JAMES BROWN may have been the Godfather of Soul, but there was one stage that could make him tremble: the Apollo Theater. When Brown first performed at the legendary New York venue as an up-and-coming R B singer in 1959, he said he was a nervous wreck who could barely go on-stage. The Apollo had the same effect on many other legends.
When Brown's body is put on view at the Apollo today, fans won't only get to say goodbye to a musical legend, they'll get a chance to step into one of the most famous theaters in the world. The Apollo Theater was, and still is, the great black theater of all time on the main street of the greatest black community in America, says Ted Fox, author of Showtime at the Apollo: The Story of Harlem's World Famous Theater (Mill Road Enterprises). Fox says the Apollo was the first place the Beatles wanted to visit when they came to New York and the first place Elvis Presley went after he performed on television for the first time.
It's the stage where legendary jazz vocalists such as Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday were discovered. Brown may have been the Godfather of Soul, but the Apollo was the godfather of black popular art, Fox says. It was at the forefront of swing music, modern jazz, R B, funk and, today, hip-hop.
Comedians such as Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby also shaped their reputations at the Apollo. Many music critics consider Brown's recording at the Apollo the most exciting live album produced. At the time, he was an up-and-coming artist with a string of hits.
He asked his record company to back the album but was rejected because it had never been done before. Brown took a gamble and put up his own money. The recording became a huge hit, perching on the Billboard charts for 66 straight weeks.
Douglas Wolk, author of James Brown's Live at the Apollo (Continuum International Publishing Group, $9.95), says the album captures Brown at the peak of his powers. Once the album came out, people would call the radio station and say, 'I want to hear James Brown Live at the Apollo!
' They wanted to hear the entire album, Wolk says. A lot of radio stations would play the entire album once or twice a day. Wolk says the album doesn't just capture performing for the audience but interacting with them.
He's talking about how bitterly cold it is outside. A woman is shouting profanities at him, urging him to sing even harder. The emotional impact of the album is heightened by the timing it was recorded during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
Pretty much everyone inside that audience thought that they would be dead within a week, Wolk says. The Apollo opened in 1934 at 253 W. 125 St.
in Harlem. The United States was segregated, but the Apollo featured black performers. The theater was the Northern stop for the chitlin' circuit, the informal name for the network of clubs and theaters that featured black performers locked out by white venues.
But the quality of the music, dancing and comedy was so good that white performers sneaked into the club, says Fox. In the early days, Milton Berle would go in with a stenographer and steal jokes, Fox says. The Apollo was known for being a tough audience.
They were accustomed to seeing so much high-quality music that performers knew they couldn't coast. The audience would boo performers off the stage who didn't measure up. Fox says popular legend has it that singer Johnny Mathis was so nervous about singing at the Apollo that he couldn't finish an engagement.
Holiday had to be virtually pushed onto the stage to sing, he says. The audience was the Harlem community, Fox says. This was basically a society of people who didn't have power in everyday life, but in the Apollo, they controlled the destinies of amateurs and professional performers.
The Apollo went through a period of decline in the 1970s after desegregation. Black artists could perform at white venues that often paid better. But it's made a comeback.
In 1983, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is the third most popular tourist destination in New York today, drawing 1.3 million visitors annually. And it still has its tough audiences.
Atlanta R B singer Bobby V, who performed his No. 1 hit Slow Down there, says every performer is aware of the Apollo's past. You know how they say if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere?
he says. Really, if you make it at the Apollo and not get yanked off in the middle of your song you feel like you can make it anywhere.
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