Music History

Hitsburgh: The golden age of doo-wop

Story by Scott Mervis and Ed Masley

It could be argued that, for sheer pop artistry, no Pittsburgh group has ever topped the very first rock 'n' roll/R&B hit to break out of the city.

DJs decided what they would play back when rock 'n' roll was young, which made Porky Chedwick on of the most influential spinners in Pittsburgh. (Post-Gazette)

The Del-Vikings' "Come Go with Me," which hit No. 4 on the charts in February 1957, was the essence of '50s teen pop: brimming with youthful energy and a perfect set of doo-wop harmonies.

It was two years after Bill Haley had rocked around the clock, and there was a whole lotta shakin' on the pop charts. Suddenly, big band culture was out and teens were rockin' to the likes of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. But the charts were as diverse as they are now, with the rockers and shouters sharing radio time with street-corner doo-wop groups like the Platters and Cadillacs and the vanilla sounds of Perry Como, Andy Williams and wannabe rocker Pat Boone.

When it came to color, though, things were divided. White musicians were taking their cue from black artists, and, because so few stations played black artists, were often recutting their records. Certainly, it was a rare sight to see them performing together in one group.

That's why the very nature of the Del-Vikings, the first racially integrated group ever to score a Top 10 hit, was as powerful as the song. Technically, the Del-Vikings were only marginally a Pittsburgh act, as they were formed by enlisted men at the 101st Airborne in Moon with members from Brooklyn, Philadelphia and beyond. They won the All Air Force talent show in New York in 1956, singing "Come Go with Me," written by bass singer Clarence Quick. Shortly after, local disc jockey Barry Kaye and producer Joe Averbach signed them to the Pittsburgh label Fee Bee.

The song, which lives on in films like "American Graffiti" and "Diner," was recorded in Averbach's tiny basement with some of the members actually singing in a closet.

"We threw it together the night before," recalls singer Norman Wright. "The A side was 'How Can I Find True Love,' and 'Come Go with Me' was the B side. The A side was played in Pittsburgh for a couple of months, then got flipped over and it took off."

Keeping the Del-Vikings intact would be a tall order, with servicemen being shipped around the world and record companies knocking on the door. By the summer of '57, there would be considerable confusion at record stores and radio stations as two different Del-Vikings surfaced, both with hits. Kripp Johnson's Dell-Vikings (with an added L) hit with "Whispering Bells" on Fee Bee, and another Del-Vikings, with the rest of the original members, charted with "Cool Shake" on Mercury.

As that flipping of "Come Go with Me" attests, what separates the '50s from later decades is the cult of the DJ. Back then, no consultants were telling them what to play. They could break whatever records they wanted, which is why the top jocks --Porky Chedwick and Mary Dee at WAMO, Sir Walter (John Christian), Three-D Lee D (Lee Doris) and Bill Powell at WILY, Jay Michael at WCAE and Kaye at WJAS/WAMP -- were hit makers.

Chedwick took to the airwaves in 1948 at WHOD (later WAMO), a 250-watt black-oriented station housed in the back of a Homestead candy store, and soon made his reputation spinning "race" records -- R&B songs by black artists that mainstream radio wouldn't touch.

"We had a tremendous impact nationally," says Travis Klein of the label Itzy Records, home of the "Pittsburgh's Greatest Hits" collections. "We were a breakout market 'cause they understood that if you could sell it in Pittsburgh, you could sell it anywhere. In New York, you could sell 25,000 copies of anything. But in Pittsburgh if you sold 5,000 copies, it would be a monster everywhere."

In addition to flipping records and breaking the B-side, the Daddio of the Raddio also pioneered the oldies-but-goodies format by playing R&B records that were a few years old.

"I more or less blew the dust off them and put them on the turntables," Chedwick says. "I called it the Porky sound."

"It's been said a zillion times -- Porky was instrumental in what the taste was here," Klein says. "Not only did he start trends and become wildly popular, he started alternative radio here. WAMO had such a big cult following, it almost became mainstream. He played Bo Diddley, Little Richard and uptempo stuff. He also played a lot of group harmony stuff."

It's no wonder that Porky, who on one exciting day closed down the streets with a live broadcast at the Stanley Theatre, Downtown, would be an inspiration for young groups to form and get their records onto the radio.

"That era was groups singing in the halls at school, forming groups to sing on corners, in front of drugstores," recalls Jimmy Beaumont of the Skyliners. "That's pretty much how I started. I sang in the choir. Whenever the teacher would leave the room, we'd practice the hits on the radio."

In late 1958, he'd be hearing his own group on the dial. The song: "Since I Don't Have You." The Skyliners' manager, South Side native Joe Rock, was 21 and recently heartbroken when he wrote the words, at a stoplight, on the way to rehearsal. Beaumont, then just 17, wrote the melody the next day and original top tenor Janet Vogel added the vocal finale. After being rejected by 13 major labels, the group, then known as the Crescents, were signed to the local Calico Records. The song was recorded Dec. 3, 1958, at Capital Studios in New York, where, according to the Billboard Book of Singing Groups, it was the "first time a full orchestra had been used with a rock group."

