Sal Abbatiello at his home in Portrait Janette Beckman Westchester County, New York Words Mark Webster Archive material courtesy of Sal Abbatiello The Real Get Down Sal Abbatiello – the man at the heart of the music scene depicted in The Get Down, Baz Luhrmann’s new TV series set in the Bronx in the 1970s – tells his story.

Always seductive, always an New Amsterdam. But as has happened many architect, had to help with the grocery store. But adventure, New York City has times throughout history, out of adversity came that gave him the opportunity to open up a bar nevertheless not always been an opportunity. And that bubbling cauldron of a block from there. They needed more income, easy place to visit or live. In 2002, creativity that was the Bronx in the mid-1970s and he didn’t want to sell groceries anyway. The New York Times reminded the has inspired filmmaker Baz Luhrmann’s latest Unfortunately, first night of opening, there was world of this when it published an project – a Netflix musical drama series on the a fire. Burned the whole place down. So they had article asking “How Close Was New birth of hip-hop, The Get Down. to borrow money from the mob, got caught in that York City to Bankruptcy in 1975?” To get an insight into the real deal, I travelled mess. My mum had to work there, and my sister. The piece went on to state: “So close out to a pristine New York suburb to the home And it was a black, urban neighbourhood now. that the city’s lawyers were in State of the man who was at the very heart and soul Ours was the last white family to stay. So I grew Supreme Court filing a bankruptcy of it all back then, Sal Abbatiello. up around black people. My mum would take petition. So close that police cars Abbatiello was so integral to this period, he even me to work so I’d be in the bar in the afternoons were mobilised to serve the papers got to play himself in the 1985 filmKrush Groove, – I had 10 black uncles. And Chubby Checker on the banks. So close that aides based on the early days of hip-hop label Def Jam was out. I remember doing the twist to the record to Mayor Abraham D. Beame had Recordings. His own pioneering nightclub Disco on the jukebox. It was a nice R&B place. And a written statement announcing Fever was featured as the film’s fictitious venue. we’d have people over for Thanksgiving. They’d the default along with an emergency Abbatiello is still a busy man. His small office get to eat Italian. We got to try soul food. effort to save the city’s dwindling – overseen by White Boy, a DJ and road manager I didn’t see any prejudice until I was in second cash for vital services like police for the dance/pop group the Cover Girls, which grade. At school there was only one black kid and fire protection. That close.” Abbatiello formed in 1986 – is a bustling monument there. We became friends and I took him home That may all seem pretty to decades of promoting, managing and running to my house one day where we had a little implausible now, but this was a his own label, Fever Records, with old school makeshift pool, and we played in it. And next period that included a bail out for hip-hop shows and events still filling the calendar day we woke up, and the pool was all broke the city led by the teachers’ union for months in advance. up and it had “nigger lover” sprayed on it. using their own pension fund, risking Nowadays, the dark hair is slicked back in the I remember crying. I was like eight or nine. losing it all in the process; an attempt style of Robert de Niro in Casino and Goodfellas, By the time I got to high school, my father to salvage the situation by pushing perhaps not surprising given his family history. had gone into business with a black gentleman, up bus and subway fares; cutting This is the man who was once at the epicentre of who had a bar down the block, called Jake. They jobs and wages for city workers; a cultural revolution, and his story, as he recounts had been taking business from each other, so and a 24-hour blackout that spawned it to me, still has the capacity to move him to tears: they got together and said, “Why don’t we open a rioting and looting. All of which saw place together?” That was 1969, and they wound a million people leave the city in the “My family, we’re all from the Bronx. My up going up town to 169th Street and Jerome, decade. If you did dare to visit, you grandfather, he came from Italy. He met my and they opened up a place called Pepper-n-Salt. might have picked up a leaflet at the grandmother here, who had also emigrated, and A high class lounge. Everybody wore a tux. They airport entitled ‘Welcome to Fear City they got married. And they raised their children had jazz nights, crab nights. A very upscale – a Survival Guide for Visitors to New on Washington Avenue in the Bronx. They place. I was about 16 and I would go in there York City’. opened a grocery store. Then my uncle came and help my father get the place ready. But then So that was the Big Apple then. from Italy, and he had the butcher’s store next he put me in there at night too, at 17, as a waiter. And its own bad apple was the Bronx door. And then another uncle had a candy store. I didn’t know a thing about liquor. By the time – the impoverished borough that He was also Sal, a good guy, he ran block parties. I’m 18 though, I’m a bartender at our new place began life as the farmland of Swedish But he was a drinker. Ended up passing away on Burnside, Sugar and Spice. It’s an Italian immigrant Jonas Bronck, who had at 51. But he was a real neighbourhood guy. He Mafia Top 40 place, band behind the bar. [The arrived when the city was just was poor, always struggling, even back then. So actor] Chazz Palminteri was in a band there – beginning its long and lurid life as when he died my father, who was going to be an good basketball player – and Joe Pesci was too.

