by Bobby Womack
Sometimes during shows, when another group was on stage, Solomon would be out there in the stalls drumming up custom for his popcorn or fried chicken.
When it was his turn to take the mic, he’d wipe his hands on his apron, toss that backstage and waltz down the aisle playing his ukulele. He didn’t have no band, but he sure as hell knew how to work a house. He could fill the hall with his voice, didn’t need no microphones.
I knocked on the door of his hotel room. Solomon answered. About 400 pounds and just five foot eight, he filled that door and stood looking down at me.
‘You one of those Valentino fellas?’ he asked. ‘I seen you around.’
‘Yeah, Mr Burke,’ I said. ‘But this is kind of personal.’
‘What is it? You wanna buy some chicken? You want a hamburger? Y’all want something to drink? He waved me in the room and I saw he was cooking up something on a hotplate.
‘No, we don’t have no money.’
‘Maybe I can fix you up with a few sandwiches,’ he said. ‘Only cost you a couple of bucks.’
‘No, that’s not what we talking about.’
I told Solomon I had a friend who thought he had caught something. ‘He says it’s hard to pee.’
‘Oh yeah? Bring him down, let me talk to him.’
I told Solomon he was ashamed.
He said, ‘Boy, I think you got the clap’.
I said, ‘He got the clap?’
‘That’s what I said.’
I asked him what it was and he said it wasn’t too bad. ‘You notice his eyes jumping?’
‘Yeah, they’re jumping all right,’ I told him.
‘Well, that’s just the beginning. Soon his dick will swell up about this big [he made a sign with his hands about two feet apart] and in about three days his teeth will fall out.’
Man, I freaked out. ‘What can he do?’I asked.
Solomon said, ‘Maybe they can save his dick. They will put it on a table and take one of those wooden mallets and hit it – BAM! – real hard so all the pus, all that shit that’s inside and gone way back, they got to get it to the front, like a faucet. They’ll hit it until that pus runs out of there. Your friend’s gonna be in pain for about two weeks.’
I must have turned white. Finally, I ’fessed up to Solomon that there wasn’t no friend. It was me with the clap – and all my brothers.
‘Am I going to die?’ I asked.
Solomon laughed like he’d just won the popcorn concession for the whole of Harlem. ‘Fool, I know it’s you. And you ain’t gonna die, not yet anyhow. You got gonorrhoea and you need an injection.’
I limped back up those stairs and told my brothers that Solomon had pointed us in the direction of a health clinic around the corner. He’d also warned me not to fuck around with hookers again. The old nurse at the clinic didn’t care we were Valentinos. She loaded up five big syringes, lined us up against a wall, ordered us to drop our pants and hit us with that clap serum. Boom, boom, boom. That was it with fucking women – for a while at least.
We could hardly walk our dicks were so sore, and we were scared to go to the bathroom ’cos it hurt worse pissing than not. The next night when they called us out on stage, we couldn’t dance. We were in agony. In fact, it was so painful all five of us sat on the edge of the stage with our legs dangling over the side. Those tight black Rudolf Valentino pants that Sam had us dressed in didn’t help. James Brown said, ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with those boys. They’re the laziest-looking bunch of motherfuckers I ever seen in my life.’
James had been playing the Apollo since 1959, so him and his 16-piece band were pretty tight, but that didn’t stop James Brown putting the screws on to make sure the whole outfit, including us, was the tightest in R&B. He was on a mission from the day I first met him, a serious mission. He would die for his music.
James wanted everyone to call him Mr Brown. It was like you had to pay your respects to the King of Soul, the Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness. Everyone was scared of Soul Brother Number One because he ruled with an iron hand. His band would play every night in fear.
One time I saw Brown standing with a couple of drumsticks in his hand talking to one of the drummers in his band. He said, ‘Last night while I was playing you missed me on the second song, you missed a couple of beats.’
The guy said, ‘Mr Brown, I ain’t missed no…’
Brown didn’t let him finish. He whacked the drummer with the sticks. ‘You missed them.’ He turned and walked away.
