Hear Me Talkin' To Ya: The Classic Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It

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text excerpt

[Alberta Hunter ran away from home at the age of eleven, went to Chicago, and eventually started singing the blues in clubs.]

Then I went over to the Panama, on Thirty-Sixth and State, and there I was makin' seventeen-fifty a week--and that was money! The Panama had an "upstairs" and a "downstairs"--five girls and a piano player downstairs and another five girls and a piano player upstairs.

And do you know who was workin' downstairs all at the same time? There was "Bricktop," Cora Green, Florence Mills, Mattie Hite (a fine singer), and Nettie Compton. And don't leave out Glover Compton who played piano. Everybody knew Glover Compton. He was doing the stuff that Willie 'The Lion' Smith did later on, you know, the big fat cigar hangin' out of the corner of his mouth and sittin' sideways at the piano talking to the people. Glover was great.

[…U]pstairs it was rougher. Upstairs, we had Mamie Carter, a dancer, the "shake" kind, and Twinkle Davis who danced and sang (she couldn't sing much but it made no difference 'cause she had the most beautiful legs and that's what people came to see). Then there was Nellie Carr who sang and did splits, Goldie Crosby, and myself. There, I would really lay the blues on.

excerpt from 'Hear Me Talkin' To Ya: The Classic Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It' pp. 87 (217 words)

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