Breaking the No. 12 hit on "American Bandstand" in February 1959, Dick Clark obviously thought it was a winner because he mistakenly introduced it as a standard. The appearance also landed the Skyliners a spot on the first tour of Dick Clark's Cavalcade of Stars, which stopped home at the Syria Mosque in the fall with the Drifters, Paul Anka, Lloyd Price and Duane Eddy, among others. The Skyliners followed with two other charted hits: "This I Swear" in 1959 and a cover of "Pennies from Heaven" in 1960.

Rock, who died last April, told the Post-Gazette that the Skyliners' early success was based on Beaumont's ability to capture the black sound. "Phil Spector calls 'Since I Don't Have You' the record that fused them, the record that proved that black could meet white." In fact, the Skyliners were one of the first white groups ever to play the Apollo Theater in Harlem -- and that's because bookers thought they were black.

"When the Skyliners walked on stage there, the crowd did everything from laugh to wolf-call to hoot, until the song began," Rock said. "Then it was the power of the song. We were invited back eight times."

They disbanded for a few years in the early '60s, but a version of the Skyliners lives on thanks to the oldies circuit, and "Since I Don't Have You" -- since covered by the likes of Don McLean, Guns N' Roses, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Johnny Mathis, Art Garfunkel, Barbra Streisand -- has actually become that standard.

Putting the Skyliners in context of what was happening in local radio back then, Klein says, "Most every city in the country had white songs for white people and black songs for black people. But because of Mary Dee and Porky, the white kids listened to black music in Pittsburgh, so to have a Skyliners wasn't that amazing."

What they didn't have much of back then were nightclubs to perform in. Instead, the groups would turn up to sing or lip-synch their songs at record hops hosted by local DJs.

"You have to remember that rock 'n' roll wasn't really accepted. Jazz was accepted at clubs," says local music historian Dave Goodrich. "So they had these hops at school gymnasiums, at fire halls, at the Linden Grove."

"It was a lot of fun, a lot of hard work for no pay," says Leon Daniels, who in 1955 formed the El Venos, the first Pittsburgh rock-era group signed to a national label (RCA Victor). "We sang at all the record hops. The recordings that the local groups made were just as good as the [national ones]. None of us had the right exposure and, unless you were a big star, you didn't have anybody writing for you."

That didn't stop Pittsburgh's next great success, who would knock Elvis Presley out of the No. 1 spot on the Pop and R&B charts in March 1961. In an era when writing a gimmicky doo-wop vocal riff was half the battle, Marcels bass singer Fred Johnson came up with a doozy: "Bomp baba bomp, ba bomp ba bomp bomp, baba bomp baba bomp, da dang da dang dang, da ding a dong ding ... ." Johnson applied that mouthful to the Rodgers and Hart classic "Blue Moon," and the North Side's magnificent Marcels were heard round the world.

The day he heard it, New York's legendary DJ Murray the K played "Blue Moon" 26 times in a four-hour show. The Marcels, yet another interracial group from Pittsburgh, were rewarded with an appearance in the summer movie "Twist Around the Clock" with Chubby Checker and Dion.

Such as it was in the day, most of the Marcels' chart success occurred within the span of a year. The follow-up, which found Walt Maddox in the group, was a similarly rocking version of Guy Lombardo's 1931 hit, "Heartaches," taking the Marcels to No. 7 in October 1961. By the end of the year, though, three of its founding members were gone, and the Marcels were destined for the oldies circuit.

"Their whole life was a split-up. It was a joke around here," says Paul Mawhinney, owner of Record Rama. "Half the people in Pittsburgh claim to be a Marcel."

The Del-Vikings, Skyliners and Marcels are just the big success stories out of dozens of local doo-wop groups. You can't forget the Tempos, one-hit wonders with the dreamy "See You in September" in 1959. Some of the other names: the Cameos, the Smoothtones, the El Capris, the Three Dots and the Altiers, featuring none other than Hill District native George Benson, who released his first single in 1954.

What seems to be missing from Pittsburgh in the late '50s was a response to what was happening with country rock 'n' rollers in the South. It's not as though Pittsburghers weren't exposed to it. In fact, on one amazing night in March 1957, Kaye raised the roof of Carnegie Music Hall with a Rockabilly Spectacular featuring no less than Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran.

Folks like Klein and Goodrich chalk it up to Pittsburgh just having more of an R&B vibe. Says Klein, "This was not a hillbilly redneck town."

Goodrich adds that while the city was a trendsetter when it came to doo-wop, "Pittsburgh became so locked into record hops and doo-wop and R&B, there was very little growth potential for self-contained units [who played their own music], and Pittsburgh would virtually commit suicide by its own hand when the British Invasion came."

Says Wright of the Del-Vikings, "Most of the groups that we were associated with -- Cadillacs, Moonglows -- just faded off into the background."

Hitsburgh: Battling the British Invasion

Story by Scott Mervis and Ed Masley

A few years after doo-wop lost its footing on the pop charts, the British Invasion arrived to fire the opening shot of a cultural revolution, introducing legends as enduring as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

And Pittsburgh?

The Vogues - the pride of Turtle Creek - defined the British Invasion with a string of successes. "Our goals was to have some fun and maybe get a hit record," says Chuck Blasko, center.

Pittsburgh gave the world Lou Christie and the Vogues.

And even then, it seemed a little odd, Chuck Blasko of the Vogues recalls, "because we appeared in the midst of the so-called British Invasion led by the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones, who dominated the music world."