If he wasn’t whacking the band members, he was fining them for missed dance steps or scuffed shoes. The fine could run from just a few dollars to 50 notes or more.
With us, it was open war. No acts were that friendly, even if you were on the same show. They didn’t open up until we got a lot older and they weren’t going to take no shit from no kids. It was like gladiators, no one hung out and no one spoke. You had to get your ass out there and do your thing and that was to bring the house down and take the show. It was always a competition: you got to bring ass to get ass.
James Brown made you earn everything. You had to earn his respect to be in his army. Each act would go out on stage smokin’, trying to take the audience that night. It was good for us because it made you try and kill the house. I’d kick my shoes off, whip off my shirt, act like I was about to slip out of my pants, anything to get a reaction. Get someone to take note, make them believe, ‘There’s a bad little nigga.’
Some people were scared to be on stage. They’d be intimidated, but if you couldn’t cut it out there you had no place in a James Brown revue or showbusiness. You might as well die. And James would make it so hard for us. He would stand in the wings, watching the show, and when we came off stage he would offer up his criticism. ‘That’s a piece of shit song,’ he’d comment. ‘Now the first thing you got to do is strike that song, put this song in here and do that.’
I learned perfection from him. All the guys were dancing on one string and one man was pulling the string – James Brown. He said, ‘You had better not be a knee out because I will be watching.’
And when you weren’t on stage James would check you out, make sure you were on time, always neat and clean with shined shoes. He was like a drill sergeant the way he ticked things off – all present and correct. Naturally, when you got into something like that, you thought, ‘I want to get out on my own. I can’t even fart in this revue.’
For the most part, though, Brown treated us pretty good. And he taught us, too. He tried to teach us some stagecraft because we had none. When we walked out on stage, we didn’t take no bows or nothing so he always insisted we should do encores. He’d invite us down to his little dressing room below the Apollo and show us some steps. He was so fast on his feet, he was awesome. Watching him every night from the wings and then learning new steps in his changing room meant we were pretty polished by the end of that week.
We learned the value of money that week too. After blowing most of the $75 on a hooker, we were practically starving after the second day’s performance. Harry stole a pound of baloney and a loaf of bread from a store. We were sat around at the Apollo wolfing it down when a guy passed by with a pencil, a piece of paper and a little canvas bag.
This guy said to Solomon, ‘It’s draw day, you want anything?
Solomon shook his head. ‘No, man, I don’t want nothing.’
We stopped tearing at the bread for a minute to watch and this guy then asked James, ‘Do you need anything?’
‘No, I don’t need anything,’ said the soul man.
We were still in the dark about what draw day was when the guy turned to us. He asked me if we needed anything. I figured if James Brown didn’t and Solomon had said no then neither did we. ‘No, I don’t need nothing,’ I told him.
‘You sure?’ asked this guy. ‘Sure you don’t want nothing?’
‘No is no.’
‘OK, have it your way.’
Then we noticed that this guy had his bag open
and was passing out cash to some of the other acts and band members. I leaned over and asked one why they were getting paid and we weren’t.
‘It’s draw day,’ he told me. ‘That means if you’re a little short they can see you OK for a few bucks.’
‘Oh fuck, man.’ I raced after the guy with the pencil and the bag of cash. I said, ‘Man, I didn’t know about draw day. I thought I didn’t need nothing ’cos Solomon and James didn’t.’
The guy said, ‘Well, James Brown and Solomon got money. Solomon is selling popcorn, candy, chicken and all kinds of shit. He’s OK.’
After we finished with James, we headed back to California. Sam was waiting for us when we stepped off the bus. Stepped off, dressed identically and walking straight and in sync like Brown had taught us. Sam pointed and threw his head right back and laughed. ‘Oh my,’ he chuckled, as we pranced past him, all in a line like the showbiz soldiers Brown had created. ‘James got ’em, I can see that. James Brown surely got ’em.’
