Dynomite!: Good Times, Bad Times, Our Times--A Memoir (7 page)

“Yeah.”

“What the
fuck
was that?!”

“What?”

“‘Ladies and gentlemen, Wilson Pickett’?”

“That’s it, right?”

“No, that’s not it. I’m the Wicked Mr. Pickett, and you say it at least three times, and you tell them all my hits. Forget the jokes. Then ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Wicked Mr. Pickett!’ Then you get the fuck off.”

I walked out somewhat shaken, and the stage manager pointed me to Joe Simon’s dressing room.

“What was that?!” Simon yelled. “‘Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Simon’? Forget the jokes. This is what you say: ‘All the way from Louisiana, the man who gave us ‘Let’s Do It Over,’ ‘Teenager’s Prayer,’ ‘(You Keep Me) Hangin’ On,’ and his million-selling smash hit, ‘The Chokin’ Kind.’ Then you walk to one side of the stage and say, ‘Joe Simon!’ Then you walk to the other side of the stage and say, ‘Joe Simon!’ Then you walk to the center of the stage and say, ‘Joe Simon! He’s back there! He can’t hear you! Joe Simon!’ Then I come out.”

“I’ll be happy to do that intro, Mr. Simon,” I said. “But after I do my jokes.”

I stood up for my stand-up. Once, when I heard the Delfonics tuning up their voices behind the curtain while I had a couple of minutes left as an opening act, I yelled on stage for them to shut the hell up! But my attitude did not sit well with Honi Coles. He and other Apollo folks wanted me fired. But Bobby Schiffman liked me, so I stayed. I kept doing my jokes, every show, five shows a day, a couple days a week. I would close my time on stage with a joke about an algebra question my teacher supposedly asked me in school:

If Farmer Brown took five hours to plow his field, how many hours would it take Farmer Brown if he had Cousin George do half the field in one-third the time it took Farmer Brown, and if one of Farmer Brown’s horses was ill, slowing Farmer Brown down by 18 percent? Now, showing all work on a separate piece of paper, how long would it take Farmer Brown to plow his field? Give the answer in FEET!

I always managed to get the audiences laughing. That was not easy. Apollo crowds were notorious for being tough on performers who showed any weakness. One comic, Danny Rogers, got into it with a heckler, and the guy pulled out a gun and shot him.

So I went into Bobby’s office one day and asked for a raise from $400 a week. Honi was there. They looked at me like I was a Klansman at an NAACP convention.

“You’re lucky to be on that stage!” said Honi. Ever since the Last Poets, who he did not like, he had tagged me as an arrogant punk who did not know his place.

“I think I’m doing a good job.”

“Are you insane?” said Bobby. “You’re not an act. You’re an emcee. You don’t make the people happy. The acts make the people happy.”

Honi piled on: “You’re making a lot of trouble around here for a guy who ain’t shit and ain’t funny. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I’m Jimmie Walker!” I said, thinking that should be answer enough.

“Who the fuck is that?” said Honi.

Bobby waved his hand at me. “Get out of here!”

So I went to Frank, Bobby’s father.

“You really think you deserve a raise being an emcee at twenty years old?”

“I’m doing comedy too. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”

“Let me talk to Bobby.”

They gave me a $25-a-week raise.

My mom was probably never prouder of me than when she saw me at the Apollo. I heard that she would stand in the lobby and somehow subtly announce to the people walking in that her son was the emcee. I did consider myself lucky to be there, and I took advantage of it too. Every now and then I would spot a girl in the audience I knew from junior high, a girl who never noticed me back then, and I would get to impress her with a tour backstage and an inflated rap about how I knew Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Dells, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, the Emotions, Jerry “Ice Man” Butler, and on and on.

I became so familiar to the music acts that I was often booked for their shows on the rest of the “chitlin’ circuit.” Along with the Apollo, these were predominantly black theaters, such as the Uptown in Detroit, Regal in Chicago, Uptown in Philadelphia, and Fox in Detroit as well as clubs deep in the inner cities of America throughout the East, South, and Midwest. The unofficial circuit developed because at white theaters black acts were rarely allowed to perform and black audiences were hardly welcomed either.

