Quick viewing(Text Mode)

BY A.B. Spellman

BY A.B. Spellman

Denver Ferguson outside the Ferguson Building, Senate Avenue, Indianapolis, 1931.

BY A.B. Spellman

36 November / December 2011 resenters who think that they that issued from the musicians as the times work under rotten conditions in changed. The Memphis writer Preston Pless than ideal facilities, dragging Lauter­bach has written a breezy and infor- cash-strapped audiences to performances mative history of the circuit. Though less by temperamental artists, should read than definitive, and certainly not a study or Preston Lauterbach’s The Chitlin’ Circuit. survey, the stories that he knits together The chitlin’ circuit was a roadmap of dance make for an enjoyable biopsy of an under- halls, auditoriums, nightclubs, and ad hoc examined aspect of popular music at the sites where African American popular pivot point of mid-century American culture. musicians appeared from the late ’30s to the According to Lauterbach’s sources, the early ’50s. It replaced the Theatre Owners’ chitlin’ circuit was started by one Denver Booking Association, or TOBA—bitterly called Ferguson, one of several million African Tough on Black Artists or Tough on Black Americans who left the lynch-mad south Ass by the vaudevillians who toured it. The after World War I in what is now called the TOBA expired in 1930, killed off by the Great Migration. Denver settled in Indian­ THE CHITLIN’ CIRCUIT AND Great Depression. apolis. Indiana was no paragon of racial THE ROAD TO ROCK ’N’ ROLL The chitlin’ circuit was a different kind harmony, however. Ku Klux Klan (if they PRESTON LAUTERBACH of beast altogether; organized by African weren’t so grotesque, you’d laugh at the W. W. Norton & Company Americans, it was intimately set in their primitive stupidity of that name) member- 338 pp. communities and open to the innovations ship was rising in the state; some counts ISBN: 978-0-393-07652-3

37 hold that 25 percent of the white male They gave generously to charitable causes clubs. Barnes thought Capone “a regular population belonged. In Indiana, the Kluxers and invested in the projects of entrepreneurs guy” for good reason: once, when Barnes had a label, KKK Records, which claimed to from the community. Their breakthrough approached a Chicago station about a produce “the best in Klan music.” Among initiative occurred in 1931, when they weekly broadcast like ’s, the its titles were “The Bright Fiery Cross” and bought the Odd Fellows Hall from white manager replied, “We don’t air colored.” “Daddy Stole Our Last Clean Bed Sheet and people who were abandoning the area. On When told of this, Capone commanded the Joined the Ku Klux Klan.” the ground floor, Sea operated the brothers’ manager, “You do now.” He did. Ferguson opened a profitable print shop real estate office and the Cotton Club. On But in 1931 Capone was imprisoned for and soon began producing the baseball the third floor, Denver opened the elegant tax evasion, and Barnes was dumped by his tickets that were the tools of his numbers Trianon Ballroom. The two operations were booking agency, the syndicate-sponsored business. He employed 200 or so runners, the pride of local black nightlife. Music Corporation of America. He needed surveyed a twenty-block square around A parallel development involved Chicago’s Southern market. Barnes mentioned in his Indiana Avenue, the commercial and enter- Walter Barnes. When the variety shows column that he was open for bookings. He tainment strip for . The that had toured with the TOBA were nearly filled dancehalls across the South, and the runners dropped in at barbershops and beauty dead, artists, without fully booked tours, Royal Creolians become the most functional parlors, social clubs, bars and restaurants, were left stranded all over the South. of the regional bands. One gig set him at homes—any place where customers might Barnes, who wrote a column in the Denver Ferguson’s Trianon Ballroom. Lauter­ be enrolled. The thing about the numbers Chicago Defender, the greatest bach does not tell us of any tutorials on tour game, even though it was rigged, was that organization that Ferguson might have you could get a piece of the action for as received from Barnes; but it is a neat spec- ulation, as Ferguson clearly reproduced the Barnes model when he organized his tours. Walter Barnes died at 34 in 1939 in a dancehall fire outside Natchez, Mississippi. The ballroom was one of those wooden structures with one working exit (to keep people from sneaking in) that touring bands dreaded so much. Seeing the fleeing patrons trample one another at the door, Barnes tried to calm them by commanding the band to continue playing, like the famous musicians on the Titanic. Two hundred nine Sax section of International Sweethearts of Rhythm, a band on Ferguson’s roster people were killed in this conflagration. Barnes was eulogized in numerous songs. little as a dime. The same organizing and of the African American newspapers, would Richard Wright described the fire in his financial principles underlay the chitlin’ cir- receive and publish such notices as: “Little 1958 novel, The Long Dream. Howlin’ Wolf cuit, as Denver Ferguson superintended it. Skinny Robinson, ivory tickler, is ready to and John Lee Hooker sang of it in the ’50s Promoters needed agents in the communities hit the road again. Replies should be sent and ’60s. to recruit audiences, and though dollars were to 212 S. Fourth St., Memphis.” In the post- In December 1941, the aftermath of a extremely precious among black people TOBA vacuum, Barnes’s column functioned fatal shooting at a nightclub that was owned during the Depression, their nickels and as a clearinghouse of supply and demand by rivals of the Ferguson brothers resulted dimes added up. for entertainment across the South. in unapologetic racists imposing their Denver brought in his brother, Sea, to help Barnes also was a reed player who led a authority on a neighborhood scene they with his expanding businesses. The Fergusons successful regional band called Walter had previously ignored. As black business were good race men, that is, they believed Barnes and his Royal Creolians. He was well in Indianapolis constricted, Denver founded in the advancement of African American established in Chicago, for his was a the Ferguson Brothers’ Booking Agency. He people through education and achievement. favored house band for Al Capone’s night- hooked up with the Chicago-based Bluebird

