold over 4,000 copies of "Hastings Street Opera." With the sudden success of his Hastings boogie-tune, Detroit Count went on to record "Hastings Woogie," another piano number inspired by his years on the famous strip.6 9 Early in his career, Hooker recorded for Von Battle, but it wasn't until 1948 when he recorded for the Modern label that he landed a

67 "Bob 'Count' White Succeeds in Big City." Michigan Chronicle. (October 8, 1949), p. 20. 68 Oliver, (liner notes); The Blackwell Guide to Blues Records. ed. Paul Oliver. (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), p. 212. 69 Roy H. Stephens. "Stemmin' with Steve." Michigan Chronicle. (December 18, 1948), p. 11; "Bob 'Count' White." Michigan Chronicle, p. 20. nationwide hit with the tune "Boogie Chillen." This "Detroit ghetto travelogue," as it is described by prominent music critic and writer Robert Palmer, pays homage to the Hastings Street scene. "The first time I came to town people I was walking down Hastings Street," sang Hooker as his solo guitar work created a syncreticism, blending his Delta roots with the harsh sounds of urban life. Soon jukeboxes in drugstores, taverns, and department stores across the country blasted out Hooker's Detroit blues hit.70 Unfortunately, Hooker was the only Detroit bluesman to achieve nationwide fame. Others, although no less talented, continued to play along Hastings. Between 1951 and 1954, the music of these working class entertainers marked the golden age of Detroit blues. The burgeoning scene even attracted harmonica legend Rice Miller aka., Sonny Boy Williamson, who lived in Black Bottom for a year, performing with and Delta guitarist -- a one-time sideman with . Williamson also recorded and performed around Hastings with Washboard Willie and Vernon Harrison, known as "." A selftaught pianist, Harrison learned keyboard by listening to Big Maceo at Brown's Bar. In the fifties he frequently appeared as a sideman with John Lee Hooker. Outside of the electric country blues of local migrant musicians, Hastings offered nightclubs-goers the sound of modern urban blues, a style heavily influenced by swing-jazz, and jump rhythm and blues popularized by Louis Jordan and Lucky Millinder. Featuring slick horn

70 Palmer, p. 243-244. arrangements and refined piano accompaniment, fashionably dressed urban bluesmen entertained Hastings Street audiences with a more refined sound than that of the southern-born folk blues guitarists?1 Visitors to Hastings found this style of blues at clubs like Raymond Jackson's Sportee's Music Bar, the popular "Valley nightery" located near the corner of Adams. Patrons at Sportee's heard the finest national urban blues acts like the renown Texas guitarist Aron T-Bone Walker and Kansas City blues shouter Big Joe Turner. "T-Bone never fails to send patrons," stated a local paper's review of Walker's show, "he plays blues that put you in a lowdown groove and make you tap your feet."72 Sportee's, similar to most jazz and dance-oriented nightspots during the forties, featured a review-style show complete with an emcee and several local opening groups. Detroit bandleader and trumpeter, King Porter led a "hot quintet" which backed most of the visiting acts. "One of the top little bands in town," Porter's outfit often played behind local blues singers Honey Brown and Skippy Williams?3 Porter's "fast moving orchestra" included the young Detroit saxophonist Billy Mitchell, one of the rising stars of the modernist

jazz movement.74 As opposed to the folk and urban blues and swing-

71 Paul Oliver. eta!. The New Grove: Gospel, Blues, and jazz with Spirituals and Ragtime. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1980), pp. 90-101. 72 Larry Chism. "Swinging with Nightlifers." Michigan Chronicle. (june 21, 1947), p. 18; "King Porter Backs joe Turner at Sportee's Music Bar." Michigan Chronicle. (April 10, 1948), p. 18; "T-Bone Walker's Blues to Tiuiii Nightlifers." Michigan Chronicle. (May 10, 1947), p. 16. 73 Ira Gitler. Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition of !azz. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 261; "Porter Outfit on Music Bill at Sportee's." Michigan Chronicle. (April 17, 1948), p. 18. 74 "Calvalcade of Blues Reigns at Sportee's Music Bar." Michigan Chronicle. (March 27, 1948), p. 18. jazz performed on Hasting Street, Bebop or modernist jazz was an avant-garde idiom popular among a small but devout group of followers. In smaller ensembles modernists experimented in extended improvisational sections often incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythms and modern European harmonic structure. Arising out of New York's Harlem club scene, Bebop symbolized an artistic reaction against commercial efforts of white jazz musicians during the Swing era. Led by such primogenitors as trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, alto-saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianist Thelonious Monk, and drummer Max Roach, modernist jazz brought about a new school of Detroit-born musicians and listeners.75 But because blues and popular jazz ballads remained the most preferred music among Black Bottom listeners, modernists found few venues in which to display their talents.76 "Detroit unlike most cities is a blues tavern, and beer garden town," explained local music columnist Roy H. Stephens, "you need only to play the blues to be successful." Similar to most patrons and clubowners, Stephens viewed the Detroit Bebop craze as only a "passing fad." This pervasive attitude forced modernists to create a subculture within the Black Bottom music community, a movement which even brought Bebop to a small number of clubs on Hastings78 In the late forties, the Forest Club, site of Leo Tipton's duplicitous public address responsible for the rioting on Hastings 1n

