KEEPING r&b ALIVE

RIRBPS

The RI Story Cont. Influenced by Charles A.Tindley (1859-1933) who composed Gospel songs like ‘We’ll Understand it Better By and By”, piano player, Blues singer and composer named Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993), who liked bouncy tunes and suggestive lyrics and Muddy Waters who pulled it all together, local tenor sax player Clarence “Bubby “McKay and his jump blues big band were the first to introduce live rhythm & blues music style to RI around 1946. He would break his band down to 4 and five piece combos to meet the demand.

This jump blues big band that helped bridge the gap between blues and R&B, ushered R&B into the state. These early bands created a special place in the RI historical timeline for the music and the glamorous new life style that many RI performers, to include jazz musicians, embraced. Providence became the Mecca of R&B nightlife. African American communities around the state adopted the brief rhythm and blues era and helped promote and preserve the blues legacy.

However, during WWII and the early post war years, local jump blues big bands and R&B records enjoyed limited popularity in venues like the John Hope USO Center and local bars, restaurants and lounges frequented by black residents and service members. Some of the local old timers claimed that, prior to Paul Filippie opening the Club 56 Restaurant and Lounge in 1946, before it became the Celebrity Club, most local African Americans traveled to Boston, New York and other neighboring major cities on weekends in search of “nice supper clubs.

with live blues style entertainment and good food”.

From 1943 to up to approximately 1970, the RI African American community identified with the new music. R&B was promoted locally on 78- rpm records followed by 45-rpm records. The diverse community also considered R&B to be an unsophisticated race music and the records were only sold at one store owned by local DJ Carl Henry. Primarily limited to the RI African American community, the music was passed on from one generation to the next by black youth who bought recordings, R&B lyric books and heard stories told by elders. Teenage church boys turned into doo wop groups, while young musicians and female singers blossomed into local R&B performers that could be seen in local talent shows as early as 1950. By 1950, the appeal of the jump blues big band had faded and the demand for R&B music had surged. Rhythm and Blues music became a common fixture in Rhode Island and was secretly sort out by the diversity crowd brave enough to venture into the areas of Providence where it was being played by small R&B bands.

Throughout RI, R&B music could be found at house parties, nightclubs, theatres and dance halls but no supper club. Following The Jelly Stompers (Eddie Coates, Ronald Barnett, Joe Hill and Jose” Thomas Santos), the first local R&B quartet to perform in the Celebrity Club front bar in 1952, were R&B singing legends like The Four Hearts, and The Castileers and local R&B bands like Randy and The Stompers sprouted up around the state and grew into recording groups. Local diversity performers like Sax Players Ray McCabe and Louie Camp flocked to jam with R&B bands and hang out with R&B musicians to learn the music even though only a few local R&B musicians could read music. African American road bands played the music in the limited number of RI entertainment establishments where the performers and their fans “felt” welcomed.

Local African Americans took pride in the music, the legacy and life style of the era. From the 1940s –1960s, many R&B Clubs and dance halls from the East Side, Hoyle Square, and South Side to Warwick and North Broadway in Newport, bristled with nightlife, latest dance steps and fashions, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Local African Americans worked hard and raised families all week but Friday and Saturday was the time to dress up and party hard to R&B music. Sunday was a day of worship, usually followed by an afternoon jam session at the local clubs like the Celebrity Club that hosted a special Coke Corner. Coke Corner was a section of the club where local teens could sit and watch the jam sessions that sometimes featured headliners.

During this exciting era, the latest R&B fashions among hip RI men included, the “fan”, a patch of long hair stretching from front to the back of the head, slicked down with Murrays hair grease and held in place with a black rag called a “skull cap”. Many straightened their hair with a “Konk-O-Lean” hair relaxer to sport the “good hair” look. Men wore pinstriped suits with wide lapels and shoulder pads, pegged pants, a long chain, two- tone wing tip and Florsheim shoes. The period witnessed Billy Eckstine shirts, “stingy brim or pork pie” hats and “talking trash” was “in”.

Popular ladies fashions during the era included bright red lipstick, big hats with veils, mesh stockings, seamed nylons, garter belts, gloves, smoking, long cigarette holder, knee length and long dresses and wide skirts, hair in upsweep styles, fake furs and “looking cute”.

There was a wide range of R&B dance “moves” created during the different years along the timeline. Some popular local steps in the 1940s –1950s had names like the hucklebuck, the camel walk, the shuffle, the boogie woggle, (known today as the “swing or hand dance”), the grind, the hunch, the crouch, the chicken, the belly rub, the stop and the stroll. Later, R&B steps included the electric slide, the freak, the bump, the dog and the booty call. Many earlier steps continue to exist today with some improvisation. The Arcadia Ballroom, downtown Providence, was the place to be on Friday nights to catch the latest R&B performers, fashions and dance steps.

When the R&B clubs and dance halls closed at 1am in Providence, patrons headed straight to the Chicken Coop on Union Street for some of the “best fried chicken in town” or to one of the many New York System Hot Wiener Restaurants. However, many preferred to go to the private after hours house parties, one of the best kept secrets in the state. This is where many R&B and some Jazz musicians gathered with fans for food, booze, reefer, R&B music and dancing under the blue lights turned down low until the wee hours of the morning. Diversity was rare at these parties. Most of the joints, like” Daddy Blacks Place”, were located in Providence on the East Side, South Side and West Elmwood. Police raids were rare.

“Being Hip” during the era meant “talking Pig Latin” (became all but extinct in the mid- 1950s), “signifying” or “talking trash” (provoking trouble), “playing the dozens” (talking about someone’s mama) and exchanging who’s who in bebop and jazz to look and act sophisticated was common place. However, “signifying, talking trash and playing the dozens” could result in violent outcomes and still can today. Cont. Page 8.

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