#chitlin circuit

[oldshowbiz]

Ernest "Skillet" Mayhand and Leroy "Sloppy" Daniels were a Chitlin Circuit comedy team that performed as Skillet and Leroy.

[shantellxxo]

Beyhaw Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit 𐚁 Celestynaa Heard

[reasoningdaily]

Otis Williams, founder of The Temptations, discusses touring during segragation in the south

There were some important rules for performers back then, when you toured the south. Listen to what Otis has to say about the motown tours through the chitlin circuit in the 60′s

[vinylspinning]

James Brown: Live at the Apollo (1963)

Live at the Apollo is so important, so totemic to James Brown’s legendary career, that it’s easy to forget that it preceded most of his biggest hits of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, as well as his biggest claim to fame (arguably, there are so many) as the primary instigator of funk music.

Indeed, though he’d already been performing professionally for nearly a decade leading up to its recording, this landmark live album was in many ways only the beginning ...

Now celebrating its 60th anniversary, Live at the Apollo was captured in October of 1962, during a weeklong stand in which James and his Famous Flames amazingly played five sets per day (!), and, famously, at Brown’s own expense, since King Records owner Syd Nathan didn’t see live albums as a commercially viable proposition.

In fact, Syd and his staff were so unimpressed with the primitive quality of the recordings, which admittedly couldn’t hope to fully translate the sounds and excitement shared by musicians and audience (to say nothing of James’ extended dancing while the band vamped behind him), that Nathan briefly considered burying it in his budget-priced DeLuxe imprint and simply taking a tax write-off.

But Syd had underestimated the grassroots word-of-mouth already spreading, well beyond the Chitlin’ Circuit, about ‘Mr. Dynamite,’ who took it upon himself to ship promo copies of Live at the Apollo to influential radio jocks, who, in turn, began asking the label boss when the album was due, finally prompting its release in May of ‘63.

And, while the aforementioned technical issues only hinted at the real deal, this truncated 30-minute set gave many listeners their first, rough document of James Brown and The Famous Flames’ tightly choreographed stage show, which blurred the lines between military precision and theatrical catharsis, culminating in the trademark ‘Cape Routine’ during the “Please, Please, Please” medley.

But I’m getting ahead of myself ...

Introduced by M.C. Fats Gonder, the well-oiled ensemble confidently ripped through early hits like the driving “I’ll Go Crazy,” the doo-wop-py “Try Me,” the dynamic “Think,” and a pair of dramatic torch songs in “I Don’t Mind” and a ten-minute “Lost Someone,” where there’s more going on than meets the ear ...

Namely, as RJ Smith pointed out in his definitive James Brown biography, The One: “somewhere in the middle of ‘Lost Someone,’ bassist Hubert Perry started drifting away from the chords of the song ... but he was not going to slip that past the boss. Brown weighed in as the song rolled on, so sweetly the audience could hardly have known what he was talking about: ‘You know we all make mistakes sometimes, and the only way we can correct our mistakes [is] we got to try one more time.’ (That and a fine after the show should square the ledger).”

Last but not least in the program came James’ latest hit, “Night Train,” which buzzed with a newfound energy compared to its studio counterpart, and illustrated why Live at the Apollo, in biographer Smith’s words, “scarcely bore any connection to the music called rhythm and blues; here was the new soul music.”

Music lovers wholeheartedly agreed, and the album soon crossed over to the Billboard Pop charts for an astonishing 66 weeks, peaking at No. 2, and it would have surely been certified platinum, had Syd Nathan not been too cheap to pay the RIAA’s annual membership fee required for official certification.

Although, as the album became King Records’ all-time best-seller, Syd expediently replaced the original liner notes found on the rear sleeve (pictured above) with a generous selection of titles from James’ growing catalog (also above) on subsequent pressings like my own, which dates from 1966.

