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Earl Hord thought that since the paper sponsored a yearly theatrical contest in which we chose the best musicians, singers, bands, quartets and entertainers in all categories of modern music and since the Courier presented them in a yearly concert at Carnegie Hall in New York with the understanding that some of the ticket money would be given to the Pittsburgh Courier charity fund, that some revenue should come in.

It was my assignment, as Hord's undercover reporter, to watch the promoters of the contest and monitor the actual presentation of the concert. And this was how I was formally introduced to Frank Shiffman, the owner of the Apollo.

Since all the entertainers and performers played the Apollo, all the theatrical agents and the artist managers were hell bent on their artists winning their categories in the Courier's contest, so that their asking pay could be higher at an Apollo engagement. This was achieved by the artists having their friend buy copies of the Courier to get the ballots printed on them and to fill them out with their names on the ballots.

Some of the more enterprising Managers would come into our office and order batches of 500 or more papers per week and I would oblige by providing extra copies for them. It was also my job to sell and deliver extra copies to the managers at their respective agencies and this was how I was introduced to the Gale Agency; Associated Bookings, William Morris and others, who booked and promoted the Negro artists of that day. 

From the contests I met Ivory Joe Hunter, Alberta Hunter, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Count Basie, Joe Williams, Duke Ellington band, Lionel Hampton, Dinah Washington, Curly Hammer, Harry Belafonte, Sarah Vaughan, Buddy Walkers band, Arthur Prysock, J.J. Higgbotton, Andy Kirk, Mary Lou William, William Bryant, Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Freddie Green, Willie Cook, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Eddie Cleanhead Vinson, Pearl Bailey, Louie Belson, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Oscar Pettiford, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, The Goden Gate Quartet, Mahalia Jackson, Louie Armstrong, Earl Hines, Billy Kyle, Barrett Deems, Jimmy Lunceford and his band, Nat King Cole, Chu Berry, Earl Bostie, Henry Red Allen, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Eddie Heywood, Jojo Jones, Horace Silver, Milton Berle and Miles Davis, Max Roach, Ray Hamilton, Erskine Hawkins and Jackie Gleason.

In those days Jackie was about the biggest thing on television but when Art Carney, who was adjudged the best comic for his role as a sewer worker on Jackie's company, Jackie was real upset. I got to Gleason and told him that the white folks chose Art Carney but the readers of the Pittsburg Courier chose Gleason as the top T.V. talent of the year. I also told Jackie that we wanted to present him with a Courier band contest trophy signifying our acclaim of his prowess. 

The question was when and where to do the presentation. We wanted to give it to Gleason at our band concert but he could not make the date so Bullet Darlin, Jackie's Manager and Jackie decided that we should present Gleason with the Courier T.V. Award on the one of his Saturday night nationally televised Hershey Chocolate show.

Jackie wanted Mrs. Vann, our publisher and Sammy Davis to come to New York to make the presentation. Mrs. Vann accepted. It then became my job to produce Sammy Davis, Jr. 

I did not know that Gleason had him trying to get Sammy to come on his show but had met with no success because Bullet did not want to hire the whole Will Maston Trio in which Sammy worked. Sammy, who was one of the models in a Courier's fashion show which I promoted at Rockland Palace and starred Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and Tony Bennett as our singer consented to make the presentation. However, the problem on how I was to get Sammy away from his uncle remained. So Sammy and I decided to go to the theatre where the Gleason show was rehearsing and hide out in the theatre from the Friday nite until show time Saturday nite. TO keep from eating, Sammy and I decided to sleep covered with our jackets on 2 seats in the theatre. 

When Gleason found out that Davis & I were I the theatre, he stoped in the middle of the Hershey show to allow Mrs. Vann and Mr. Davis & I to give him the Courier Award.

Sammy, then, always the entertainer did not need any encouragement from Gleason to go into his act and Jackie not only got the Courier Award but Sammy Davis as an unpaid artist for free as well. Sammy's uncle was furious so I had to beat a hasty retreat from the theatre. Remember Sammy 2. 

A few years later, I was again involved with some outdoor promotions involving some of the Courier winners when Pete Long, Don Friedman, Sid Jaloff, three youngsters came up with the idea of presenting some jazz artists in a series of summer concerts at a place called Randall Island.

The only problem was that the promoters could only pay the artist scale and I was asked to provide, trophies and publicity for the artist in lieu of small payment. As a former Courier representative and then an assistant to the Manhattan Borough President, I got the Park Department to give us the use of Randall Island for the shows for free. We were asked to pay the gate keeper at the Island for letting us in on Saturdays. The promoters talked the L. B. Lansing & Bojack people into giving them free sound equipment and loud speakers which they were experimenting with at that time. We got some kids from the neighborhood to act as ushers and ticket takers at our concert.

Also in lieu of small pay, I got all the liquor companies & Hebrew National Salami people to give us food and drinks and we got a tent guy to give us a tent which was erected at the back of the stage. As the artist came off the stage I and Hilda Stokely would wine and dine them. This thing lasted for two summers. And during the winters of our second season, a guy from Boston, who has some loot and could pay Lord our artist away from us with pay and started a thing called the Newport Jazz concerts — Bet you did not know that Horace.

I became interested in Commercial music as an advertising salesman, got into the recording music world as a reporter, trying to sell advertising about Negro artists from the music producers during the late forties and early fifties.

I attacked RCA & NBC, Columbia Records, Decca Records, MGM Records and their movies, because we got no business from them and because some black service men returning from World War II wanted to go into the record retail business selling selected hits of the day."

A few of my buddies invested their mustering out pay from the services trying to start a record shop in an empty store on the street floor of the Renaissance Building on Seventh Avenue and 138th Street. My friends found it difficult to go in business because the record people only wanted to deal with people who would buy a franchise. My friends did not have the money to buy franchises, they only wanted to buy one song hit like "When the Swallows come back to Capa Strano" or a Louie Jordan side. The wholesalers did not want to do business with them unless they could buy $2000 worth of everything the company sold.

RCA & Columbia demanded an initial $2000 order and the buyer had to take their whole line.

A fellow named Sam Goody had a small wholesale shop on ninth avenue
& 54th Street and Sam bought the franchises, and he would load up the trunk of his old Studebaker car with records, and come to Harlem to sell budding Negro record shops the pieces they wanted. This was how Sam Goody got started. The last time I talked with Sam a few years ago, Sam was head of the great chain of record stores in New York and other states.

In my attacks on the companies, my argument now called for employment in the front offices; that they stop classifying our artist as Black artists and recording them on race records; that our artists  he sold and pushed just as they did their white artists. I also said that if it were not for the Negro newspapers promoting the Negro artist on our theatrical pages, the public would never hear about the

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