'So Much' album by Jackie Wilson
As a Milwaukee native who grew up hearing original Black rhythm and blues on Walnut Street, and the stage of the Colonial Theater at N. 14th and W. Vliet, one of my New York Daily News columns about the music of my youth shed some light on a troubling reality. Among many responses I received, one phone call really stuck out.
The caller was a white female Bronx resident who said she was weaned on the Black R&B of the 1950s that evolved into rock ‘n’ roll. After we shared refreshing reminiscences about the music and the times, she posed a very provocative question. “Why is it whenever I attend a rock ‘n’ roll revival concert or show featuring Black performers, almost the entire audience is white?”
I told her I’d experienced the same thing in my hometown, and in New York and other cities, and had long wondered why.
She said she suspected one reason was white artists such as Elvis Presley (“Hound Dog”), Pat Boone (“Long Tall Sally”), McGuire Sisters (“Goodnight Sweetheart”) and Georgia Gibbs (“Tweedle Dee”) covered Black R&B record hits,” which had to annoy many Black people.” This echoed what Milwaukee’s late, great Al Jarreau told me off-air during his memorable, live appearance on WNOV-AM’s “Carter-McGee Report.”
“Let me check around and I’ll get back to you with what I find out,” I replied. After she gave me her phone number, I began what turned out to be an interesting quest.
One of the most knowledgeable people to whom I talked about the white audience-black performer thing was renowned white promoter Richard Nader. During the last 20 years, he’d put on more than 150 rock ‘n’ roll revival shows at Madison Square Garden, Brendan Byrne Arena and Westbury Music Fair on Long Island. He said his first—at the Felt Forum in 1969—included the Platters, Coasters, Shirellles, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Clanton, Sha-Na-Na and Bill Haley and the Comets. Of 4,500 who sold it out, he estimated that fewer than 100 were black.
A month later, Nader returned with the Spaniels, Jackie Wilson, Gary (U.S.) Bonds, Five Satins, Penguins, Capris, and Shep and the Limelites. He told me this:
“The crowd was virtually the same. I think it’s because nostalgia is better for whites. They can look back and be reminded of better times—when they had few responsibilities like a wife or husband or kids. Life seemed carefree.
“Since the mid-‘60s,” he continued, “rock music hasn’t really been accepted by black people as theirs. In the ‘50s, R&B could be heard by Blacks in neighborhood theaters like the Apollo in Manhattan, Regal in Chicago, Howard in Washington and Colonial in Milwaukee. There was no need to go elsewhere. But the direction changed with the British invasion—and even the crossover Motown sound geared to whites, which many Blacks tuned out.”
WCBS-FM’s legendary Bobby Jay—who is Black—aired R&B and put on shows at the Apollo. A true devotee, he was convinced Black people didn’t attend revivals much because many didn’t like to remember. “Yesterday wasn’t that great for us,” he told me.
Jay said he considered “Caldonia” by Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five, from the late ‘40s, and 1951’s “Sixty-Minute Man” by Billy Ward and the Dominoes (with Clyde McPhatter) “the real beginning of rock ‘n’ roll.” And he felt Blacks “need to be educated about the rich history of our music in order to appreciate how much it has influenced American culture.”
I got another perspective from Herbie Cox, celebrated lead singer of the Cleftones, who started at Jamaica High School in 1955. Their recordings of “Little Girl of Mine” and “Can’t We Be Sweethearts” were mega-hits. Cox, then a bank manager at Manufacturers Hanover Trust who still performed with the group, said nostalgia was usually presented by movies and TV “from a white viewpoint.”
Cox told me he also feel Blacks didn’t identify with white performers featured in rock ‘n’ roll revivals. “I grew up listening to Ruth Brown records,” he said, “because my mother loved them. But many pioneers, like Ruth, aren’t included.
“Except for shows in New York by people like Richard Nader and Tony Delauro,” he went on, “you often see white acts with one hit get top billing. They present the song and a medley of the Four Seasons for 25 minutes, while a Black group with a string of hits gets 12 minutes.”
Best of Joey Dee and the Starliters
The most moving letter of the many I got was from Joey Dee, of The Foundation for the Love of Rock ‘n’ Roll Inc. Dee and the Starlighters hit big in the early ‘60s with “Peppermint Twist” and “Shout.” His recollections of being influenced by Black artists such as Roy Hamilton, Big Joe Turner, Chuck Willis and Pookie Hudson and The Spaniels, were pure pleasure to my ears.
Dee, one of the good guys, was a white rock ‘n’ roller who knew the score. He, and a few others, were properly nostalgic about the rich history of Black music.
After getting back to the inquisitive white female caller—and thanking her—we began a friendship which flourished and continues to the present day.