38 January / February 2012 A Walter Barnes promotional flier. A Chicago journalist and bandleader, Barnes led an ensemble that played dancehalls across the South just before Denver Ferguson founded his booking agency.

Records, a syndicate As black hotels were intermission to count the money. First operation. The mutual benefits rare in the segregated money went to the band and the agent; the of such relationships were clear: the agents South, band members promoter then kept an amount equal to needed to get the records on the jukeboxes stayed with families. (My family once housed the band’s guarantee. If profits were greater to promote their events, and the labels some of ’s musicians.) Where than “the nut,” as that sum was called, the needed the events to promote their artists. traditional venues were lacking, Denver’s artists and promoters split the balance. Denver signed several bluesy swing bands: agents used alternatives, such as tobacco The agent wired his share to Denver. The the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, barns, warehouses and fraternal lodges. In margin of error on tour was thin; a single an all-female band that called itself my town, Millinder played a dance at the cancellation would strand a band. “International” because it had Hawaiian and gym of the local black college. Another dance The war changed everything. Factories Chinese members, and ensembles led by was held at the high school gym. These were hiring black men and women, and , whom he advertised as the equal, gymnasium events were considered to be many bought their first houses and cars. if not the superior, of ; better than most by the musicians. Eighty- Denver’s business thrived; he opened an drummer Tiny Bradshaw; and pianist Jay six-year-old Sax Kari (born Isaac Saxton office in Los Angeles to handle an expanded McShann, who would make music history Kari Toombs), a guitarist and bandleader on custom. For a time, the agent replaced the by giving his first recorded the circuit back in the day, told Lauterbach: as the power in the industry, solo. He also toured several shouters, “When you got into a place that had running just as the record company had replaced like Roosevelt Sykes and . water inside, why you were fortunate.” The the publisher a generation earlier. Shellac Denver laid these bands on Walter Barnes’s band played for two and a half hours, took a was diverted from vinyl for records to martial network, and the chitlin’ circuit was founded. half-hour intermission, and played another purposes, and the companies changed over Mimicking the system that he had created hour and a half. in 1942 to military production. Most impor- on Indiana Avenue, Ferguson recruited agents The average chitlin’ circuit band com- tant, gasoline rationing greatly reduced the who tracked the local social establishments manded a fee of $350. Kari: “The circuit number of buses that were availed to bands, and brewed anticipation for the coming was never about making big which meant that they had to travel by car, shows. His print shop provided the promo- money, it was about making which meant that they became smaller. tional material—posters, fliers, press kits, constant money.” The agent sat In , the diminished band size would window placards and tickets. with the promoter at combine with other material factors to lead

