The Real Get Down
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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 film Krush 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. J&N 171 The Real Get Down 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 NEW do it. And I’m going back and forth, working 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.