The Game Changer

by A. G. Lafley

  The day I returned to Badin, Mr. Kaufman put me up in his house and started me again at the Alcoa plant. A few weeks later, I met Mr. Charlie Crowell, the same Mr. Crowell that made my shoeshine box when I was helping out my sick Papa. Now he was the railroad station agent of the Western Union telegraph office in Badin and was looking for a new messenger boy. Offered me the job.

  Everybody knew they never had no colored Western Union messenger in that town before. Or any town in North Carolina that I heard of. When he explained the twenty-five-dollar monthly pay I get, plus the daily tips, special fees for far deliveries, free telegrams to Mama, free train fare all over the United States, one week paid vacation, and four weeks paid sick or emergency time off, I grabbed it. It was the best job I ever had. But I told Mr. Kaufman to hold my Alcoa job open, just in case.

  I worked from 9 to 6:30 P.M. and went to school five nights a week. They gave me a little cap with the words “Western Union” printed on it, a special blue jacket, blank telegram pads, and a indelible pencil. Taught me to bow correctly and explained good front-door manners: Yes Sir. No Sir. Thank You. Good Day.

  This is how Badin, N.C., looked in 1919 when I used to deliver telegrams. I was the only colored Western Union boy in the whole state of North Carolina. (Photo courtesy of Fred T. Morgan, Stanly News and Press.)

  I was expected to walk all over with my telegrams because they didn’t supply bicycles, but I didn’t mind. Some homes more then three miles out in the country and I got a seventy-five-cent delivery charge for those trips. Telegram rates was fifty cents to New York, sixty cents to Chicago. North Carolina was only thirty-five cents.

  I sent Mama twenty dollars a month and put everything else I made in a good U.S. Postal Savings account. That was the safest bank in the country.

  They never saw a readier boy then me. I hustled, yes I did. If a message come in, I always seemed to be standing next to Mr. Crowell ready to go. If it was past 6:30, after everybody left, they knew I still was there to take it out. No extra pay, but I was ready to go. Many of the older customers couldn’t read or write, so I help with that too, compose their messages, told them how to save money by keeping within ten words. Always talked polite to everyone, especially when they start crying when I knock on their door, because many telegrams were death notices.

  By the end of the month I was delivering more then all the white boys and making double their tips.

  Wasn’t long before I bought my own bicycle, the only messenger boy to have his own wheel, as we called it. Then I was able to take telegrams some five miles up the highway, and way off in the woods. The only thing I didn’t like was them slippery snakes, all wiggling and skittering across the road. Then I get off my wheel, find a big stick, and beat them old snakes to a low gravy. I hated them.

  Shows such as “Oh Baby” and “Oh Daddy” with pretty white chorus girls and singers barnstormed through town at the Badin Theater. I was always backstage taking it all in.

  I saw Princess White again at the Brooks Dreamland Theater that just opened. She usually tipped me one dollar for the telegram, especially if the news was good. The comedy team of Butterbeans and Susie came in all the time. So did Bessie Smith, Clara Smith, Ida Cox, Jennie and Doc Straine, Edna Hicks, Josie Miles, Hattie V. Snow, Al Wells and Company—so many, many black acts.

  I thought Gertrude Williams, who sang Bo Weevil Blues, was a great entertainer. A pumpkin-colored woman with long black hair, she had a top spot with the Roy White stock company and upset every house she played in Badin. I put her up there with Princess White and Ma Rainey. Oh yes.

  I never did go back to the Alcoa job. Worked for Western Union till April 1, 1921, when I got homesick for my family and returned to Steelton.

  Mama wrote me to come back, and from that time on, she treated me as a adult. Gave me the understanding a son should get. No more whippings, no more meanness. I guess I earned her respect.

  We all moved to Sibletown around June, which is outside Harrisburg. I tried to get another Western Union job there. Even had a long letter of recommendation that said I was the best messenger Badin ever had.

  The manager only laughed. “We don’t hire no colored boys for that. That’s ridiculous.”

  That’s when I started to realize how lucky I been coming up in North Carolina.

  After I turned sixteen in 1921, I wasn’t required to complete my schooling. Moving around so much caught me in the middle of the eighth grade when I stopped.