CHAPTER 5
ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER
The next step on the ladder for The Valentinos was when Sam put us out on the Chitlin’ Circuit, the name given to the black-only clubs down south during segregation. Chitlin’ meant pig intestines. It used to be the kitchen scraps served up to slaves once the plantation owner had gorged on the lean pork loin. It was cooked for hours, simmering on a low heat in a big pot. Man, it stunk up the place.
Before civil rights, we stuck to one side of the railway tracks and the whites stuck to their side. We’d roll up in town in our big bus and set up in a club or sometimes on an impromptu stage, maybe the bed of a farm truck. We’d do our stuff and split before the clan had those crosses burning.
The Chitlin’ was real important because none of us was on TV, few of us were getting much radio play and sometimes it was the only way our fans got to see us perform.
However, around this time my older brother Friendly Jr decided he was through with the business. He said, ‘I don’t want to do it any more. This ain’t real.’
He’d got with a girl called Shirley, they married and he didn’t want to leave her while we were out on the road. I couldn’t understand it. We’d just started to make it, but Friendly knew the life of a musician was a fickle business.
He said, ‘Today we got this money, but yesterday we had nothing. Tomorrow could be like today or all our yesterdays.’
Sometime in 1964, The Valentinos were out in Atlanta, Georgia, with Sam, Jackie Wilson, BB King and a guy named Gorgeous George Odell. Gorgeous was some kind of character. He was smooth. And a funny, good-looking guy who made his own outfits and could always lay his hands on a decent set of threads.
Odell had got himself a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix. I didn’t know much about him then, but I knew he’d just had a bust-up with the Isley Brothers and was selling his guitar playing to anyone who wanted it.
Jimi played so God damned loud you couldn’t hear no one else. He didn’t just play rhythm or lead. At that time, you played the solo and that was it. Jimi would do the solo, play rhythm, play a solo on top of that and a solo around that. It was too much for some of those cats who just wanted a pretty guitar sound in the background.
Hendrix had hooked up with the Isley Brothers in New York after trying his luck with Sam. Jimi had snared an old flame of Sam’s called Fayne Pridgon and she had tried to get him a gig when Sam was playing the Apollo. No dice. So he struck out as the Isleys’ guitarist.
Jimi had some kind of rep, but it wasn’t much. Since quitting the army in ’62, he’d been playing around Nashville and the south. He’d got himself a couple of bands, including The King Casuals, with his army buddy and bassist Billy Cox.
Me and Jimi were around the same age. He’d travel with us on the bus and I sat behind him every night. Not that I got much sleep. He had a white Telecaster with him all the while and the only time he put it down was when he had to go to the bathroom.
Hendrix ate, drank – not that he did much of either of those – slept and shit with that goddamn guitar in his hands. There were no little practice amps around then, so Jimi would have the guitar up by his ear practising his chord, bending those strings and hitting them with his plectrum. Ting, ting, chink, ting. That’s all I heard all night, every night. And I mean all night long.
It was so annoying and I was a guitar player too. I’d get mad and scream, ‘Just put that fucking goddamn guitar down for an hour, half an hour? Fifteen minutes, Jimi. Please?’ But he never stopped. It just went on, ching, ting, ting.
Jimi told me many times, ‘You know, me and you are the only left-handed guitar players. You’re worse than me! Your shit is fucked up! Look at your strings, you got the thing upside down.’ That was because Jimi flipped his strings over, but I didn’t. Just turned the guitar upside down and that was it.
I could tell what he was doing on the guitar, but he had no clue what I was doing. I was making up chords and all of them were unorthodox. I always played that way. It was a big joke with Jimi, who used to tell me, ‘Man, you play some beautiful chords.’
I told him about the piano player, Floyd Cramer, who I got my style from. Jimi didn’t believe me. He said, ‘But he’s a piano player.’
I said, ‘Yeah, but imagine me hittin’ the same notes on the guitar, playin’ what you’d hear on a piano. It’s different.’