Louis Jordan and the Tympani Five, in 1940 to , but I will resist that digression. In Jordan, many of the top acts on the circuit became popular with a musical meaning— popular music generally, big bands declined traveled without bands. This was true of it had appeared in blues songs as slang for for a different reason: singers had grown T-Bone Walker, Joe Turner, , coitus since the 1920s. Lauterbach credits Roy bigger than orchestras—and didn’t need Ivory Joe Hunter and many others. Brown with creating rock ’n’ roll, though such sixteen musicians behind them. A quintet African American unemployment spiked attributions are a little too pat for me. would do, with a couple of good soloists to again after World War II, so with people He brought tough, lewd lyrics—the give them some relief. A trio could serve holding less money to spend on expensive essence of chitlin’ circuit song and a nicely, as Nat Cole exemplified. And when band tickets, the number of traveling solo staple of rock ‘n’ roll ever since—from you got down to it, good local musicians acts increased. (The top ticket for Wynonie down in the barrelhouse to the top of could back them, particularly if their records Harris was $1.00; for Duke Ellington, $3.00.) the Billboard charts…two years before made the top 40 on the race music chart This made New Orleans an ideal destination; Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed initi- (Billboard’s term for African American music). the city was, as now, loaded with jazz ated popular use of the phrase rock ’n’ The revolution was led by musicians who could back the singers. roll, four years before ’s “Rock and his Tympani Five. Jordan, from Brinkley, Their songs were well known and easily Around the Clock,” and five years before , is still highly respected by jazz learned: basically, after Louis Jordan and covered Ray’s composition musicians as an alto saxophonist. In 1941, Joe Turner, these were blues lines without “Good Rockin’ Tonight. just a month before the Japanese attack on the AAB form. The rock ’n’ roll of this period Pearl Harbor changed the world, he recorded relied on wind instruments, as its roots It was in New Orleans that “Come on Baby, ” and “I’m were in swing; New Orleans had a surfeit Penniman cut his breakthrough single, “Tutti Gonna Move Way Out to the Outskirts of of excellent wind players. Frutti”—and that story bears a telling. Little Town” and hit the chitlin’ circuit swinging. It was in New Orleans in 1947 that the Richard grew up in Macon, Georgia, and The Tympani Five was by far the most suc- shouter Roy Brown recorded “Good Rockin’ joined traveling acts as soon as he was old cessful of the singer-led combos, dominating Tonight.” The song vaulted to the top of the enough to run away from home. In his teens the race charts in the early . Following race records charts, and so the term “rock” he cut some modestly successful sides for RCA, and a Ferguson protégé, Clint Brantley, The Beale Streeters in Memphis on WDIA, the first used those records to promote him. Richard’s radio station to broadcast black music exclusively first acts were in drag: “Princess Lavonne” was one of his stage personae. Brantley began to groom Little Richard and his Upsetters for wider exposure by putting him in competition with such R&B titans as Amos Milburn, whom he destroyed, and Roy Brown. The Upsetters hit the chitlin’ trail through small-town Georgia venues that Brantley had developed for Denver Ferguson. Little Richard and the Upsetters ruled the Georgia sticks until they hit Taccoa to play a club called Bill’s Rendezvous. The club’s house band was the Flames, led by a former juvenile delinquent named—yes, . When the Flames first got the gig they were so broke that they couldn’t afford to buy instruments. “They stomped the rhythm and whistled or hummed the instrumental sequences,” writes Lauterbach. Brown attrib­ uted his legendary stamina to these days. When the Upsetters showed up on the ‘ n 1949, Billboard changed the name of its African American hit list from “Race Records” Ito “.” That is to say, R&B was a trade, not a cultural or musical, name. And by this time, white companies had all but stolen the chitlin” circuit from African Americans.’