  So it was back to odd jobs again. One was carrying sandwich boards on my front and back, advertising the Russ Brothers frozen ice cream Eskimo Pies. They were just coming out then. I also split kindling for widow women and washed their windows. At night, I go over to the Majestic Theater on Walnut Street and run errands as I did in Badin. Go out for cigarettes, cigars, sandwiches, dinner plates, anything to make a ten-cent tip. In the winter, I joined a work train shoveling heavy snow drifts from the railroad tracks.

  My friends all laughed at me because they wouldn’t take those kind of jobs. But they had fathers and mothers to get money from—and I didn’t. I also worked as a plumber’s helper for fifteen dollars a week, which was considered good for Harrisburg. I gave Mama eight dollars and kept the rest.

  I remember it was the first part of October 1921. The great Ethel Waters was making a personal appearance with her Black Swan Troubadours at the Chestnut Street Auditorium. Fletcher Henderson was directing a seven-piece band and Joe Smith was on trumpet. When I got there the man wouldn’t let me in, said I had to be sixteen. But I was sixteen, only didn’t look it.

  As I was standing on the curb, this man came over, told me if I helped him sell soda pop at the show, we both get in free. Even gave me fifty cents. Yes sir, Papa was watching over me that night.

  It was a great show, and when Joe Smith started playing the first solo chorus of Bugle Blues from the top balcony, every nerve in my body started jumping. Ethel Waters sang her At the New Jump Steady Ball and Down Home Blues.

  After they got to know me at the door, I was there regular. I saw the famous Gibson Family musical comedy show featuring five-year-old Baby Corrine Gibson. Irvin C. Miller’s “Broadway Rastus” show played there, so did the “Ebony Nights” show. All of them had good orchestras playing hot jazz and blues along with the latest music of that time. I went to every show that came to town.

  It was March 2, 1922, that I saw the dancingest show of all: “Shuffle Along” at the Orpheum Theater. The Number Two company featured Lucille Hegamin. Charles “Luckey” Roberts was leading the band, but I kept watching the trombone player—can’t call his name. That was a real New York show.

  Mamie Smith with her Jazz Hounds, a package show with five vaudeville acts, came in two weeks later. She was a sensation singing Daddy, Your Mama Is Lonesome for You and Crazy Blues. When she did It’s Right Here for You, If You Don’t Get It, ’Tain’t No Fault of Mine, she broke up the house. Coleman Hawkins was in the band, slap-tonguing his tenor sax while laying on his back with his feet stuck up in the air. A riot. The comedian Boots Hope was also on the show, telling all those funny lies.

  The Princess Theater started bringing in TOBA shows, that’s the Theater Owners’ Booking Association, around April. They opened with Sara Martin singing the Money Blues. When she later recorded that number on OKeh records, it was changed to Sugar Blues. Female impersonator Andrew Tribble was also on the bill.

  One of my bad memories was watching the Al G. Barnes Circus parade one June day in 1922. Just as the parade started, their jumbo elephant Tusko got scared or something, picked up his trainer and smashed the screaming man to death against a circus wagon. That frightened me and I always been a little worried about elephants ever since.

  I seen every show that came to town and then run home and try to imitate the music on my kazoo. We called them “cazoots” then. Sometimes I get to fooling around with my friends, make believe we all hot jazz musicians. One fellow had a cazoot saxophone, another had one in the shape of a trumpet, someon
e else had a toy accordion with keys painted on—only made one note if he opened and closed it. I tied a comb wrapped in paper on a old broomstick and made believe I had a slide trombone.

  We called ourselves the Sibletown Jazz Hounds after Mamie Smith’s Jazz Hounds and went out on the street at night to play and sing a little. Maybe get out there in my ten-cent tennis shoes and cut some fancy old dance steps. We do Crazy Blues and Royal Garden Blues. Mary Stafford recorded those songs, and we tried to sound like her. Sometimes there was five or six guys in the band, but nobody was a regular. Never expected any money, never passed the hat or anything—it was only for fun and we were happy to get a hand from the crowd. But we did have fun.