And yet, the Vogues -- who did their best to cop a British image -- found a home alongside Herman's Hermits and the Kinks on "American Bandstand."

As did Christie.

Born Lugee Sacco in Glenwillard, Christie hit the U.S. charts a year before the British, breaking through here in Pittsburgh with "The Gypsy Cried" on Co & Ce, a local label run by Herbie Cohen and Nick Cenci. After being introduced to local teens by Porky and topping the charts at KQV and WYRE, the first of Christie's doo-wop-flavored hits was picked up by Roulette and rose as high as No. 24 on the national charts.

Fueled by a soaring falsetto fit to fill his press kit with comparisons to Frankie Valli, Christie scored a second hit in 1963 with another original tune he'd written with his partner Twyla Herbert, "Two Faces Have I." A better song, it peaked at No. 6.

In 1964, fresh off the road from a Dick Clark package tour that featured Christie, the Supremes, the Crystals, Brian Hyland and more, the singer was drafted and went off to serve in the Army Reserves, then came back with a song he felt would be his biggest hit. But Christie's label didn't see it that way.

"They said, 'Ugh, what is this?'" Christie says of MGM's reaction. "The president of the company, he threw it in the wastebasket."

The label was wrong.

On Feb. 19, 1966, that single, "Lightnin' Strikes," became the No. 1 song in America, Pittsburgh's second. It's Christie's finest hour -- classic hook, intense performance, sexy lyrics.

That same year, he followed it up with a sexier set of lyrics and came under fire for corrupting teens from here to the back of a '64 Chevy with the makeout anthem "Rhapsody in the Rain."

The PTA was not amused. As Christie recalls a controversy that saw the single banned in many markets, "Time magazine wrote about it and said that I was corrupting the youth of the day."

And this was 1966.

Despite -- or because of -- the controversy, "Rhapsody" peaked at No. 16. Christie's final hit, "I'm Gonna Make You Mine," went all the way to No. 10 in 1969.

In assessing the man's career in the Rolling Stone Album Guide, Dave Marsh praised Christie's "striking voice, which would build from a soft, almost drab tenor to an orgasmic explosion of falsetto shrieks" and wrote, in closing, "Looking back, one can say this about Lou Christie: He kept it lively."

Formed in Turtle Creek at the height of the doo-wop era, the Vogues broke through in 1965, after drifting from label to label, with "You're the One," a Tokens-esque folk-pop song on Co & Ce. Recorded at Gateway Recording above a record store in downtown Pittsburgh, the song and its working-class gem of a follow-up, "Five O'Clock World," went all the way to No. 4 on the national charts while hitting No. 1 in Pittsburgh. As the group crossed over (without really having to tone it down a whole lot) to the easy listening market, the national hits kept coming -- eight Top 40 trips in all, including two more Top 10 stays in 1968, the stalker's anthem "Turn Around, Look at Me" and a cover of Bobby Helms' "My Special Angel."

Blasko recalls the excitement of finally finding an audience beyond the city limits.

"People started telling us we had a hit, but we couldn't believe it," he says. "As the excitement grew, we stayed up late into the night so we could hear what was being played on distant radio stations. ... It was great hearing our song played on stations far from home."

In addition to touring the world, the group would appear on "American Bandstand," "The Tonight Show," "The Ed Sullivan Show" and here in town, the Clark Race "Bandstand" show on KDKA-TV.

"Our goal was to have some fun and maybe get a hit record," says Blasko. "None of us, including me, planned to make performing a career."

It was easier then, he says, to get a deal. "Because the money needed to make a record was comparatively small, recording companies could afford more easily to risk investing in new groups. Also, radio disc jockeys had more freedom to choose the music they liked to play on the air, so unknown groups had a greater chance of having their music on the radio."

Like Beaver County's Jaggerz, a well-regarded blue-eyed soul group who, despite the name, were not exactly Jagger-esque in their delivery on the No. 2 national hit from early 1970, "The Rapper."

"I remember waking up in the middle of the night with the idea," says Donnie Iris, the Jaggerz lead singer. "We were working clubs and watching the guys, how they were trying to pick up chicks, so we wrote about it."

Most who knew them at the time would agree that the Jaggerz were actually better than the hit would indicate. The Joe Rock-managed group, which later featured Frankie Czuri (who went on to front the Silencers), was known in Pittsburgh as "The White Knights with the Brown Sound."

Joe Grushecky recalls of the Jaggerz heyday, "It was hep to play soul music. If you could play it and sing it, more power to you. The Jaggerz were the purveyors. I saw them sing Temptations songs and was like, holy s--, they can sing."

There was a more direct response to the British Invasion here. You had to look beyond the acts who charted major pop hits, though. That's where you would have found a garage-rock community rocking this town with a working-class answer to what the Brits were throwing down.

In 1965, the Arondies, teens from Clairton, sold 10,000 copies -- which today would still be pretty major numbers -- of an instrumental classic, "69," a record that Get Hip archivist Baran likes to call our town's "Bolero."

"Everybody learned to play guitar to '69,'" he says. "If you wanted to play it simply, you didn't have to even have a tuned guitar. You could keep it on one string."