Flames’ turf, Brown was, he said, “determined dance band tunes from Duke Ellington he play “‘Precious Lord’ real pretty.” Then a to cut them.” He quickly saw his advantage. and , plus torch songs from shot was heard…. Little Richard was a crowd-stirring singer and . By WDIA’s program director, David Mattis, and looked spectacular in a silver cape and 1944, Louis Jordan dominated the list, started , a label that soon poufed hair—but he couldn’t dance. When typically with numerous titles appearing merged with out of . the crowd called Brown and his boys to the throughout the top fifteen, while… Peacock was owned by an important chitlin’ stage during intermission, they lit the joint leading swing band[s] [and] the King circuit promoter named , a rather up. Little Richard tried to be cool, but soon Cole Trio nudged their way into the louche individual whom Lauterbach describes was screaming, “Get ’em off! Get ’em off!” parade…. as “a fancy fellow…whose gold teeth were He grudgingly admitted to Brown, “You’re After the war, Louis Jordan rode his only discernible Negro characteristics.” the onliest man I’ve seen who has it all,” highest as more cool small bands… (This is not the only time that Lauterbach and swept away. joined the party. By the fall of 1949, engages in this kind of gratuitous racial On tour, Richard met Lloyd Price, who hit rockers had almost fully taken over stereotyping.) It was Robey who first broke big with “Lawdy Lawdy Lawdy, Miss Claudy” the race records chart…The last race Louis Jordan at his club the Bronze Peacock and “Stagger Lee.” Price suggested that charts in early 1949 read like the results in ; it was he who managed the Richard send a tape. Richard submitted a of a revolution. Even the mighty Jordan pivotal Gatemouth Brown. And it was he who demo tape to Specialty Records. One Bumps had been toppled. Amos Milburn, Roy commanded David Mattis at gunpoint to sell Blackwell, who had groomed Brown, and Wynonie Harris pushed him the rest of the stock of Duke Records and in Seattle, heard it and Jordan, Ella, and Billy Eckstine to the for $10,000. arranged to meet Richard at a studio in end of the list and relegated Ellington Robey signed the rising Little Richard in New Orleans. Blackwell expected the mad and the swing generation to nostalgia. 1953, and that year released a song that he singer from the tape, but Richard sang had been holding for a couple of years, Big demurely. At the break they repaired to the Memphis was a crucial hub in African Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog,” which Dew Drop Inn, where Richard spied a crowd American musical history generally and on instantly hit the top of the R&B charts. and a vacant . He couldn’t resist; he the chitlin’ circuit specifically. It had its Robey also took over the management jumped onstage and sang a song that he famous , immortalized by W. C. of the hot young singer , whom described to his biographer as “really vulgar,” Handy’s “Beale Street Blues.” The entertain- he booked as a headliner throughout his an anthem to anal sex. That version of ment section was only about three blocks Southwest network and Sunbeam Mitchell’s “Tutti Fruitti” never got recorded. long, but it was still a powerful center. The in Mississippi and . Ace’s “My Song” James Brown finished the tour with the city had WDIA, the first radio station to made number one on the Billboard charts Upsetters when Richard split for New broadcast black music exclusively, with a on September 27, 1952, and others followed, Orleans, so for a brief period you could signal that covered much of the region. B. B. including “Savin’ My Love for You” and “The have seen him appearing as Little Richard. King was a DJ there for a while. The Memphis Clock,” my favorite. But sudden celebrity was In 1949, Billboard changed the name of its inventory of musicians was so strong that not good for Johnny Ace. In addition to the African American hit list from “Race Records” the dazzling jazz pianist Phineas Newborn usual excesses of poor kids who suddenly to “Rhythm and Blues.” That is to say, R&B was not considered to be a certain victor in find themselves in possession of wealth and was a trade, not a cultural or musical, name. the city’s nonstop cutting sessions. The fame, he developed the “good luck” habit of By 1949, white agencies had largely stolen heart of these sets was the Mitchell Hotel spinning the empty cylinder of his revolver, the chitlin’ circuit from African Americans. and Bar, owned by a bootlegger and promot- holding the gun to his temple, and pulling Record companies drew closer to booking er named Sunbeam Mitchell. The house the trigger. agents, bribes and all, and the system grew band was the Rocketeers, which included You know, or can guess, the rest. Ace died to resemble the one that we have today. Newborn and the tenor saxophonist Ben accidentally in his dressing room, demon- Black popular music was changing. Branch. Branch would affiliate with Martin strating, all in good fun, that his gun was Writes Lauterbach: Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian not loaded. [T]he typical Hit Parade Leadership Conference. He was standing Johnny Ace’s sales had been declining, during 1942–1943 included light pop beneath Dr. King in the motel parking lot but he had recently had recorded “Pledging fare such as , big swing on April 4, 1968, when King requested that continued on page 69

