by Renée Rosen
That was what he was thinking that day as he headed down Cottage Grove and into the ghetto, where people were sitting in the doorways of their tenement houses, the women fanning themselves, the children playing in the water shooting out of an opened fire hydrant. There was gospel and swing music blaring from radios set on the cement steps and on the window ledges. Leonard pulled up to the curb alongside a stretch of storefronts and opened the trunk. He grabbed a stack of records and went into Decker’s Drugstore on the corner.
The uneven floorboards squeaked beneath his feet as Leonard swaggered in. The sweet smell of tobacco and something spicy hung in the air. Decker was a short, husky black man standing behind the cash register, reading the Defender—the Negro newspaper. Leonard saw the headline: “Call to End Segregation in Armed Forces.”
Decker looked up and let the paper slump. He had a matchstick dangling from his mouth. “Whatchu doin’ down here, Leonard?”
“Hey, you crazy motherfucker you,” said Leonard with a handshake and a smile. He knew Decker from the Macomba. The guy loved the music they played at the club. After shooting the breeze Leonard said, “You sell records in here, don’t you?”
“Depends on the record.”
“Well, do me a favor and take a listen to this—” He held out the record to Decker.
“‘Fishin’ Pole,’ huh?”
“Just give it a listen.”
Leonard followed Decker to the back of the store where there was a box of 78s with a sign that read: “79¢ Each, 3 for $2.25.” There was a record player on the counter where customers could listen before they bought. Decker set the record on the turntable, swung the tonearm across and lowered the needle. “Fishin’ Pole” with all its sexual innuendo filled the drugstore while Leonard made his pitch.
“That’s Tom Archia you’re listening to. You’ve probably seen him at the Macomba.”
Decker pulled the matchstick from his mouth and said, “Leonard, since when you in the record business? And the race record business at that?”
“You know me—the only color that matters is green. Now listen right here—” He cupped his hand to his ear as Archia sang about how he was gonna put his long pole in real, real deep.
Decker laughed. “Okay. All right. Give me a dozen and let me see what I can do.”
“A dozen? You can do better than that.”
Decker ended up with three dozen records and a money-back guarantee if they didn’t sell. Evelyn wouldn’t like that, but she knew that was how the majors did it, too. Labels like RCA Victor, Capitol and even the independents like Atlantic did everything on consignment. A record store could take five hundred copies, sell one and return the other four hundred and ninety-nine. God knew, he hadn’t made the rules—but that was the way this game was played.
After Decker’s, Leonard drove to the next stop and with more records from the trunk he went inside a barbershop. The whole place smelled of talcum powder and aftershave. The barber also knew Leonard from the Macomba, but he wasn’t biting.
“Yes, I play music in my shop,” he said to Leonard. “But no, I don’t sell it and I don’t want to sell it. And I don’t want to play that particular song in here.”
It went on like that, going in and out of stores. He also met with distributors who sold records for jukeboxes on the South Side. Some took a few dozen copies, others only one or two. By the end of the day Leonard had managed to clear out a couple hundred records.
But there was one more stop he had to make. He got back in his car and headed to Washington Boulevard where they broadcast WGES. They called this station the International House of Air. They had something for everyone: the Italians, the Irish, Poles, the Lithuanians and the Negroes. And when it came to race music the one they all tuned in to hear was Al Benson, the Old Swingmaster.
With a copy of “Fishin’ Pole” in his hand Leonard found Al Benson in the booth, sitting before a microphone with two turntables, one on either side of him. He’d just finished playing “Old Man River” by the Ravens and broke in for a commercial message: “It’s your Old Swingmaster here, Al Benson, from Chicago’s great South Side . . .” He went on to advertise a dry cleaner’s, then put on the next record. When the red light flashed off, he motioned for Leonard to come inside the booth.
“Hey there, motherfucker—how ya been?” Leonard gave Benson a hug. Benson, like the others, was a regular at the Macomba. “Got something for you,” he said. “I want you to give it a listen. Give it some play.”
Benson put another record on for his audience to buy himself more time while he listened to the Archia record. He leaned back in his chair with his arms folded, his toe tapping.
“It’s good, Leonard,” he said as he removed the 78, put it back in its sleeve and handed it to Leonard. “But I’ve got half a dozen tunes sounding just like it. And without that business about sticking his pole in places.”
That was when Leonard reached into his pocket, put a twenty-dollar bill in the cardboard sleeve and passed it back to Benson. “Try listening now.”
Benson gave him a nod and returned to his program. That was it. Nothing more was said, but not five minutes later, Leonard was back in his Buick, heading toward Cottage Grove, when he heard Benson come over the radio saying, “This is your Old Swingmaster, Al Benson, with a brand-new one from Chicago’s own Tom Archia. Give a listen to ‘Fishin’ Pole.’”
That was all it took. A little face time and a twenty-dollar bill and “Fishin’ Pole” was on its way.
