Alan Govenar Read Online Free

realm of glamorous and chic society. Seven hundred or more socialites were present to witness the advent of this great phenomena, a strictly formal affair given by the El Dorado Social Club, one of the oldest and yet one of the most active organizations.”
    The El Dorado Ballroom featured touring stars and local performers, as well as talent shows and teen dances. Some of the top bands that performed there were the I. H. Smalley Orchestra, the Sammy Harris Orchestra, the Sherman Williams Orchestra, and the Milton Larkin Orchestra, which was a breeding ground for aspiring musicians, such as Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Cedric Haywood, Wild Bill Davis, and Tom Archia. These local big bands, six to twelve pieces deep, played the music of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Louis Jordan, and the orchestrated swing-era hits of the time. And when they weren’t performing at the El Dorado, they might be found at other clubs around the city. The Downtown Grill, Pyramid Club, the Rendezvous Club, the Harlem Grill (a.k.a. Sportsman’s Club), Tick Tock Tavern, Southgates, and Abe and Pappy’s (a white club) all featured black bands on weekends and special occasions. Bigger-name national acts, like Jimmie Lunceford, Erskine Hawkins, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, often picked up sidemen in Houston for shows at the Pilgrim Temple in the Fourth Ward or at the City Auditorium downtown.
    Houston was rife with musical talent, and there were numerous orchestras and bands that, as early as the late 1930s, featured a mix of Texas-area performing artists, from Ivory Joe Hunter to Eddie Taylor, Henry Sloan, T. H. Crone, Giles Mitchell, Tack Wilson, Bob Williams, Jerry Moore, Joe Pullum, and the Prairie View Collegians. Pullum was one of the few to actually make records prior to World War II; most of these bands were ignored by the major labels recording in Texas at the time because company executives didn’t feel the music was commercially viable. Yet Pullum had a hit on Bluebird in 1934 with “Black Gal What Makes Your Head So Hard,” a song that Sam Hopkins covered and recorded in 1961. 6
    By the time Sam made his way to Houston in the early 1940s, the Third Ward was teeming with nightlife. But to middle- and upper-class residents of the Third Ward, Hopkins was probably invisible. He was one of the many poor rural blacks trying to get a foothold in the city, frequenting the lower-class bars, some of which, according to the
Informer,
were part of a bigger social problem. In a March 2, 1940, editorial, the
Informer
wrote: “County Judge Roy Hofheinz has announced a fight on honky tonks which sell strong drinks to minors…. There are Negro places that knowingly sell beer to minors…. There are some places which permit marijuana to be sold to minors in their places. Every Negro should endorse the campaign to close such places of business.”
    Sam was not known to smoke marijuana, but he did play in the kind of honky tonks referenced in this editorial. In another article in the
Informer,
columnist Ted Williams gave a more visual description of the honky tonks, though he had a very condescending tone: “Yes Honky Tonks [sic], where one sees the other side of Houston’s nightlife. For these places are rendezvous for those who like the enjoyment in a crude way. Clothes are of the least importance. The men and women who frequent these places are usually in their work clothes…. Lacking in modern furnishings they make up for it with hilarity. The jocund strains of guitar music ringing from the nickelodeon sends the crowd there in to dances that crosses between the swing-out of today and the native dance of the dark continent. Women swing and shake their bodies, while the men do their numbers. Words of all description can be heard among the throng. Though somewhat primitive, it is an interesting spectacle.” 7
    During his early years in Houston, Lightnin’ also performed on the