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And Frank Vincent, from The Sopranos. Plus DJ Hollywood, Kurtis Blow, Bam Bam and all the gangsters. Served them at night. Read Abbatiello receiving the first certified gold about them in the papers in the morning. rap record for Blow’s single ‘The Breaks’ These were strange times for me. I become a navy reserve, I don’t know what made me do it. And I’m going back and forth, working NEW weekends. But it did mean I could buy a new Buick. Loved it. But I took it to work one night, and they’d stolen my hubcaps. And I got shot by some other Italian kids protecting some “THE MERCHANT” people from around my neighbourhood. Just a regular couple. I beat up this kid. They got me in an alley. Later, I end up handling that situation. STYLE NO. 8061 - 8062 We opened a lumberyard business after I got shot. And I’m still at the bars at night. Only problem is, I wake up at two in the afternoon, the yard shuts at four. Everyone was stealing Now I get to go to Flash and I say all the lumber in the morning. to him, “I’m going to make you a So dad finds a place down the block from star.” And he’s like, “How’s that? Pepper-n-Salt. At 167th and Jerome. About six Some white boy coming into my blocks from Yankee Stadium. And he loves building neighbourhood?” And I say, “Well, places. Designing them. My uncles are physically it’s my neighbourhood, too. I just building it. And we’re trying to come up with a didn’t leave. Let me put you on name for this new joint. One night, my mother’s where people can see you.” watching the John Travolta movie and she says, Flyer for Disco Fever, New York, 1983 So Flash says, “OK, but I’ve got “Why don’t you call it Disco Fever?” I was like, five MCs.” And we’re only charging “Nah,” but then it was like, OK good name, because a dollar to get in and a dollar a it became instrumental to what we went on to do. drink. So I say, “Let’s try a night So on New Year’s Eve 1976, we open it. And and see if it works? I’ll give you I ask my father if I could try something on a $50 to DJ, and them $50 to MC.” Sunday. So we’re putting on R&B and disco like Next, I make up a paper flyer and Harold Melvin, Teddy Pendergrass, Taste of get it out to all the 18 year olds in the Honey, Lou Rawls, Archie Bell, Sister Sledge parks and we get to the night, and – all this great music. But no one believed these what happens? Seven hundred bands would come. To the Bronx? Nah. So we people show up. There’s me, one bar didn’t do that well. And all my black uncles are tender, Sweet G and Flash running patting me on the head and saying, “Ah well, the whole place. And one bouncer on nice job, kid.” Abbatiello and film director Michael Shultz outside the door collecting a dollar. I’m on the But then after a few months of these nights, Disco Fever, New York, 1985 pay phone to the other bars we have: this DJ would take over from the regular house “Hurry up, send help.” And we had guy, and his DJ name was Sweet G – George be huge because the whole crowd is acting as one wild kids, gang members, crews from Godfrey. And he’d get on like 3.30am or 4am, person in the club. A doctor, a lawyer, a hooker, a different neighbourhoods, but because we used to stay open till six in the pimp, a school teacher... and there’s this DJ, and everyone was good, because they morning. The law was till four, but in the he is the same as us. Now, there was another club were excited. It was a real club. With Bronx in those years, no one bothered you. all the way across town called 371 on the eastside, a real sound system. And with their I’m listening to him rhyming over the music and but they were getting all the hustlers, where we guy Grandmaster Flash. So now talking to the crowd. And back then, no DJ had had the average R&B crowd. But they did have DJ we’re expanding the space out the a mic in the booth. It was just about blending Hollywood, and he’s rapping. And he’s becoming a back. We’re going seven nights. I’m records, keeping the dancefloor flowing. huge celebrity. He was arriving in a limo. Wearing reaching out to Lovebug Starski. Now this is my first sighting of what was called a tux. Two or three shows a night, making $1,500 Eddie Cheeba. Kurtis Blow, he got rap. That’s for me, I mean by that. Because a night back then in 1976 and 1977. started at the Fever, I helped get it’s on the street already. But not nightclubs. But that wasn’t us. So I ask George – who was him his record deal. We became real [Kool DJ] Herc was the first to do it in these a great music programmer, but not great as that good friends, I was best man at his community centres. Teenagers, like 13 to 18. kind of DJ, “Where can I see more of this?” So wedding. Russell Simmons, he brings And he could do that. He was a big dude. Very George and me go out onto the streets, and I see Run-DMC along. We had an open muscular. A real presence. Had their respect. Lovebug Starski, Disco Wiz. All these original mic night with Flash DJing. Kool And these kids are doing it at home, too. So hip-hop DJs that were fantastic. But one name Moe Dee did it. Treacherous Three. Kurtis [Blow] is there. [Grandmaster] Flash is keeps coming up: Grandmaster Flash. All way before they made records. there. Spoonie Gee. Treacherous Three. Fearless So I go to my father and say we’ve got to bring in Now I’ve become the owner of this Four. So this birth is happening and building MCing for a night. And he and his friends are like, club that is like the YMCA of the steam out there, but nobody wanted to deal with “Nah, nah, they’re not singing, they’re speaking, Bronx. There’s high school kids MADE IN RED WING, MN, USA redwingheritage.eu the teenagers. You had the gangs. Nightclubs they’re scratching on the records. They’re not running loose out there because their didn’t want that. playing the whole record out. It ain’t real music.” parents were either holding down So I say to George, “What is this you’re doing?” I say, “Give me a Tuesday. You’re closed two/three jobs or were drug addicts. Because I’m thinking, oh my god, this is going to Tuesday.” I get the Tuesday. And I’m still only 25/26. And white