Although the original three-man lineup, as captured on "69," would go its separate ways before the year was out, the song remains a local cult hit on the underground, as resurrected in the '80s by the Cynics, whose Gregg Kostelich in 1999 released the first Arondies CD on Get Hip. At times, the music -- cut in sessions dating from November 1964 to a radio appearance on McKeesport's WMCK in '65 -- takes on the primal feel of something the Arondies might have played in Hamburg while sharing a bill with the Beatles. But they never made it to the Reeperbahn. Instead, they worked the local circuit from the Juliot Hotel in Clairton to the Sigma Nu fraternity -- immortalized (for those who knew the band) in "Sigma Nu" -- to the Clairton VFW, where they packed the joint, especially during football season.

As drummer Bill Scully recalls, with a grin, "We were big celebrities -- in Clairton."

After cutting "69," the Arondies started working with a local DJ/show promoter/all-around Svengali Terry Lee, who'd already discovered the Larks, whose name he changed, in honor of his own profession, to the Dee-Jays.

While Terry and Porky were spinning the record, other stations balked at the idea of a song called "69."

"My uncle Al McDowell was at KDKA at the time," says Scully, "so my aunt and uncle took the record to Clark Race and asked if he would play it. So Clark is listenin', and it's got this nice sound, and we say '69,' and he says, 'I can't play this.' My aunt didn't know."

A month after making a splash with "69," they split with Lee in a royalty dispute. Then, Scully quit and the other Arondies formed the Soul Congress, featuring Uniontown soul artist Billy Sha-Rae. Eventually, the Congress moved to Detroit, where it played on sessions by such artists as the O'Jays, and in '71, scored a minor R&B hit with "Do It."

As big a hit as "69" was, the kings of the local garage were indisputably the Dee-Jays. "Everybody said, 'Those Dee-Jays, boy, they're just fantastic," Baran says. And so, the name was changed to the Fantastic Dee-Jays. With a sound that ranged from instrumental covers to the gorgeous low-key balladry of "Shy Girl" to the heavier British Invasion-inspired garage-rock of "Get Away Girl," the Dee-Jays, of McKeesport, got a lot of play on WMCK, where their manager, Lee, was working at the time. A self-styled Brian Epstein, the DJ attended the Dee-Jays' rehearsals to make sure they weren't goofing off and recorded them after midnight at the station doing material he'd selected.

They released their debut single, a lo-fi cover of "Apache," in March 1965. In 1966, the very year the Dee-Jays opened for the Stones at the Civic Arena, the band became the Swamp Rats, a grittier punk act whose enduring reputation was built on a series of primitive singles that found them going absolutely wild on everything from a jaw-dropping cover of "Louie Louie" to the Kinks' "Til the End of the Day."

The garage act most likely to make it beyond the garage, the Fenways, from Apollo in Armstrong County, got their start in 1964 on Ricky "C," a local label, with "Nothing to Offer You." Before they'd even backed the Vogues on "You're the One," the group, more polished and less rocking than your typical garage-rock act, signed briefly to the Imperial label, home of Ricky Nelson and Fats Domino, for "Walk." As Pittsburgh's first successful self-contained rock 'n' roll unit, the Fenways (led by vocalist Sunny DeNunzio, Lee's cousin) were tapped, in the summer of 1964, to open for the Rolling Stones and Dave Clark Five. With "Walk," in 1965, they topped the charts on both of Pittsburgh's major pop radio outlets -- KQV and KDKA -- in addition to WMCK.

As Goodrich says, "The Fenways had local hits like you can't imagine."

But none of the group's singles, not even "The Number One Song in the Country," ever hit the U.S. charts.

There were other garage-rock acts making noise at the time. McKees Rocks' Peter's Pipers, fronted by a young Pete Hewlett (who went on to sing with Billy Joel and Carly Simon), briefly signed to the Philips label, but its records never charted, either. Then you had Napoleonic Wars (from Greensburg), the Oncomers, Marshmallow Steamshovel, the Time Stoppers, the Hides, the Igniters (featuring Czuri) and Grains of Sand, a band that included up-and-coming rock promoter Rich Engler.

But no group in Pittsburgh was able to follow the Troggs or ? and the Mysterians from the garage to the top of the charts.

It wasn't for lack of support on local airwaves.

As Baran recalls, "Mad Mike and Terry Lee would help these bands go out and play at different places. ... Then, they tied it in with their radio shows. 'Hey, come out and see the so-and-so band on Friday night.' So they had all the local support they needed. And it wasn't a one-hour show on a Sunday night that highlights local music. It was brought into the mix. And it was big."

One problem may have been that the local garage bands didn't have a following as huge as, say, the Jaggerz, who, says Goodrich, "Anyone will tell you were the best group around. And they may not have liked it much, but they'd have to give the devil his due. Even before 'Rapper,' it was known that the Jaggerz were it. If you were in the Jaggerz, man, then you were probably considered the best."

If Pittsburgh couldn't break its own garage-rock bands on a national level, it did break Tommy James, a native of Dayton, Ohio, whose band was based, for then, in Michigan, when teen dance DJ's made a regional hit of a two-year-old James single, "Hanky Panky." In 1966, the song went all the way to No. 1 on the national charts, by which point James had already recruited members of the Raconteurs to be the new Shondells (his backing group) right here in Pittsburgh. James went on to be among the most successful artists ever linked to Pittsburgh, with 17 Top 40 singles, including the chart-topping "Crimson and Clover" and the classics "I Think We're Alone Now," "Mirage," "Sweet Cherry Wine" and "Crystal Blue Persuasion."