Leonard knew that if the song was taking off in Chicago, it would go through the roof down South. So he hopped in his Buick and went to radio stations and record stores in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. He got “Fishin’ Pole” on the air and in stores and jukeboxes all across the South. Within a month, it became Aristocrat’s first success, selling seventy-five hundred copies.
The day “Fishin’ Pole” showed up on Billboard’s Jukebox Race Records list, hitting at number seventy-three, Leonard rushed into the Aristocrat office flapping the magazine in his hand. “Did you see this? Did you?” He plopped the magazine down on Evelyn’s desk and pointed to the list. “Take a look at that.”
“I see.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “That—that’s great.”
“That’s it? That’s all you got to say?”
She looked up and he saw that she’d been crying and he didn’t know what to do, what to say. He’d never seen her like that before.
She closed the magazine. “Charles and I are getting divorced,” she said matter-of-factly as she plucked a tissue from her desk and dabbed her eyes.
Now Leonard really didn’t know what to say. He felt bad for her, but the two of them had been at each other’s throats from day one, so for him to suddenly turn into Mr. Compassionate felt phony as hell.
She cleared her throat, fisted up her tissue and pitched it in the wastebasket. “So, I suppose this makes you happy.”
He was taken aback. “Why the hell would I be happy that your marriage is over?”
“Let’s face it, we both know I can’t do this alone. I need a partner. So here’s your chance to buy out Charles and come on board.”
THREE
• • •
“Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl”
LEEBA
Leeba had a job at a music store of sorts down on Maxwell Street. She worked six days a week, the Sabbath being her only day off. One Sunday afternoon she was on her lunch break, walking through the open-air market amidst the merchants and musicians, Negroes and Jews, the two most unwelcome people to call Chicago home. She thought about how Maxwell Street was the only neighborhood in Chicago that would have them both and how over time their cultures had braided together, like a challah.
It was a cloudless day and unusually hot for May. The market was packed. Leeba passed pushcarts piled high with everything from used to
ols to pots and pans and tables displaying hair combs and wristwatches. As she turned the corner, she saw Leonard jogging up to her, breathless and rumpled, pinpricks of sweat along his upper lip.
“There you are,” he said, panting. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
“Wait till you hear this. I’m going into the recording business and I—”
“What? Slow down.”
“I’m a new partner at a record label.”
She almost laughed. “What do you know about making records?”
“Not a goddamn thing, but I know a hell of a lot about making money. And I want you to come work for me.”
“Me work for you?” This time she did laugh. “Not a chance.” Leonard Chess was the biggest cheapskate she knew. In restaurants he pocketed extra rolls from the bread basket and always ordered sodas without ice so he’d get just that little bit extra. If she worked for him she’d end up a pauper.
She kept walking, surrounded by the sound of guitars and harmonicas accompanied by the cries of Yiddish peddlers. A merchant with long payots hanging down the sides of his face tugged at her arm. He was selling used shoes and had a handful of laces hanging through his open fingers like spaghetti. She’d been raised in used shoes and sidestepped around him. She refused to make eye contact, the only way to maneuver through the market without getting caught in the schleppers’ sales pitches.
“Oh, c’mon,” Leonard said, jumping in front of her and making her stop. “What do ya say?”
Leeba groaned and stopped to face him. They were standing next to a table of hood ornaments and car parts that may or may not have been stolen. The sunlight glinting off the hubcaps made her squint. “I already have a job. Besides, I know more about making records than you do.”
“Exactly! Why do you think I want to hire you?”
Leeba worked at the Maxwell Street Radio and Record Store and the owner, Bernard Abrams, had a recording booth in the back with a Presto disc-cutting machine that turned out eight-inch lacquers. Abrams ran a little label out of there called Ora Nelle and each day Leeba watched the musicians come inside—after scraping together enough money playing out on the street—to make demos that they hoped would one day become records.
“C’mon, Leeba. It’s not like you’re getting rich working for a chazzer like Abrams. What’s he paying you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen dollars?” He blinked with exaggeration. “A week?” His eyes grew wider. “That’s it?” His mouth dropped open, too.
“It could be worse.” Actually, fifteen dollars had seemed like a fortune when she started. The first time Abrams paid her, she bought two pairs of shoes.
“You’ll make more money working for me.”
“Oh, please. And how are you going to pay me?”
“I got money. I just borrowed a ton of dough from my old man to do this.”
“How much is a ton?”
“Ten grand.”
She hadn’t meant to gasp, but it was a staggering amount.
“C’mon, you’re always saying you hate that son of a bitch Abrams.”
“‘Hate’ is a very strong word.” She waved a mocking finger at him.
“Admit it—you hate how he talks to you. How he’s always flying off the handle, screaming at you. Come work with me instead. I already got the owner to record one of the guys from the Macomba and the motherfucker’s starting to sell. I even got it played on the radio.”
“Speaking of the Macomba, Len, what about the club?”
“Phil’s gonna keep it running while I’m working for the record company. And I’ll still help out in the evenings. And when the time’s right I’ll bring Phil over to the label, too. C’mon—you, me, Phil—what do you say? I need your help and, let’s face it, you need mine.”