Sometimes me and Jimi used to sit backstage between shows and swap licks. That’s how we became friends. I’d listen to him play and he’d listen to me. We were both unique players, but the styles were so different. I was a rhythm guitar player: used the Cadillac of guitars, a big Gibson L-5 hollow body, or sometimes a Gretsch. They were both perfect for what I did. Later, I got into Stratocasters and Telecasters with a Fender Twin amp. My favourite guitar was a 65-year-old Guild acoustic. Still got it. So, when it came around for Jimi to play rhythm, he used to listen to how me and Curtis played and sounded.
No one took Jimi too seriously. In fact, most of us laughed at him. He looked like a beatnik in his raggedly old clothes. He never changed them, wore the same scruffy stuff day in, day out. Everyone on the bus took bets on when he was going to take a bath, but it was never any time soon.
He was so gentle and humble, never got mad. He’d just tune out if there was any freaky shit going on. Musicians would put the bite on him and ask, ‘Hey, man, you a beatnik or what?’ They couldn’t work him out so they wanted to put a label on him.
Jimi always replied the same way: ‘A beatnik or hippy. Whatever you want to call me, man.’
Nothing fazed him. Oh, man, you could cuss him out, say any damn thing and he’d just come back at you with: ‘You might be right, you might be wrong. But thank you.’ That sort of zen shit would make people mad, but he never got mad. People couldn’t understand no one getting riled. The whole time out on the road everyone would be freaking about something and there would be Jimi in a haze of smoke in his own world. People would ask, ‘What is wrong with him?’
No one ever saw Jimi eat proper neither. The motherfucker would scoff half a sandwich and then squirrel away the other half for the next day. Other times I’d see him munching on a carrot. Maybe he was on a health kick. I guess he had some kind of sense because a lot of times we’d stop at a store and it would have a ‘whites only’ sign and we sure wished then that we’d got half a sandwich in our pockets.
He had a real quiet way about him. Jimi was an oddball in this gang of soul musicians and he knew it. He said to me, ‘Hey, man, I’m not bothering anyone. I’m just trying to make a living, just trying to find my corner. The whites don’t want me ’cos they feel I’m imitating them and the blacks don’t want me because they say I am a misfit. I’m between a rock and a hard place.’
But he was cool with that and stuck to what he wanted and I respected him for that. Gorgeous George would open up the show. He was a good performer and I know he wanted to make it bad, but he just didn’t have the pipes. George was also the MC and he would change his sharp outfits
three or four times during a show.
So George would do his thing out front, making the ladies whoop, and behind him you could see Jimi playing guitar – with his teeth. People would shout and holler and George thought it was the women screaming for him.
When George looked back, he would see Jimi playing with his teeth or with his Telecaster behind his neck and it would drive Odell mad. Once they were off stage, he’d bawl Jimi out. George shouted, ‘You got one more time to pull that motherfuckin’ shit on me, man, this is my stage and when I’m on it this is my motherfuckin’ show.’
Jimi would smile to himself and argued that he was only trying to help the show, which would only rile George more. He’d start off again: ‘You’re trying to steal my show. I don’t need no help, I just want you to play rhythm guitar. When I see I’m in trouble, I’ll call you and you can eat your fucking guitar, but until then next time I see you eat it I’ll push the fucking thing down your throat. If you’re hungry, eat something, not the fucking guitar.’
We all used to find a little corner to change before we went on stage. One night we were all backstage pulling on our stage gear and my brother Harry hid his stash. Put the money he had earned from the tour in one of his shoes. I guess his pants were too tight to carry his roll. It was maybe a couple of hundred dollars, a lot then.
The Valentinos went on and did their bit, but when we came back after the show Harry couldn’t find his money. It was gone and Harry went mad. Then he accused Jimi of stealing it. Jimi denied it straight out, but Harry was adamant.
I said, ‘Man, did you see Jimi take it?’
Harry said, ‘No, but I saw him looking at me.’