Pittsburgh also had its share of soul and R&B acts at the time, from Clairton's Johnny Wilson and the Debonaires to a group whose name would have to rank among the greatest ever, the Soulvation Army.

Chuck Edwards of Canonsburg scored a local instrumental hit with "Bullfight," had the single picked up by Roulette but, like the Fenways, never took it national.

The Splendors, led by guitarist Herb Marshall of Clairton -- who later went on to record with the Isley Brothers -- also had a local hit or two.

In 1961, Chuck Jackson, a Del-Viking latecomer, struck out on his own and scored a Top 5 R&B hit, "I Don't Want to Cry." He landed 23 more singles on the R&B charts, the biggest of which was "Any Day Now," a No. 2 R&B single that peaked at No. 23 in 1962 on the national pop charts.

Johnny Daye, a white soul singer, was discovered here by Otis Redding, who took him to Stax, the legendary label, where Steve Cropper produced and co-wrote "What'll I Do for Satisfaction," one of two Daye singles for the label (the other was "Stay Baby Stay"). A 1967 single, "What'll I Do," was revived in 1993 by Janet Jackson on the "Janet" album.

In the Stax/Volt "Singles" box-set liner notes, Cropper is quoted as saying, "Otis really wanted to do a lot with him. The kid was dynamite. Had Otis lived, he probably would have."

Though brilliant examples of vintage soul, neither of his Stax releases charted. But he did enjoy at least a minor hit a few years earlier with "Marry Me," (over)produced by Johnny Nash, on Jomada.

1920 to 1939: From Speakeasies to Harlem Nights

By Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As the speakeasy era of the 1920s careened into the hardscrabble days of the 1930s, people flocked to Pittsburgh nightclubs such as the Savoy Ballroom, the Harlem Casino, the Collins Inn, the New Granada and Bill Green's Casino and Terraced Gardens.

Charles "Teenie" Harris/Photo courtesy of the Trolley Station Oral History Center in Homewood
In the 1930s and 1940s, upper-class black and white customers dressed up to hear jazz, eat supper and dance at the Harlem Casino, a popular black-owned nightclub that was Pittsburgh's answer to New York City's Cotton Club. Couples would stroll a red carpet under an awning to the entrance of the Harlem Casino at Roberts Street and Centre Avenue. The club was torn down when Mellon Arena was built.
Click photo for larger image.

During Prohibition, which made the sale of alcoholic beverages illegal between 1919 and 1934, people drank in speakeasies.

"There were always joints, but many of those joints were not billboard type of joints. You had to knock on five doors and go through 10 houses to get to them. The password usually started with 'd' and ended with 'r.' That was dollar,'' said John Brewer, who runs the Trolley Station Oral History Center at the Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum in Homewood.

Brewer, owner of Ramsey's II nightclub in Homewood, collects old photos of nightclubs and has been conducting oral history interviews for the past three years.

When Prohibition ended, some speakeasies became "one-man clubs.'' The term was coined because most of the establishment's revenues fell into one man's pocket, although the club usually had "a fake panel of officers,'' according to a local newspaper called The Bulletin Index.

By 1936, more than 600 such clubs existed and served liquor between 2 and 7 a.m. as well as on Sundays, when other bars could not operate.

One-man clubs, which often had blue lights at their entrances, were "the poor man's club and the nightclubbers' last resort,'' according to The Bulletin Index.

By 4 a.m., a typical one-man club throbbed with vitality, which The Bulletin Index described this way:

"In an air of clatter, nickel-in-the-slot phonographs, stale tobacco smoke, latticed arbors, lurid backbar murals and alcoholic blur, the bar holds up a few loquacious clots of men and the two-by-four dance floor is dotted with a few wildly gyrating couples. Off in a corner, a girl, with a guffawing party, suddenly breaks into 'Why Do You Do Me Like You Do' in a husky, hi-de-ho voice. ... The inevitable hunched ring of young bucks intent upon pinball games never turns a hair."

In the Hill District, music lovers packed the 2,200 seats in the Pythian Temple or the Roosevelt Theater to hear Duke Ellington and his World Famous Orchestra. Louis Armstrong and his 14-member band played the Savoy Ballroom. Mary Lou Williams, the pianist and arranger, starred with Andy Kirk & his Broadcasting Orchestra at the Savoy, too.

In Oakland, the Mills Brothers sang at the Syria Mosque. Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club Orchestra played at the Stanley, Downtown.

If you couldn't go to Harlem in ermine and pearls, you could go to The Harlem Casino, a Hill District club that attracted an integrated crowd.

"You were stepping high when you went to the Harlem Casino. The Harlem Casino was a real happening place. It wasn't a large venue,'' Brewer said, adding that it seated about 200 people.

Charles "Teenie" Harris/Photo courtesy of the Trolley Station Oral History Center in Homewood
William A. "Gus'' Greenlee, second from left, stands at the bar of the first Crawford Grill, opened in 1931 at 1401 Wylie Ave. in the lower Hill District. The building closed in 1952 after a fire. In 1943, Greenlee started the second Crawford Grill as a companion to the first club. Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey played there. Greenlee opened a third club on Pennsylvania Avenue, North Side, in 1948. The North Side club went under in 1955 and was razed.
Click photo for larger image.