She paused and raised a hand to her brow, shielding her eyes from the sun. “And how exactly is it that I need your help?”
“You want me to spell it out? C’mon, you’re twenty-four years old. You’re still living at home. I can’t remember the last time you had a date or—”
“Good God, Leonard.” Did he think she was single by choice? That she liked being half a foot taller than every available man in town? That she wasn’t humiliated back in high school to learn that the only reason boys asked her to dance was so they could stare into her breasts? So yes, she’d been unlucky in love. And yes, she feared that she’d never marry, never have children, but why did Leonard need to remind her of this? Especially when her mother had tried to make a shidduch between them when Leeba turned fifteen and Leonard was twenty. It never would have worked. He was like a brother to her and, besides, Leonard was still brokenhearted over Shirley at the time. On their one and only date, Leonard took Leeba on a stakeout, the two of them sitting across the street from Shirley’s house. They waited for a glimpse of her coming up the sidewalk, silhouetted in a window. Anything! Hours later when all the house lights went dark Leonard began to cry. A couple months later he met and married a beautiful girl from the neighborhood, Revetta Sloan. Leeba had been happy for him, but every time her mother saw Revetta and their three children she would say to Leeba, “That should have been you.”
“And excuse me,” Leeba now said to Leonard, “but what does working for you have to do with my personal life?”
“I just thought this could be good for you. You’d meet some new people, make some money, you know . . . And c’mon, you love music. Remember when we were kids, all of us sitting around listening to the radio, you and Aileen making up songs? You used to play those dirty songs ’cuz your mother couldn’t understand the words. Remember that?”
She laughed. She did remember it. She and Aileen would sit side by side at the piano, knowing that Leeba’s mother, standing right in the next room, couldn’t understand a word of those naughty little numbers, like Blind Boy Fuller’s “Sweet Honey Hole” and Bessie Smith’s “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl.” They themselves were too young to really understand what they were singing, but oh, how they had fun.
“I always thought you’d end up writing songs or playing professionally,” said Leonard.
Leeba folded her arms across her chest and challenged him. “So, what—now you’re offering me a job as a songwriter? As a piano player?”
“I didn’t say that. I can’t promise anything, but maybe someday we could do something with your music. Besides, you know how unorganized I am. I need someone I can trust, someone like you to run the office.”
“Aha! So you want me to be your secretary.”
He stopped before Jim’s Polish Sausage stand and changed the subject. “You hungry? C’mon, it’s on me.”
The smell of sautéed onions enticed her. “Okay, but only because you’re a record man now.” She laughed. “Leonard Chess—the last of the big-time spenders.”
“Nothing but the best for you.”
She smiled and gazed at the links sizzling and spitting on the grill while the raw ones, strung together by the pupiks, hung down from the wooden racks, waiting their turn.
Once they had their sandwiches, he pinched a few grilled onions from his Polish, leaned back and dangled the translucent strands above his mouth. They went silent for a moment while they ate their sausages. He popped the last bite in his mouth and in between chews said, “So what do you say? Will you come work with me?”
She didn’t answer because she was still stuck on the possibility of doing something with her music. All her life she’d been hearing melodies inside her head. She thought everyone was like that until her piano teacher pointed out that she had a gift. A gift, huh? She’d never thought about doing anything with it other than for her own amusement. The idea of becoming a real songwriter was so lofty it gave her a stir, and she couldn’t let it go.
“Will you at least think about it?” he said. “Please
?”
The look in his eyes was so intense, the hope so palpable. That look alone could make him succeed. “Okay. All right, I’ll think about it.”
“That’s my girl.” He grabbed her by the shoulders, gave her a rag doll shake and kissed her on the cheek. “I gotta run—gotta meet Revetta.”
“Go on.” She laughed. “Get out of here.”
Leonard went one way and Leeba headed back to the Maxwell Street Radio and Record Store. The musicians on the street were interspersed with the merchants. Armed with their instruments, they were vying for space and access to the storefronts that charged a dime or sometimes a quarter to plug in their amplifiers.
A young girl with tawny skin and braids sticking out like tree branches was playing an upright bass, singing along, slapping the sides of the instrument, stomping her foot to the beat. She reminded Leeba of Aileen and the time she came down here seeking fame and fortune. They were just twelve and Aileen had gotten it into her head that she could be discovered on Maxwell Street. Leeba had gone along because she always went along with Aileen’s schemes. Aileen was the riptide whose current never ceased to pull Leeba in and under.
That day on Maxwell Street Aileen belted out Billie Holiday’s “You Let Me Down” a cappella. Her voice was so big and bold she drowned out the banjo player across the way. He eventually gave up and joined the others who had gathered around, not believing that this sound was coming from a child. Even Leeba, who had heard Aileen sing hundreds of times before, was stunned. The crowd had obviously inspired Aileen, letting her unlock octaves and ranges and notes that she had never hit before. More people joined the crowd and by the end of the day Aileen had collected thirteen dollars and thirty-seven cents. Something had begun. The whole way home Aileen had talked about making records, being on the radio and going back to Jewtown to perform.