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75 Paul Oliver. The New Grove. pp. 292-296. 76 Larry Chism. "Music Controversy Continues." Michigan Chronicle. (September 4, 1948), p. 9. 78 Roy F. Stephens. "Musicians Lack Fundamentals: Musicians Say." Michigan Chronicle. (june 5, 1948), p. 19. 1943, featured not only jump blues but modernist jazz. The Forest Club was owned by the "popular showman" Sunny Wilson, a prominent black Paradise Valley entrepreneur. Advertised as the "Largest Race Bowling Establishment," the Forest Club housed twenty-six lanes, a skating rink, and a ballroom containing a bar spanning one-hundred and five feet. For a short period, before Wilson sold the club in 1951, the establishment catered to the Bebop craze by billing itself as the "Bop City Ballroom," booking shows featuring Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.79 On the Forest Club's spacious dance floor young fans of modernist jazz danced the "gymnastic bebop" to the sounds of saxophonist Jaquet, and the Woody Herman Band, spotlighting the talents of bassist Oscar Pettiford and saxophonist Gene Ammons.so Bebop could also be heard at weekly jam sessions in several Hastings Street clubs. Called "Blue Monday Parties," these open sessions, or amateur contests allowed modernists to perform more advanced arrangements generally not part of the repertoire of blues­ based trios and small jazz ensembles dominating the Hasting Street scene. When not employed in swing and society-bands playing downtown theaters, hotels, and dancehalls modernists came to Hastings to perform at Monday jam sessions held at the Corner Bar "--The House That Bop Built--" at Alexander and Bill Rouzer's Ace

79 "Forest City Club Bowling Alley." (advertisement). Michigan Chronicle. (January 31, 1942), p. 11; "Forest Club Ballroom." Michigan Chronicle. (October 28, 1950), p. 8; "TI1e Forest Club." (advertisement). Michigan Chronicle. (October 7, 1950), p. 22; "Forest Club Gets Ready for Charlie Parker." (advertisement). Michigan Chronicle. (October 7, 1950), p. 22. 80 "The Duke Gets Dizzy as the Bird Flies with Louie and Woody Corrals the Thundering Herd." Michigan Chronicle. (April 23, 1949), p. 20; "Woody Herman and Woodchoppers Highlight Dance Date at Sunnie Wilson's Forest Club." Michigan Chronicle. (April16, 1949), p. 20. Bar at Livingston.sl Among the patrons at these corner drinking establishments were black comedian Bill Murray and his close friend Berry Gordy, the later impresario of Motown Records, who "gang­ banged up and down Hastings" in search of modernist jazz.s2 Around the mid-fifties, a number of forces led to the demise of the co-existing blues and jazz communities on Hastings Street. During this time, Hastings could no longer compete with the newer clubs appearing on Oakland Avenue, Russell, and the "Vegas-like" strip along John R. Once restricted to venues on Hastings and outlying streets in Paradise Valley, desegregation allowed black musicians to find work in white-owned lounges in hotels and nightclubs throughout the city. Others relocated, along with black residents and businessmen, on the once Jewish-dominated neighborhood around Twelfth Street, designated "the new Hastings

Street" by older members of the community 83 By 1958, hundreds of businesses on Hastings lay vacant including the historic Forest Club, Sportee's, and the legendary Brown's Bar. Others like the Hastings Bar became a poultry business, the Ace Bar a hardware store.s4 French blues researchers Jaques Demertre and Marcel Chauvard visiting Hastings in 1959 found the area to be a "wasteland" with its brick and wood structures in utter decay. "Customers looked so poor it was almost heartbreaking," accounted

81 "Cozy Corner." (advertisement). Michigan Chronicle. (October 29, 1949), p. 21; "Swift Agenda at Eastside House." Michigan Chronicle. (June 21, 1952),p. 18. 82 Helen Oakley Dance. Stormy Monday: The T-Bone Walker Story. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, 1987), p. 136. 83 "The Great Strip." Detroit Free Press, p. 11; Oliver, (liner notes). 84 Detroit's Eastside Q.ty Directory Wayne County Michigan. (Detroit: Polk & Co., Pub., 1958), pp.201-231. Demertre and Chauvard.85 Four years later, the final demise of Hastings Street came when the city decimated the street to make way for the 1-75 Chrysler Freeway -- a route formally proposed by city planners to be called the Oakland-Hastings Expressway. As if haunted by the effacement of Hastings Street, a decade later Detroit Count died in abject poverty, with his "feet wrapped in bags."86 Today no placards or historical markers have been erected in the memory of Hastings Street, only miles of pavement exists where saxophones and guitars once echoed into the late night hours. For over four decades Hastings stood as a crossroads of culture, a testament to the industrious creative and economic efforts by blacks to shape their own community. Its segregated environs gave rise to a flourishing folk and avant-garde music scene, reflecting the complex social and cultural changes within Detroit's African­ American population. Meritorious of a place in modern American cultural history, the study of Hastings lends to the understanding of a once thriving center of art and communal spirit in modern urban industrial America.

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