And if Honey Boy Minor was on drums, the place rocked.

Performers, including such popular band leaders and singers as Billy Eckstine, varied the size of their groups based on the venue.

"Mr. Eckstine might make an appearance at the Crawford Grill, but his 30-piece band played at the Stanley or the Roosevelt. He was extremely well liked. They called him "Mr. B,'' Brewer said, adding that Eckstine had a voice as smooth as Nat King Cole's and as deeply resonant as Paul Robeson's and was so handsome that most photos show him surrounded by women.

Kay Watson, who grew up in Bloomfield and Garfield, began taking dancing lessons at age 4 and tap-danced during the 1930s. The Plum resident remembers North Side clubs such as the Liberty Cafe and Churchill's Tavern.

"Things really didn't start shaking until 11 p.m.," Watson said, adding that shows at those clubs featured singers who doubled as emcees and introduced acrobats or comedians.

Even during the day, Watson said, "You didn't go out without your white gloves on."

In nightclubs, "You didn't see anybody in jeans or loafers. Everybody was always dressed fit to kill," Watson said.

The year 1930 featured Al Capone's visit to McKees Rocks and a raid by county detectives on the Manitou, a boat docked at Wood Street. On board were "350 men, reels of 'underground' film, gambling devices and three female entertainers clad only in shoes and stockings," according to "Key to the City," a book that lists historic events and local appearances by musicians, actors and athletes as well as the dates of 150 plays and 500 films.

In the 1920s and '30s, numbers running was the financial lifeblood of the black community. Owners of black nightclubs and bars often sought financing from William "Woogie'' Harris, brother of Charles "Teenie'' Harris, whose photographs of Pittsburgh are a major record of the city's history.

By 1925, Woogie Harris was running a profitable numbers empire that eventually employed up to 4,000 people and was based at the Crystal Barber Shop in the Hill District, Brewer said.

"Numbers was the primary financial industry of the black community,'' said Brewer, the oral historian. "People who ran these clubs couldn't open them with bank money, and so about 90 percent of the businesses, particularly in the Hill, were financed by numbers.'

In June 1931, local numbers operators were extremely upset when 371, a heavily played number in the city, hit for a total payout of $250,000, according to "Key to the City.''

Anna Simmons "Birdie" Dunlap, a tough, beautiful woman who ran The Hurricane Lounge, opened an after-hours club in the Hill District in 1939. But her fame came later in the 1950s and 1960s, when The Hurricane, which seated 120 people, attracted great jazz performers such as Stanley Turrentine, Jimmy McGriff, Roy Eldridge, Sonny Stitt and Kenny Burrell.

"She was always the kind of person who would say, 'Hey you, you have money. If you don't have money, get out.' The Hurricane was for people who had money. It was about business," Brewer said.

Woogie Harris, the numbers baron, and Walter Augustus "Gus" Greenlee, who owned the Crawford Grill and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, were not always angels, Brewer said. But he pointed out that both men invested heavily in black-owned businesses and contributed money to give food and clothing to poor students at Miller Street School. Pupils' academic achievements increased afterward.

At that time, he added, "The African-American community was a community isolated to itself. African-Americans were not working at Kaufmann's or Gimbels or Horne's. The banks weren't giving out 3 percent loans. They were not addressing any financial needs. People had to do what they had to do to survive. The numbers game provided jobs. These gentlemen perpetuated the financial structure of the African-American community."

1940 to 1959: The Jazz Age in Pittsburgh

By Nate Guidry, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Duke was so popular that Pittsburgh promoters had to rent the old Motor Square Garden on Baum Boulevard in East Liberty to accommodate the hordes of fans who purchased tickets to see him perform.

Library and Archives/Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania
Spanning several eras: Starting in the 1930s and continuing into the '50s, Bill Green's Casino and Terraced Gardens in Pleasant Hills on Route 51 served as one of the hubs of Pittsburgh nightlife during the blossoming big band era, drawing praise for quality service and booking nationally known performers. The shopping center where it stood is still known as Bill Green's shopping center.

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Duke Ellington would arrive in Pittsburgh in his own Pullman cars, spending the night at the Pennsylvania Station, unlike most black entertainers who were restricted to staying overnight in the Hill District -- most likely at the Bailey Hotel, one of Centre Avenue's finest.

Those were the days when Pittsburgh was hopping -- clubs, casinos, burlesque houses and strip joints -- catering to all sorts of revelers.

Downtown was dotted with clubs, both private and public. Most popular were the Variety Club, Chelsea, Almono, the Musicians Club and the Benjamin Harrison Literary Club, an after-hours spot on Liberty Avenue reputed to be owned by gangsters. The club eventually became the Southern Outing and Fishing Club and featured such talent as Homestead native Maxine Sullivan.

"I can assure you there wasn't much reading or fishing licenses being handed out there," said the late William Dobie to the Post-Gazette before his death in 2003. "It was strictly wine, women and entertainment. This was during the time of Prohibition and speakeasies, and people used to come in with their own bottle, and there had to be entertainment. Maxine was singing there. If I recall correctly, she started out as a waitress; then someone realized she could sing."

The North Side featured such clubs as Red's Cafe, Pace's and the Moose Club.

Some of the best clubs could be found in the East End, venues such as the Bachelors Club, Lepus, Hunting and Fishing and the Del Mar Canoe Club, which offered after-hours gambling and showcased some of the best comedians and emcees in the country.

