Preston Lauterbach's Blog, page 8
June 3, 2011
Celebrate Jimmie Lunceford, Saturday
The great bandleader, educator, and chitlin' circuit pioneer Jimmie Lunceford was born June 6, 1902 in Fulton, Mississippi. He's being honored Saturday June 4 in Fulton, with the dedication of a historical marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail. My friends Scott Barretta and Jim O'Neal are the wacky geniuses behind the Blues Trail, and my pal [...]
May 27, 2011
Chitlin' Circuit Landmark: W.C. Handy Theatre
The broke-down orange building at 2535 Park in Orange Mound is one of the silent witnesses to Memphis music history. It opened in 1946 as the W.C. Handy Theatre, with investors including future Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson, and blackface entertainer Chalmers Cullins to "showcase the finest in Negro entertainment," in the language of the [...]
May 20, 2011
Vice: Financing the Chitlin' Circuit
While the circuit relied on black media for publicity, it received much of its operating revenue through the vice industry. Drinking in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Marion Post Wolcott. Library of Congress Circuit pioneer Walter Barnes got his start leading the band at Al Capone's Cotton Club, pre-Depression, when Capone was one of several underworld supporters of [...]
May 12, 2011
Chitlin' Circuit Operative: Denver D. Ferguson
Born February 19, 1895, Brownsville, Kentucky Died May 11, 1957, Indianapolis, Indiana Circuit active: 1941-51 In 2005 I interviewed Sax Kari, one of the last surviving black bandleaders from the early 1940s. He told me about his mentor, Denver Ferguson, and, from there, the well-hidden story of the chitlin' circuit broke open. Denver D. Ferguson [...]
May 10, 2011
Chitlin' Circuit Landmark: The Bronze Peacock
Don Robey put Houston on the chitlin' circuit map in the mid-1930s, when he operated a series of downtown nightclubs. One, the Harlem Grill, stood on W. Dallas Avenue, the Houston stroll, then the nexus of black business and culture, now an interstate on-ramp. There's no evidence of '30s black Houston's pomp and prosperity, no [...]
May 5, 2011
Chitlin' Circuit Landmark: The Hippodrome
The vacant lot at 500 Beale Street has stories to tell. The site of a skating rink-ballroom called the Hippodrome, it was the scene of many a wild night. It figures significantly into The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'n' Roll as the career launch pad for Johnny Ace, known as rock 'n' [...]
May 3, 2011
Chitlin' Circuit Landmark: Currie's Club Tropicana
Memphis music geography centers on Beale Street downtown, but blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll, and soul have spilled out onto Thomas Street in the section of North Memphis called New Chicago since before WWII. It manages to stay well-hidden from the rest of the city– it's not on the approved list of tourist attractions despite [...]
April 19, 2011
Chitlin' Circuit Landmark: The Dew Drop Inn
This New Orleans spot, at 2836 LaSalle Street near Sixth Avenue, expanded from a barbershop to a chitlin' circuit mecca. By 1945, Frank Painia had built a hotel, restaurant, and nightclub around his tonsorial parlor. He booked traveling singers like Joe Turner and Wynonie Harris, and helped foster the ripe local sound, employing house bands [...]
March 10, 2011
The Jerry Lee Lewis Ranch
The Lewis Ranch | 1595 Malone Rd |Nesbit, MS | (About 30 minutes south of Memphis) When I pilgrimate to Jerry Lee Lewis's home in Nesbit, Mississippi, I'm never sure whether I want The Killer to be home or not. On one hand, it would be nice to know that I'm standing only a dozen [...]
Al Green's Full Gospel Tabernacle Church
787 Hale Road Memphis, TN 38116| 901-396-9192 After cementing countless encounters with a voice that speaks directly to the genitals, in 1976, Al Green found Jesus. While Green reports his conversion happened after a visit to Disneyland, local rumors link his conversion to an incident reminiscent of the death of Henry IV, involving an adolescent [...]