  One day I was passing Nathan’s Pawnshop in Blackberry Alley and spotted this pretty silver-plated trombone hanging in the window. It was well worn and beat up a little, but it sure looked nice to me. And the sign read “Only $25.” When I brought it home, Mama asked what I was planning to do with it.

  “Learn to play,” I said firmly. Didn’t even know how to put the damn thing together because there was no instructions, but I sat and looked at that slide horn for hours. Even patted it a couple times.

  Everybody talked about Mr. Joe Vennie, the best black music teacher in Harrisburg. Said he was strict, didn’t take anybody he couldn’t teach or wasn’t capable. But I knew his daughter Tillie was one of the best local piano players and worked dances around town with her own band.

  It was 7 P.M., Monday night, May 8, 1922, when I showed up at his front door holding my horn just like a regular musician. A stern-looking old man answered my knock.

  “My name is Clyde Barnhardt,” I said faintly, standing there scared to death. “Can you teach me trombone?”

  “Come in, son,” he said and led me in the parlor.

  “I got my own horn here, Mr. Vennie,” I blurted out, “and I wanna learn to play it.”

  “Let me see what you got there, boy,” and he opened the case, took out the parts, and looked them over like he was inspecting a new horse. Before I knew it, he put them all together and was moving the slide in and out.

  “Very slow,” he mumbled, “and it’s a mightly old instrument. But we can try.”

  “How much you gonna charge me, Mr. Vennie?”

  “If I decide to teach you, it will be fifty cents a lesson. And a lesson is exactly one-half hour. No more, no less.”

  “Can we start right now, Mr. Vennie?”

  “You jumping on something hard, boy.”

  I knew that. I was sure I could learn if somebody only give me a chance. He started explaining all the parts to me, showed the seven positions, and blew a note in each.

  Handing me the horn, he put my hands on correctly, then told me to blow just as he did. I took a deep breath and let out a mighty blow. My cheeks poked out and my eyes bugged. The wind rushed through the horn, and I felt proud I made such a big blow. Unfortunately, no sound came out. Tillie Vennie was back in the kitchen and let out a loud laugh. I was ashamed but had to laugh also.

  During that first lesson he got me to blow all positions on C scale except the seventh—my arm wasn’t long enough to reach out that far. I got excited to be doing something I couldn’t do before. He kept on, and in two hours I learned other scales.

  “Don’t usually spend this much time,” he finally said, “but you got good prospects.”

  “Do I?” I asked.

  “Yes, you’re ambitious, young, and very eager.”

  I leaped up. “Gee Mr. Vennie, how long before I play in Tillie’s band?”

  He smiled and sat me down. “Now Clyde, you starting at the bottom and got a long, long way to go. There’s much for you to learn: Keys. Breathing. Reading. You got to know time. Then tone. Syncopation. Technique. If you learn all that, perhaps then you’ll be a good amateur.”

  “But how long before I play in Tillie’s band, Mr. Vennie?” I guess I looked discouraged.

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m gonna be seventeen.”

  “Well, I see you are above average in picking this up. Most boys would take at least six years to get with a band. If you study hard, practice every day, put your mind to it, and don’t get discouraged, I would say when you are twenty or twenty-one you may be good enough to play in my daughter’s band. Three or four years is not long, son, not if you really want to do it.”

  I went home that night and told Mama I was learning a whole lot and my teacher said I would soon be playing in Tillie Vennie’s band. I couldn’t believe my good luck and kept practicing all the rest of the night.

  Every time I went back for a lesson, Mr. Vennie kept me for a hour or a hour and a half. He seemed to like me, especially when I didn’t rush home like most of his other students.

  Mama thought my studies was a good idea and had my brothers Leonard and Herman taking piano lessons. They all in the front room practicing together on the piano Mama bought for them and I was in my room blowing my horn.

  Many times brother Paul laugh, say I was wasting my time. Eventually they all lost interest in their music even though Mama kept after them. Kept after me also, but it was to slow down my practicing. I never missed a day.

  Annie Laurie was my first steady girl friend and lived in Steelton. She was happy I was starting to play some.

  “When you learn to play better,” she would smile, “maybe you get a job with Mamie Smith, we get married and see the world together.”

