“Western wear invited. Sportswear accepted.” Happenings ’69.

I was working on my next couple of blog posts, “Adventures in Basements” (Parts 1 & 2), when I got a call from my friend Patrick. “Adventures in Basements” will chronicle my favorite discoveries rooting through archives and library stacks around the country. But in the meantime Patrick called to say he wanted to pass on to me a small but generous chunk of his own archival collection.

Over the course of a lifetime Patrick Cather has built an incredible collection of books, records, memorabilia, artifacts, and ephemera related to (among many other things) Birmingham’s history and music. We got to know each other several years ago through a mutual friend, Frank “Doc” Adams. My book-in-progress includes a lengthy, important chapter on Patrick, Doc, and the boogie-woogie pianist Robert McCoy.

About a year ago Patrick entrusted to me a couple hundred R&B and soul records, mostly from the 1960s. This week he shared with me enough 78’s to make my car sink from the weight: Bessie Smith, Jimmie Rodgers, Fats Waller, the Mississippi Sheiks, Erskine Hawkins, and all sorts of other things. There’s even one from Clifford Hayes’s Louisville Jug Stompers and a couple of the V-Disc records, issued during World War II for the soldiers overseas.

Among the papers I got from Patrick was a single issue of Dick Coffee’s Birmingham Doin’s, dated November of 1969. It’s a periodical survey of late 1960s (white) Birmingham nightlife, consisting mostly of advertisements. As such, it’s an interesting glimpse into this city’s nightclubs—a segment of them, anyway—a half a century ago.

I asked Patrick, flipping through the pages: Did you ever go to the Original Boom Boom Room?

Many times, he said, and added: the Boom Boom Room had a chicken in a cage, and it would dance on demand. 

Only one of the establishments listed below is still in business: the Red Lion in Homewood, a place I love. Long may it run.

I’ll be posting many more archival finds in the weeks ahead—including some excerpts from Glare magazine, the glossy 1950s magazine devoted to Birmingham’s black entertainment and social life. For now, here are some Birmingham Doin’s.

Don’t miss the talked about Blaze.

Postscript:

While I was going through his records, Patrick got a call from the family of Joe Rumore, Birmingham’s late, longtime radio personality: a chunk of Rumore’s estate, it happened, was going on sale in the morning, and Patrick passed the tip along to me.

I went to the Rumore sale, but I only purchased one item. There were lots of framed, signed photos of old country music stars, all out of my budget—and autographed head shots don’t do much for me, anyway.  More my speed, and priced at just a few dollars,  was this photo from radio station WSPG in Anniston, Alabama: a trio identified as Mary Frady, Jerry Frady, and Ruby Fallon. I’ve got a decent collection of photos like this—images of forgotten, mostly anonymous musicians—and I find all the details in them wonderful. For starters: from a distance the pattern on Jerry’s shirt might look likes flowers, but it’s cowboys and lassos.

Really I love everything about this photo. The mic placement, obviously. The rolled cuffs of Jerry’s pants. The younger woman and the older woman, and their symmetry. That fringe, just under their knees. How everybody’s wearing boots. The look on Ruby’s face. The look on Mary’s. Jerry’s absolute earnestness.

I’d like to have heard him sing.

(Incidentally, about this time last year I compiled some of my photos of “lost and found” musicians in a little collection, titled “Melodies Unheard.” You can get a copy here.

More soon.)