But never mind the label suits: for James Brown, personally, Live at the Apollo was a vindication of his indomitable confidence, his willingness to bet on himself, as well as a major step in the painfully slow process of desegregating American music consumers.

The following year would see Brown bust through what RJ Smith called the Chitlin’ Circuit’s ‘tar paper ceiling’ to play ever-bigger venues to increasingly integrated audiences, as well as taking over the landmark T.A.M.I. Show concert movie, which complemented Live at the Apollo with visual evidence of the inimitable ‘cape routine.’

Such was the pivotal role played by this 60-year-old album.

More James Brown: Cold Sweat, It’s a Mother, Sex Machine, There it Is, The Payback, Hell.

[sbrown82]

What acts did The Stones work with or saw perform on the Chitlin Circuit ? Who was there and how did they get on that ?

The Rolling Stones, in the early days, toured with a lot Black acts and musicians, including Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, the Vibrations, Little Richard, the Ronettes, Inez and Charlie Foxx, and so many more! You gotta understand, they were strictly a blues band at that time, they weren’t a rock & roll band. They did covers of various blues/r&b records and they also frequently recorded at Chess Records in Chicago where people like Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry would record their music as well! Keith Richards talked about this a lot in his book, like when the Stones first got to America in the early 1960s, the hostility they faced was all from white people. The only people who ever looked out for them were Black. I guess because they were so different (they’re English, they wore their hair long, they sang r&b, and didn’t understand race relations/segregation laws in America) so, there was that connection to Black people as being outsiders and also why white people would fuck with them a lot. I guess that’s why during their later tours they kind of paid it forward and had up-and-coming Black performers open for them like the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, Prince and others!

[goodblacknews]

Born On This Day in 1894: American Comedy Pioneer Moms Mabley (LISTEN)

Born On This Day in 1894: American Comedy Pioneer Moms Mabley (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson) Today’s GBN’s Daily Drop podcast features Jackie “Moms” Mabley, the first woman comedian in the U.S. to have a long-lasting and successful career. It’s based on the Saturday, March 19 entry from the Black Comedians category called “Yeah, You Funny”in our “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for…

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[twixnmix]

Ike & Tina Turner recording their live album The Ike & Tina Turner Show at the Skyliner Ballroom in Fort Worth, 1964. 

[petervintonjr]

Lesson 32: "The teenagers aren't all bad. I love 'em if nobody else does. There ain't nothing wrong with young people. Jus' quit lyin' to 'em."

Standup comic Moms Mabley (nee Loretta Mary Aiken) managed to break free of a difficult --even tragic-- childhood, and ran away to join a traveling minstrel show (mainly at the urging of her grandmother, upon whom she would model her later stage persona). In the late 19th century/early 20th century there was a popular collection of performing troupes for African Americans known informally as the Chitlin' Circuit, in which Aiken found her comedic rhythm. More specifically, she started out performing vaudevillean style theater with the segregated Theater Owners Booking Association. T.O.B.A. (or, as she once remarked, the "Tough On Black Asses Circuit"). She came out as a lesbian in the 1930's --certainly a brave act in and of itself.

Over time she shaped and perfected her stage persona of a busybody grandmother offering unasked-for advice, which resonated with audiences. Complete with a floppy hat and a disheveled appearance, she delivered scathing satire and hilarious storytelling (often playing up the innate humor of an older woman getting romantically involved with a much younger man). She eventually emerged from black-only entertainment venues (such as the Apollo Theater), and edged into the so-called "mainstream" by the end of the 1960's, appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show, Carnegie Hall, and several times on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

Easy homework assignment, this time. Go to YouTube and search on Moms Mabley. Cue up some of her standup clips, sit back, and laugh. There is also a documentary about her life hosted by Whoopi Goldberg that is eminently findable on HBO --worth a viewing. Oh, and: see if you can dig out a 1974 television clip where she flirts with a (very!) young Kris Kristofferson before co-presenting an award to Gladys Knight and the Pips --comedy gold.