Mr. Lucky's, a Gary nightspot. We were being forced to spend our weekends in

Chicago and other places trying to win an ever-increasing number of amateur

shows, and these trips were expensive, so the job at Mr. Lucky's was a way

to make it all possible. Mom was surprised at the response we were getting

and she was very pleased with the awards and the attention, but she worried

about us a lot. She worried about me because of my age. "This is quite a

life for a nine-year-old," she would say, staring intently at my father.

I don't know what my brothers and I expected, but the nightclub crowds

weren't the same as the Roosevelt High crowds. We were playing between bad

comedians, cocktail organists, and strippers. With my Witness upbringing,

Mom was concerned that I was hanging out with the wrong people and getting

introduced to things I'd be better off learning much later in life. She

didn't have to worry; just one look at some of those strippers wasn't going

to get me that interested in trouble - certainly not at nine years old! That

was an awful way to live, though, and it made us all the more determined to

move on up the circuit and as far away from that life as we could go.

Being at Mr. Lucky's meant that for the first time in our lives we had a

whole show to do - five sets a night, six nights a week - and if Dad could

get us something out of town for the seventh night, he was going to do it.

We were working hard, but the bar crowds weren't bad to us. They liked James

Brown and Sam and Dave just as much as we did and, besides, we were

something extra that came free with the drinking and the carrying on, so

they were surprised and cheerful. We even had some fun with them on one

number, the Joe Tex song "Skinny Legs and All." We'd start the song and

somewhere in the middle I'd go out into the audience, crawl under the

tables, and pull up the ladies' skirts to look under. People would throw

money as I scurried by, and when I began to dance, I'd scoop up all the

dollars and coins that had hit the floor earlier and push them into the

pockets of my jacket.

I wasn't really nervous when we began playing in because of all the

experience I'd had with talent show audiences. I was always ready to go out

and perform, you know, just do it - sing and dance and have some fun.

We worked in more than one club that had strippers in those days. I used to

stand in the wings of this one place in Chicago and watch a lady whose name

was Mary Rose. I must have been nine or ten. This girl would take off her

clothes and her panties and throw them to the audience. The men would pick

them up and sniff them and yell. My brothers and I would be watching all

this, taking it in, and my father wouldn't mind. We were exposed to a lot

doing that kind of circuit. In one place they had cut a little hole in the

musician's dressing room wall that also happened to act as a wall in the

ladies' bathroom. You could peek through this hole, and I saw stuff I've

never forgotten. Guys on that circuit were so wild, they did stuff like

drilling little holes into the walls of the ladies' loo all the time. Of

course, I'm sure that my brothers and I were fighting over who got to look

through the hole. "Get outta the way, it's my turn!" Pushing each other away

to make room for ourselves.

Later, when we did the Apollo Theater in New York, I saw something that

really blew me away because I didn't know things like that existed. I had

seen quite a few strippers, but that night this one girl with gorgeous

eyelashes and long hair came out and did her routine. She put on a great

performance. All of a sudden, at the end, she took off her wig, pulled a

pair of big oranges out of her bra, and revealed that she was a hard-faced

guy under all that makeup. That blew me away. I was only a child and

couldn't even conceive of anything like that. But I looked out at the

theatre audience and they were going for it. applauding wildly and cheering.

I'm just a little kid, standing in the wings, watching this crazy stuff.

I was blown away.

As I said, I received quite an education as a child. More than most. Perhaps

this freed me to concentrate on other aspects of my life as an adult.

One day, not long after we'd been doing successfully in Chicago clubs, Dad

brought home a tape of some songs we'd never heard before. We were

accustomed to doing popular stuff off the radio, so we were curious why he

began playing these songs over and over again, just one guy singing none too

well with some guitar chords in the background. Dad told us that the man on

the tape wasn't really a performer but a songwriter who owned a recording

studio in Gary. His name was Mr. Keith and he had given us a week to

practice his songs to see if we could make a record out of them. Naturally,

we were excited. We wanted to make a record, any record.

We worked strictly on the sound, ignoring the dancing routines we'd normally

work up for a new song. It wasn't as much fun to do a song that none of us

knew, but we were already professional enough to hide our disappointment and

give it all we could. When we were ready and felt we had done our best with

the material, Dad got us on tape after a few false starts and more than a

few pep talks, of course. After a day or two of trying to figure out whether

Mr. Keith liked the tape we had made for him, Dad suddenly appeared with

more of his songs for us to learn for our first recording session.

Mr. Keith, like Dad, was a mill worker who loved music, only he was more

into the recording and business end. His studio and label were called

Steeltown. Looking back on all this, I realize Mr. Keith was just as excited

as we were. His studio was downtown, and we went early one Saturday morning

before "The Road Runner Show," my favourite show at the time. Mr. Keith met

us at the door and opened the studio. He showed us a small glass booth with

all kinds of equipment in it and explained what various tasks each

performed. It didn't look like we'd have to lean over any more tape

recorders, at least not in this studio. I put on some big metal headphones,

which came halfway down my neck, and tried to make myself look ready for

anything.

As my brothers were figuring out where to plug in their instruments and

stand, some backup singers and a horn section arrived. At first I assumed

they were there to make a record after us. We were delighted and amazed when

we found out they were there to record with us. We looked over at Dad, but

he didn't change expression. He'd obviously known about it and approved.

Even then people knew not to throw Dad surprises. We were told to listen to

Mr. Keith, who would instruct us while we were in the booth. If we did as he

said, the record would take care of itself.

After a few hours, we finished Mr. Keith's first song. Some of the backup

singers and horn players hadn't made records either and found it difficult,

but they also didn't have a perfectionist for a manager, so they weren't

used to doing things over and over the way we were. It was at times like

these that we realized how hard Dad worked to make us consummate

professionals. We came back the next few Saturdays, putting the songs we'd

rehearsed during the week into the can and taking home a new tape of Mr.

Keith's each time. One Saturday, Dad even brought his guitar in to perform

with us. It was the one and only time he ever recorded with us. After the

records were pressed, Mr. Keith gave us some copies so that we could sell

them between sets and after shows. We knew that wasn't how the big groups

did it, but everyone had to start someplace, and in those days, having a

record with your group's name on it was quite something. We felt very

fortunate.