  Daydreams of course, but it sounded so good. I had to agree with her. Annie was one pretty sealskin brown gal. High cheek bones, a medium-high-bridge nose, real thin lips, and straight black hair. She liked music and I enjoyed being with her. She was always laughing and happy. Late in 1922 she got the flu and died a few months later.

  That Annie Laurie was sure one pretty gal.

  Mama got a letter from a cousin in Columbus, Ohio, that said there was plenty good jobs there for coloreds even though the town was Jim Crow. Mama packed up and by the end of 1922 we all in Columbus. I was sorry to leave Mr. Vennie. After more then a year studying with him, he said I was improving. And I felt that to be true.

  In Columbus I got with the Buckeye Steel Casting Company doing small jobs. The factory noise was unbearable. Mama found a job in the Federal Glass Company at thirty dollars a week. That was better then she could get in Harrisburg.

  Mama’s cousin sent me to Mr. Albert Jones, a local music teacher. He had patience with his students and made them feel at ease. I liked that. He used the same beginner’s instruction book as Mr. Vennie, but he did more.

  “Son,” he always called me that, “I want you going up to those weekend dances and see what the big colored bands playing. Get right up and watch. Listen carefully. If they play something you like, remember it.”

  He was good that way, because I heard many teachers warn their students to stay away from jazz bands. Said they ruin you so you never able to play “right.”

  Oh man, they had so many bands in Columbus. The Synco Septet was at the Garfield Hall, led by Bill McKinney on violin. He later changed the name to McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Claude Jones was playing fast passages on trombone and Dave Wilborn was the singer. I heard Sammy Stewart and his Deshler Hotel Society Orchestra at a public dance before he left to play the Sunset Cabaret in Chicago. The orchestra didn’t swing, but was the only black band to play steady in that lily-white Columbus hotel.

  There was Scott’s Syncopators with Lloyd and Cecil X. Scott at the Dreamland, which was on Fourth and Long Street. Sylvester Briscoe was on trombone, and that black boy could play some horn. Yes sir. Stand next to him for set after set watching him shake his slide to get that pretty vibrato. I was surprised to see the whole band nothing but a bunch of teenagers, just like me. But they were some blowing band.

  I always put my age up to eighteen to get in these places but usually had trouble because I looked young and was so short—I was nothing but a runt. When I did get in, I run right over to the bandstand and stand quietly next to the trombo
nist. Never went to dance, although I could dance pretty good. Never went to drink, which was illegal anyways. Just stood around and watched. Followed every move the musician made.

  I remember hearing a hot new number, My Honey’s Lovin’ Arms, and there was solos in there I knew wasn’t written on the music sheet—long slides that reminded me of those crazy old minstrels. And in every set it sounded different. I was fascinated. I knew I would never get to play as good as those musicians—not sure even if I could make Tillie Vennie’s band in Harrisburg.

  Those players doing things even my teacher didn’t know about.

  All the bands in those places looked so nice in their neat uniforms. They been all over the United States. Maybe the world. And when somebody from the band came over and talked to me, I get chills up my back. I sure admired them.

  As long as I went to black theaters and halls, I could usually get in. But when Mamie Smith’s Jazz Hounds came to the Grand Theater, no colored people allowed. Period. Other black shows came in there but they also closed to blacks. I didn’t like that at all. In Harrisburg, colored come and go most anywhere.

  The Lyceum Theater allowed segregated audiences, whites on the right side and blacks on the left. I saw the black show “Plantation Days” there with Sam Wooding’s band in early 1923. R. H. Horton was on trombone—just hearing him play gave me so much inspiration. I especially liked his growls.

  Maude DeForest was singing Aggravatin’ Papa. Everyone knew this was a top New York show, because all the chorus girls had straight hair, neat and very short, and the men had the latest Rudolph Valentino hair style—slicked down flat.

  The “7-11” show played there also with Garland Howard and his wife, Mae Brown. Cook and Brown were the comedians—Sam Cook and Troy Brown.

  My job at the casting company was a bore. I got tired of taking the man’s money and not doing a day’s work for it, so I quit and went in the Winslow Glass Factory, moving lumber around now and then from outside to the inside. Not much better then before, so I still felt sort of guilty for not earning my pay.