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1 I wish I could Go
North Avenue is a long thoroughfare connecting east and west Baltimore.
Numerous businesses, houses and institutions make up this famous yet dilapidated block. When I cruise down North Avenue I see strips of abandoned buildings, trash, and individuals struggling with the by-products of poverty and neglect. I also see historic architecture, murals of Chick Webb and Billie Holiday, and the Great Blacks and Wax Museum; observations I would not have so clearly made as a child growing up in Baltimore. During the eighties when I was a teenager, North Avenue brought to mind two places: 1515 and Odell’s. 1515 was, and still is a local health clinic located at 1515 West North Avenue. It was the place to go if you were from West B-more and contracted a venereal disease.
It played a major role in our language of abuse: “Yo, I saw your muva comin outta 1515!” or “You gotta a 1515 girl”, to name a few. However, for me and many of my peers, 21 East North Avenue, the building formerly known as a dance club called Odell’s was the mythical place that all the older cats frequented
2 and praised. We yearned to experience Odell’s, and associated North Avenue
with that once famous club; from 1972 to 1988 it was a strong and viable
community asset. Why and how it became such is what I aim to explore.
Odell’s was located in the heart of the city between Charles and St. Paul
Streets. Because Charles Street divides east and west sides of the city, Odell’s was extremely accessible to both sides of town with bus service readily available
for its patrons. Also, if it you were a first timer, finding it was a breeze because
North Avenue is so wide. The lines of people and cars outside the club were also a dead give away. Back in 1985 I remember my stepsister and her friends being dropped off as I dreamed of getting in.
The formation and future of Odell’s (which evolved into a community that still
exists to this day) relied heavily on the unique assets of different individuals,
especially the deejay.
All Hail the Deejay
3 The year was 1969. The seventeen and eighteen hundred blocks of North
Charles Street were a hub of social and cultural activity with places such as the
buildings that today house Club Choices, (then a nightclub called The Carousel
that focused on live acts and occasional disco parties requiring a deejay--owned by David Richardson and Odell Brock), and the Charles Theatre (then known as
The Famous Ballroom, home to The Left Bank Jazz Society).1
Wayne Davis became a central force in the area’s vitality. Born in North
Carolina and raised in Baltimore from the age of three, during his teen age years before he started going out to clubs, Davis had house parties. “Back then they called ‘em basement parties, you know, and I was always the one taking care of the music”.2 His parties were always successful because of the music he chose.
Later on he began going out to clubs to get his groove on. When he went to
clubs in D.C., New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Chicago he began hearing
music that wasn’t played in Baltimore; he decided to find out as much as possible
about the music being played in places like The Garage and Studio 54 in New
4 York. Armed with new cutting-edge music, Wayne decided to cater his house
parties to a more mature crowd. The move was successful and his reputation as
a deejay became widely known. He was the first deejay to play at the Mt. Vernon
club, The Hippo. He replaced their juke boxes with fresh new music and
seamless blends drawing large crowds, but when the clientele became too black
the Hippo returned to juke boxes.3 Another opportunity presented itself when
Odell Brock, a regular at Wayne’s house parties, offered him a regular deejay gig
at The Carousel.
Odell Brock developed a tremendous amount of faith and respect for Wayne
as a deejay and decided to venture out and open a dance club on his own,
centered on Wayne’s talent and expertise. In 1971 he purchased the property at
21 East North Avenue. When Odell Brock acquired the building it was, according
to Wayne, “a beef and beer” chain business. When Odell’s officially opened its
doors in 1972, Wayne’s following made it an instant success. The club’s theme
was, “You’ll know if you belong”. In addition to spinning good music, he also
5 insisted on having a top-notch sound system; a prerequisite for a thumping party, no matter how good the deejay is. He hired Richard Long, who engineered and built the sound systems for the Garage and Studio 54, to build their system. He also helped with the first and most successful renovation in 1975 that placed a long dance floor in the center of the club, surrounded by an elevated area with built-in seating known as the pit.4
Odell’s, as a community asset, gave aspiring deejays a chance to hone their skills and eventually establish careers as deejays. One example was Teddy
Douglas who ended up co-founding the production group, The Basement Boys.
According to poet and visual artist Paul Flood, also a club regular, “as an artist you had substance for inspiration no matter what kind of artist you were. I danced so hard I fell out from heat exhaustion. When I woke up I was at my buddy’s house.” 5 They played everything from classic soul to house music (a post-disco genre originated in Chicago’s Warehouse nightclub as a bass-heavy alternative to pop-oriented disco, and popularized by DJ Frankie Knuckles). The
6 crowd was always diverse and open. Most of the clientele was from Baltimore, but people came from as far as New York. Gay, straight, street, college, rich, and poor folk partied side by side. If you were invited to come into the dance circle then your skills were up to par. The parties were known to get wild, but never in a violent way during the club’s heyday. It was a social and spiritual outlet for the nonconformist “burn baby burn” children of the seventies and the abandoned youth of Reaganomics.
Ending of an Era
According to Wayne another renovation took place in 1984 which included a larger dance floor and a runway. Odell Brock also formed a partnership with local entrepreneurs, Lil’ Will Franklin and Phil. I remember them having Easter kiddy discos and other events that catered to children. For whatever reason,
Odell Brock decided no longer to cater to the mature crowd. For high school kids like me in 1986-7, it was wonderful. I finally had the chance to experience what I had heard and dreamed about. I danced the night away and got a chance to see
7 beautiful girls take their clothes off on stage during the Fly Girl contest. However,
it was not the Odell’s that was once compatible with likes of the Warehouse in
Chicago; it was in a state of decline.6 The nostalgia was there and felt good, but
the late eighties declared the diversity of Odell’s taboo. The macho hustler type
crowd didn’t fit with preps and homosexuals. The music began to change also.
It no longer catered to house-heads interested solely in dancing and having a
good time. In 1985 Odell Brock died of bone-marrow cancer. By 1988 the old-
school clientele was abandoned, the new owners were involved in money
laundering and the feds shut it down.7 Wayne went on to start to his own spot
called Club Fantasy on Howard Street. After being forced to shut that down by the city he opened The Paradox in 1991 on Russell Street. He’s still in business
and doing well. Odell Brock’s nephew works with him, and a number of young
men and women have interned or worked at The Paradox, launching their careers in management, deejaying and entrepreneurship.
8 There’s an Odell’s reunion held every year. The last one was held on August
6, 2005 at Druid Hill Park. It drew large crowds of people who felt they had a strong collective social bond. 21 East North Avenue now sits unused. Its development and the rest of Station North may not call for another Odell’s or any other club for that matter, but it certainly needs to be perceived by the residents as theirs, and a contributor to their collective vitality.
Bibliography
1 James D. Ditts, The Closet Tapes, Baltimore City Paper 04 November 2000 2 Wayne Davis, interview with author, Baltimore, Maryland, 2 November 2005 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid 5 Paul Flood, Interview by author, Baltimore, Maryland, 1 November 2005 6 John Johnson, A Retrospective, www.blackbookscafe.com/Retrospective.htm 26 October 3005 7 Wayne Davis
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