J&N173 I say to Grandmaster Flash, ‘I’m going to make you a star.’ And he’s like, ‘How’s that? Some white boy coming into my

neighbourhood?’ Set of the filmKrush Groove, with Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde and Run-DMC, 1985

We rebuilt the local park too. And there were We don’t know who’s showing up. Three gangsters in there. Drug dealers. They’d wrecked thousand people show up for this one. One of the everything. So I went in with my crew and it took best nights of my life ever. Because this became us three weeks. We’re physically having fights a real big turning point for me, for the way that with these dealers – throwing them down, I was looked at in the community. What people beating them up – and they finally left. So didn’t know is that I could play, and I went off. we had a fundraiser. Run-DMC helped. And I came off the bench, we’re losing, minutes to we renovated the whole park, started a youth go, and I hit the last 13 points, including the association right there – so the kids could come winning shot on the buzzer. I’m getting lifted up, skating, do their homework. carried around. And now the people are telling Then it’s 1978/79 and things go up again the staunchest black guys in the neighbourhood, because ‘Rapper’s Delight’ comes out. I take it “He’s Italian, he’s not white.” to the local radio station, KTU, because Carlos But the reason I say all this is because it was De Jesus is a DJ there, and he’s at the club all important to me that I did it the right way. It’s the time. And I tell him, “Look, we play this like why I didn’t get involved in making records record at the club six times a night.” And he in the early days, because I didn’t want to do says, “Well they won’t let me play rap on the anything where I could be seen to be ripping Disco Fever flyer, New York, 1981 radio,” but he tries it once and it becomes the people off. I wanted to do everything I could for most requested record in the station’s history. people who’d had this hardship, and this anger people weren’t liked in that So now the music is on record, on the radio, in them that society had put there. neighbourhood. With all the racism. and the Fever’s getting famous. We’ve gone from And do you know what, we had 10 great years. And the cops. I got that from them 300 to 1,200 people because we’re picking up By 1983, there were like 180 people working for too, because of the Fever. They’d stop stores below us, around us because everything’s me. Same year Russell [Simmons] finally talked me every night. I’d be out the car, abandoned, for rent. And now I’m hiring more me into starting Fever Records. Open all week they’d search it. Search me. people, but only people without a job. People long. Three thousand nights of hip-hop. But But then I had to deal with the who didn’t have skills. Every bouncer was then came the horrible fire at Happy Land, an drug dealers too. Get a rapport with straight out of Attica [prison]. And now the unlicensed club in the Bronx. And 87 people them. And I also had to tie in to the kids who once stood in line are getting 30 died that night. So the fire department and the community. So I thought, what am recording artists from the Bronx, Queens, city just went crazy. So just as we’re applying I going to do with teenagers who Harlem, all at the same time. It’s their club. for licences so that they can shoot Krush Groove had been abused by white people And in 1979, I start the Fever basketball here, they have to go to the community board to all these years? The only ones they league. I’d hire buses, take people to games. get the OK. And after all that time, they denied knew were those in authority. I’m on the team. Customers, bouncers, I’d let us a cabaret licence. What am I going to do to get to them all stay at the club, sleeping all over the So we closed, and when that happened there these kids? So I thought, I’m going floor because the games would be like 10 in was a trickle effect. All those people that were to give them sport, music and the morning. So you’d go to Brooklyn, play coming into the area didn’t come any more. All education. Education the third, a team. Their wives might be there, their those jobs were lost. It killed all the stores in the through the other two. It was going girlfriends. There’d be 150 of us. neighbourhood. We had the choice to try and open to be tough, but I had the stamina But the first game was Sugar Hill Records up again, but we knew we couldn’t get the licence, and the patience to work through versus the Fever, over on a court in Harlem. and we knew we’d just be shut down again anyway. it. So I started the United Negro And I advertised it on my friend Mr Magic’s I just locked up the doors, and I walked away.” College Fund. Had a telethon, radio station – I’d helped him get it started raised money. I’m writing letters with sponsorship money for some ad slots Baz Luhrmann’s hip-hop drama The Get Down to parole officers. I’m putting on – so he was advertising it, and brought the is out now shows in prisons. sound to the park on the day, some rappers. netflix.com

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