41 Chitlin’ continued from page 41 My Love.” At the singer’s death, Robey Wynonie Harris, and Joe Turner, made great as she found the Negro soldiers whom she released the disk; it quickly hit number one records, but got little or no money from had met to be more sympathetic than German on the R&B charts and stayed there. Writes them; the recordings were more useful as men. She was interested in corresponding Lauterbach: “No artist more poignantly promotional tools than as royalty sources. with candidates. A picture of a beautiful signifies the rise of the record than Johnny With an accelerating rate of covers by Nordic woman was attached. Four thousand Ace. He was worth more dead, a ghost voice white singers of R&B hits and the attendant letters later, Lilo settled on Denver, who sent on black vinyl, than alive.” Such was Don adaptation of R&B styles, the music that her a first-class ticket on a transatlantic liner. Robey’s reputation that a rumor circulated we know as was inevitable. But when the ship docked, Denver was that he had slipped the cartridge into Ace’s gun. Lauterbach makes a useful delineation: shocked to see the massive Fraulein Rentsch The true news was in a January 15, 1955, disembark; she had sent a photo of a younger, The standard definitions of rock and Billboard article that read, “‘’ hotter friend. Poor Denver had no choice roll, courtesy of institutions such as the is almost as popular with pop customers as but to marry her as she refused his offer of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Rolling with R&B.” The long clumsy process of cross- return fare. Stone magazine, emphasize a fusion of over began. Robey did a clever thing: he Back in Indianapolis, Denver transferred black rhythm and blues and white convinced Wemar Music to accept half the all of his property to Sea and set about end- country-western sounds, as if the two revenue for the song if they could get a ing the marriage. The divorce was a messy styles brought distinct elements to a white singer to record it. Wemar chose and sensational affair, even though both new mixture. While that certainly ; her cover placed 30th on parties agreed that the marriage never had applies to Bill Haley and Elvis Presley… the pop charts while Ace’s hit at 17th and been consummated. Lilo won a substantial it implies a shared primacy that simply remained at No. 1 on the R&B charts. settlement, which Denver swore that he was didn’t exist at the dawn of rock and roll. In December, Billboard published an article too destitute to pay. Very well, she took pos- While black music clearly was rockin’ by entitled “The Year That R&B Took Over the Pop session of Denver’s last nightclub and his 1949, country and western fans delighted Field.” The publication’s 1949 change from household furnishings. Denver had a stroke. in the sounds of yodels, waltzes, race music to R&B had the effect of distin- He would regain his property on appeal accordions, fiddles and steel guitars. guishing that music from jazz and other forms but never recovered. In death, he was cele- of black popular music and enhancing its And what, you wonder, became of Denver brated as a pillar of the community. profile. In 1955, Billboard desegregated its Ferguson, the superintendent of the chitlin’ The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock popular music charts altogether, and black circuit? His last years were sad and bizarre. ’n’ Roll is a good, fast read. There is nothing artists record sales were listed next to Elvis It could be said that Denver died of a academic about it. Though there are many Presley, and the rest. According marriage to a complete stranger. Just after useful insights here, this book would have to Lauterbach, this ”caused a simple seismic WWII, a German woman, one Lilo Rentsch, been stronger with a more committed intel- shift—following Little Richard’s breakthrough, wrote to Ebony magazine and declared that lectual orientation: this is social history chitlin’ circuit performers could think seriously she was interested in marrying a Negro man, without social context. There are some about making a living, perhaps a fortune, important omissions: not discussed are the in the recording studio.” The early chitlin’ Johnny Ace, unknown, B.B. King, unknown, comics and hoofers who appeared on the circuit performers, such as T-Bone Walker, , Willie Mae Thornton, 1953 urban variety shows or those regulars on the chitlin’ circuit, the pivotal male quartets like the Ravens and the Orioles, whose tight harmonies we spent hours on street corners trying to duplicate. (The Ravens’ name appears once in a list; the Orioles never come up). Nonetheless, I enjoyed and learned from this book, and that is commendation enough.

A. B. Spellman, a poet and a writer on jazz, has served as deputy chairman for guidelines, pan- els and council operations at the National Endowment for the Arts.

69

Top View