"I remember performing in a combo for Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin at Bachelors Club," said Pittsburgh drummer William Condeluci. "Lewis and Martin were unknown then. Jerry Lewis was the dominant of the two then. Martin at the time was just a good-looking guy. He had just arrived from Steubenville, and he didn't know what he was doing. The act was all Jerry Lewis."

The Bachelor's Club at 6308 Penn Ave., East Liberty, boasted a prominent clientele that was surprised by a police raid in April 1941. The Post-Gazette's front-page story reported: "They detained 129 persons, 40 of them women, seized $1,500 worth of choice liquors and claimed to have evidence of gambling." A city police magistrate was arrested "as a visitor" to the club, which had no liquor license. It took state police wielding sledge hammers 15 minutes to break down six steel doors leading to the club.
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When it came to booking much of the talent, few people did it better than the late Don DeCarlo. Over the years, he booked everyone from Lenny Bruce and Marty Allen to Gypsy Rose Lee and Fifi D'Orsay.

"He was the king of the one-nighters, booking shows throughout the region," wrote the late Lenny Litman in a 1989 Post-Gazette article. "He had an office in the Fulton Building, but most of his booking came at Thompson's Restaurant first, then the White Tower and, at the height of the business, in the Purple Cow, one of the many all-night restaurants. Acts found him anywhere on the corner of Liberty and Penn, and he gave them his card and a contract the next day."

Litman and his brothers bought the old Villa Madrid in 1948 and turned it into the Copa on Liberty Avenue, Downtown. Almost by accident, it opened with Frankie Laine, a recording star known for his nightclub act. He did huge business, so Litman took a chance on Vic Damone and Ella Fitzgerald. Their success convinced him to follow the pop charts, a policy new to nightclubs. The Copa flourished for a decade.

In the Hill District there was the Ritz, Showboat, Roosevelt Theater, Savoy Ballroom and the Loendi, which featured talent as diverse as Jimmie Lunceford, Cab Calloway and Bennie Moten.

One night at the Washington Club, it was reported that pianists Art Tatum, Nat Cole and Erroll Garner battled each other for hours during an impromptu jam session.

One of the most popular spots for musicians though, both black and white, was the Black Musicians Club, Local 471.

"The musicians club was the hub for black musicians in Pittsburgh," said trumpeter Chuck Austin. "It was also a national attraction for traveling musicians. There were always activities happening at the club. On any given night it was not uncommon to hear people like Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Heath, Ben Webster or Coleman Hawkins and others performing."

But no clubs equaled the Hurricane and the Crawford Grill in capturing the essence of Pittsburgh's jazz-rich legacy during the 1940s and '50s .

Maxine Sullivan of Homestead, seen at age 26 in 1938, served as a waitress until someone at the Southern Outing and Fishing Club realized she could sing.

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Anna Simmons Dunlap, a k a, "Birdie," said to be descended from Sally Hemings, President Thomas Jefferson's mistress, owned and managed the Hurricane with an aristocratic fist.

"There was absolutely no petting in the club or she'd put you smack out in the middle of the street," said the late Frank Bolden, former Pittsburgh Courier city editor. "Girls were safer at the Hurricane than at the YMCA."

Patrons came from all sides of the street -- the upper crust and the under crust, shoulder to shoulder. Bobby Layne, the former Steelers quarterback, was known to frequent the place. One night, Layne placed two crisp $100 bills in the saxophone of Big Jay McNeely as a tip.

For a jazz club, the Hurricane, on Centre Avenue between Roberts and Miller streets, had a reputation for its Brazilian shrimp and fried chicken and sizzling organ groups, plus jazz by Wild Bill Doggett, Jack McDuff, Shirley Scott, Don Patterson and Jimmy McGriff.

It was at the Hurricane that organ master Gene Ludwig first heard Jimmy Smith and decided he would switch to the Hammond B3.

But it was at the Grill that the standards were set -- where innovation, improvisation and tradition were allowed to flourish.

The club played host to everyone from Art Blakey and Max Roach to Sarah Vaughn and Charles Mingus.

"The Grill was the spot," said Pittsburgh pianist Walt Harper, whose band, while performing at the Grill, helped to integrate the Hill District.

"Everyone that was someone in show business hung out at the Grill. Frank Sinatra, Nat Cole, Chico Hamilton hung out at the Grill. The place was very cosmopolitan. People could have a good time without having to worry about anything."

1960 to 1979: A Revolutionary Era

By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Come on, baby, let's do The Twist."

That was the first invitation of a revolutionary decade, uttered initially by Hank Ballard, then with more ecstatic and aerobic results by Chubby Checker in the summer of 1960.

Post-Gazette
In the '60s, Bob Dylan and the Hawks played the Stanley Theater and Otis Redding and Jefferson Airplane played the Penn Theater (now Heinz Hall). But on the outskirts of town, from the '60s right on up to the mid-'80s, the marquee at the Holiday House read like the guest list on "The Tonight Show. "Mel Torme and David Brenner were regulars at the large dinner theater, but it also hosted Tony Orlando, Tina Turner, Jackie Wilson, Tiny Tim and the Three Stooges. "The Holiday House was a monster," says Travis Klein of Itzy Records. "What made it special was that the Bertera family [who owned it; that's Robert Bertera pictured] knew ... how to feed a 1,000 people without their prime rib getting cold."