One day at the Uptown in Detroit, a man and a woman came backstage and said they liked what I was doing. They asked if I would be interested in emceeing a tour around the country. They were from Motown Records, which was about to send out the Motortown Revue (aka Motown Revue). I met them again the next day at the Motown offices, where they told me more about the “truck and bus” tour—which meant everything we would need would be coming with us either by truck or bus.

Coincidentally, the first Motown act I had already worked with was Motown’s first act ever. In 1959 Marv Johnson recorded “Come to Me” for Tamla, Berry Gordy’s predecessor to Motown. Marv had several major hits over the next couple of years, such as “You Got What It Takes,” and he was Gordy’s first star. But when I opened his show at Detroit’s legendary 20 Grand nightclub, he was near the end of his Motown career.

The 20 Grand, my first genuine club gig outside of the New York area, was a club where Gordy would go to see potential artists he could sign for his fledgling record company. Gordy sat in a booth along with an associate or two as well as his sister Anna, who would later marry Marvin Gaye. The artists worked their asses off trying to impress him.

Everyone from Smokey Robinson and the Miracles to the Supremes to Stevie Wonder had played there. A hard-core joint filled with sleazy lowlifes in the middle of the ghetto, the 20 Grand packed more guns than any place I have ever been. It made the Club Baron look like a convent. Everybody packed a piece, brother. How do I know? Because they were out in the open! They showed them, Chuck Berry style! (As a teenager, Berry famously flashed a handgun to steal a car.)

Everybody had a gun because fights were constantly threatening to break out. Every night I was at the 20 Grand there was a gun incident. The antihandgun folks won’t like to hear this, but gun proliferation actually stopped greater violence. If there was a fight brewing and someone pulled a gun, usually people said to themselves, “Well, maybe I will reconsider whether this fight is really worth continuing.” Fights did not start with guns, but showing a gun usually ended them.

Even the artists, such as Marv, would carry guns, sometimes to threaten whoever was supposed to pay them.

“Hey, where’s my money?” the musician would say.

If the club owner hesitated, the musician would show his piece. “I want my fuckin’ money!”

On occasion a friend of the owner would see what was happening, come up behind the musician, and pull their own gun. That was just business as usual.

After I exited the stage renowned Motown choreographer Cholly Atkins—who gained fame in a tap dance act with Honi Coles before he taught those great dance steps to the Temptations and all of Motown’s artists—loved to bust my chops: “Hey man, I heard those jokes you were doing. You’d better keep moving because I don’t have choreography fast enough for you to dodge a bullet!” Cholly taught me that you should work hard in show business, but don’t take the business so seriously that you don’t have all the fun you can along the way.

Playing the Regal in Chicago was just as dangerous as the 20 Grand. I never felt safe there. We came in on a Monday and played through Sunday. Everyone in that rough ghetto knew what day we would be paid—and most acts, especially black ones—were always paid in cash. We worked hard for that money: shows at noon, three, six, nine, and midnight on weekdays, and then another 2 a.m. show on weekends. We had to be careful walking to and from the theater, though the theater itself wasn’t secure either. Wardrobe would be stolen from backstage, and musicians were lucky to get out of there with all their instruments.

Marv Johnson was also set to be on the Motortown Revue. The schedule had us hitting the road across the South with the Temptations, Edwin Starr, Marv, and myself on the boys’ bus—called the Funky Bus—and the Marvelettes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and Mary Wells—though she had left Motown Records—on the girls’ bus. But first we heard a speech in the parking lot of Hitsville, USA, the Motown headquarters on Grand Avenue, about our code of conduct:

“We are going south, to Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and so forth. When we get to the concerts, you will see sections roped off. The white kids will be in the middle. On either side there will be the black kids. We do not want you associating with the white kids, especially the white girls. No touching, no nothing. Nothing. Because if you do, there will be trouble.”

Rightly or wrongly, “trouble” in the South sounded a whole lot more ominous for black people than “trouble” in the North did.

“When the white girls rush the stage, go to the other side of the stage. When the show is over and everyone is in the field or parking lot, there will be white girls there from the audience. You are not to speak with them. And Lord knows there will be no white girls on the bus.”

We were on the road for four or five weeks. If we didn’t stay at a boardinghouse at night, we slept on the bus. Finding food could be difficult. We would have to go to the black side of town for a restaurant or, when we pulled in too late at night, find someone willing to cook for us at home.