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Images of the young and old shaking their hips at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City sent that shockwave around the nation, launching an era of new crazes -- the Stroll, the Pony, the Jerk -- in a land of a thousand dances.

But to the hipsters in Pittsburgh, that was all a bunch of Dick Clark hype.

"The only people who cared about the Twist and the Pony were the squares," says Travis Klein of Itzy Records. "We'd been doing black dances like the Slop, the Mashed Potatoes and the Watusi for a while, since the '50s."

The hot spot for dances was ... everywhere. During the '60s, it was hard to get your homework done, as deejays like Porky Chedwick and Mad Mike were spinning at record hops seven nights a week in lodges, roller rinks, schools, parks and even churches and synagogues.

According to Pittsburgh music historian Dave Goodrich, Bo Diddley would come in and "he would play up to three [record hops] a night. They would just whisk him around. Pittsburgh loved Bo Diddley, and it would be packed."

One popular spot for record hops was the West View Park Danceland. "The joke," says Klein, "is that the Rolling Stones drew 250 there while Mad Mike did 2,000."

Still in their Muddy Waters period, the Stones played West View Park on June 17, 1964 (tickets were $1.50!), but they weren't the first strike in the British Invasion here. That came 12 days earlier when another fab British band inspired mayhem at the Civic Arena. The Beatles? Nope, the Dave Clark Five.

"It was an abbreviated show," recalls Goodrich, "and they stopped it because of all the girls screaming. It was not normal behavior, and security thought it was time to put the wraps on it."

By the time the Beatles came in September of that year, security was ready, and a new rock 'n' roll era was embraced. But it came at a price -- and not just to doo-wop.

Three years earlier, the shiny dome that held the Fab Four had plopped like an alien spaceship in the middle of Uptown, upsetting a thriving Wylie Avenue culture. The original Crawford Grill was history.

The Hill District nightlife scene so vaunted in the '40s and '50s took another blow with riots that followed the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, driving some patrons away.

But jazz didn't die. It migrated west to Harper's Attic in Market Square and east to Walnut Street in Shadyside. Harper's was a big boost for Downtown, which had lost the Copa in 1959. "There was nothing there before I came down," Harper says of the heart of town, "just dive bars and what-not."

Harper's brought in the likes of the Modern Jazz Quartet, Stan Getz, Erroll Garner and Carmen McRae for a $5 cover. "Terry Bradshaw used to come in, Joe Greene, all the Steelers used to hang out there," Harper says.

Meanwhile, Walnut Street hopped with nightlife long before it was malled over by The Gap and Banana Republic. Harold Betters was a fixture at the Encore, a club that also hosted the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and J.J. Johnston. But the royalty on Walnut in the early '70s was Billy Price and the Rhythm Kings

"We were fashioned like the J. Geils Band with horns," Price says, "and we used to play the Fox Cafe six or seven nights a week, and that was my life. And then we'd played matinees over at the Encore. You'd think they'd want to get somebody else, that we'd be overexposed, but no."

Tony DiNardo took a different approach between the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon campuses, fashioning his Portfolio and Antonino's as a showcase a la the Bottom Line. Professors hung out at the Portfolio after classes and then at night, the Craig Street spot opened the stage to acoustic and comedy acts.

"Seeing there was an open stage," DiNardo says, "a lot of people would come try their hand. Dennis Miller and Billy Elmer were fighting it out for a Saturday night."

On one particular night in 1974, Antonino's, which was a folk haven for acts such as Don McLean, changed the pace a bit with a new talent out of New York: The Ramones. The black-leather punks drew about 80 people -- 80 spirited people. "I had these little chandeliers hanging, and the Ramones were just vibrating the whole space," DiNardo says." People were standing on chairs, which I never saw before. For me it was different, it was scary, the whole thing. The place got disheveled to say the least."

Meantime, on the other side of Oakland, on the corner of Atwood and Sennott streets, a former hotel lounge once frequented by Honus Wagner was about to change club life here for good. Dom DiSilvio and his then-wife Jan Chepes started booking oldies acts in 1973 and, within a few years, DiSilvio says, "We forgot about the '50s, cause we realized ... we weren't in the '50s any longer."

The Decade became the Corner of Rock 'n' Roll, building an original music scene with bands like Diamond Reo, Gravel, The Silencers and the quintessential Pittsburgh bar band, the Iron City Houserockers. "It was a saloon," DiSilvio says of the Decade. "A Wild West saloon."

In late 1978, L.A. promoter Danny Kresky saw something more in the Decade: an East Coast Whisky-A-Go-Go. For the next five years, they filled the room with future legends: U2, the Police, the Ramones, the Pretenders and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

In another corner of Oakland, the Electric Banana staked its ground as the home of Pittsburgh punk. But first, the former go-go lounge turned the beat around. The Banana opened in 1977, packing in the crowd and pumping out the disco beat until two years later. That was around the time Reed Paley of the Five and Karl Mullen of Carsickness stormed the door with the sound of the counter-culture.

After they came and conquered, Johnny Zarra knew the times had a-changed. "It was a Monday night and there were two feet of Rolling Rock cans on the floor when they left," he said. "They packed the joint and from that point on, we wouldn't book any cover bands."