Traveling on the bus was crazy and it was loud. Everybody talked about music. Every guy talked about chicks. Some guys argued over sports: Who was better—Denny McLain or Satchel Paige? Singers worked on their harmonies. Musicians practiced on their instruments—Little Stevie Wonder always blowing on his harmonica. On a scale of one to ten, the noise would be at thirteen. And through all of this there would inevitably be one guy sitting up in his seat and stone-cold asleep.

There was a lot of smoking and drinking too, but there were very few problems. For the most part people were just happy to be working. If there was trouble, those at the center of it knew they would be off the tour.

That nearly happened many years later to Johnnie Taylor, who had two huge hits, “Disco Lady” and “Who’s Making Love.” Long after the Motortown Revue I emceed the Kool Jazz Festival across the country. On the bill were an all-grown-up Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, Tavares, Mighty Clouds of Joy, Wild Cherry, and Taylor, who had a big alcohol problem. Sometimes he would not show up or, when he did, would go way over his time allotment on stage. A drunken Johnnie would go on and on. I would have to hustle on stage and dance him off. The promoters finally went to him and said, “Hey man, if you don’t show up or you show up and stay on stage too long, we’re going to let you go.” Johnnie was worried.

Next up was Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. I was in the dugout doing press for the show as the workers set up the stage at second base. Johnnie arrived, wearing a nice royal blue suit and a derby on his head, all dressed up and ready to go for his performance. “I told you guys,” he said soberly, “I’m not missing any more shows. I am here on time for today’s show.”

The stage manager looked at him and said, “That’s great, Johnnie, but the show is tomorrow.”

Back on the Motortown Revue, Edwin Starr wasn’t satisfied with simply getting on stage and singing. He had scored with the Vietnam protest song, “War,” and he was into putting on a major production. However, to cut down on expenses, he did not travel with a band; instead, he hired bands in each town to back him up. He then would go to a black church and donate money to get the choir to join him. He’d also visit local schools and donate money if twenty students would join him that night and, during “War,” run from each side of the stage to the center and pretend to attack each other, as if they were in battle.

Edwin was also a major-league conniver of women, along with Smokey Robinson and David Ruffin of the Temptations. What was surprising was that the women were not lowlifes; they were solid black citizens—schoolteachers, nurses, bank tellers. When our tour came through, these small-town girls decided they were going to grab a “star” and do something wild for once in their lives. Me? Occasionally, when there weren’t any band guys left, a young lady might settle for the emcee.

Detroit had its Motortown Revue and other cities had their hometown stars on the chitlin’ circuit too. I emceed the Philadelphia show with the Delfonics (“Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)”), Stylistics (“Betcha by Golly, Wow”), Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (“If You Don’t Know Me by Now”), Blue Magic, and the Intruders (“Cowboys to Girls”). The Chicago package tour brought together the Dells (“Give Your Baby a Standing Ovation”), Chi-Lites (“Have You Seen Her” and “Oh Girl”), Emotions (“Best of My Love”), and Jerry “Ice Man” Butler (“Only the Strong Survive”). Many of these acts are still around today, though they have gone through large-scale personnel changes. As comic Carol Leifer has said, “I went to see the Drifters, and they had changed so much they were now white!”

The days of the police in the South setting dogs on blacks were gone, but they were not forgotten. We would overhear adult whites at the shows say, “We’re gonna hear some nigger music tonight!” or “I can’t stand that nigger music. I took my kids here because they wanted to. But I told them don’t touch any of them and don’t let them sweat on you.” Their best compliment was “These are white niggers, the ones you hear on the radio. They’re alright.” But the kids, both black and white, loved the music, and to some extent that music helped change the attitudes of whites for the better—eventually.

But after a tour in the South with any of those shows, just like after a summer with Aunt Inez in Birmingham, I was always glad to get back to New York City.

There, again at the Apollo, I opened for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. That was such a strange relationship. You might think they were lovers, but they were not. They were just the most amazing best friends—unbelievably tight. They had hits together like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Your Previous Love,” and “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.” Then in March 1970, at the age of twenty-four, she died of a brain tumor. I worked with Gaye about three weeks later, and you could see backstage that he was crushed. He was in such heavy pain. On stage he dedicated a song to her and began to cry. He completely broke down and could not continue. Two years would pass before he would perform again in public.