Abstract
George Hendricks was born in Alabama in 1942 and moved to Cleveland at the age of 7. He is a singer with The Hesitations and has been performing music since he was a teenager. This 2009 interview discusses his long career as a professional R & B musician in Cleveland, describing the bands and the places in which he played, his struggles to make money playing music, and how he feels the nature of both the musicians and the music industry as a whole have changed since the 1960s. A recurrent theme in the interview is the issue of racism, which Hendricks experienced both in the South and in Cleveland. He argues strongly about the ability of music to bring whites and blacks together, seeing his experiences playing music to interracial crowds as proof of this.
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Interviewee
Hendricks, George (interviewee)
Interviewer
Aritonovich, Dana (interviewer)
Project
Rock and Roll
Date
10-28-2009
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
86 minutes
Recommended Citation
"George Hendricks Interview, 2009" (2009). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 200003.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/26
Transcript
Transcription sponsored by George Blake
George Hendricks [00:00:01] Okay.
Dana Aritonovich [00:00:06] Okay. Why don’t we start with you just stating your name and doing a little bit of introduction, what you’re doing with your life right now.
George Hendricks [00:00:12] Well, my name is George Hendricks, and actually, I’m doing two things. I’m into my music. I’m singing with a group, Hesitations. And also I have a regular job. Believe it or not, right now the entertainment is not paying enough to support me.
Dana Aritonovich [00:00:29] What’s your regular job?
George Hendricks [00:00:30] My regular job is I am a regional manager for janitorial company Genesis. It’s based out of St. Louis, Missouri, and we do all the maintenance for Home Depots in the area. I’m in charge of the Ohio area.
Dana Aritonovich [00:00:47] And where do you live right now?
George Hendricks [00:00:48] I live in Maple Heights.
Dana Aritonovich [00:00:50] And what year were you born in and where were you born?
George Hendricks [00:00:54] I was born in Bessemer, Alabama, August, 1942. Been around a while.
Dana Aritonovich [00:01:01] That’s all right. And tell me about your early years, like, how, you know, when you were a child and how you got to Cleveland.
George Hendricks [00:01:09] Well, actually, I lived in Alabama. My parents, they separated and divorced, and my sister and I stayed with my grandparents until my. My grandmother passed. And I was about seven years old when I came to Cleveland. And I lived with my father, my sister and I lived with my father. And I grew up on the east side of Cleveland, went to Cleveland public schools. And actually, I come from a musical family. My father sang and my mother sang. I started off singing in church choir as a little kid. I wanted to be a boxer, but I found out the way I got into music was really funny because I was pretty good at boxing because I thought it would draw the girls. But as I was leaving a place called KY Benson Boys Town [?], some guys were standing up on the corner and they were singing doowops, and it was girls around there. And then I thought about it. I said, my face is sore, and so I’m tired of getting beat up to get girls, and these guys are just singing. So the next day I went to them singing instead of boxing. And I guess I’ve been singing ever since. I was about. Probably 13. Just. Well, yeah, about twelve and 13. Just about that. About twelve. I would say, going on 13. Hadn’t quite turned 13 yet.
Dana Aritonovich [00:02:47] And what kind of music were you listening to at the time? Maybe even before you heard these guys singing? Was there music in your life, like popular music?
George Hendricks [00:02:54] Yes. Actually, my father had a barbershop, and back in those days, we had WBAQ and WJMO, which were the black stations, and you would listen to them during the day. But after, when it turned dark, they went off. So we had to listen to the others, you know, like the elevator music type stations. And so that’s why right now, today, I still know mostly all those songs because I even sing some of them today. You know, the ballads. I love ballads and old standards. That’s been my. My favorite. So I grew up with the urban music during the day and the contemporary in the evenings and on Saturdays, basically, you could get only contemporary because the urban stations weren’t playing. You know, during that time, you didn’t hear them. Sunday mornings, you hear. But it was all gospel, which is actually my favorite music is gospel, you know, because that’s where it all comes from. The roots of all the basics music today, except for the rap, the language. [Yeah, that’s not.] No, but actually rapping came from. I mean, even back in the days, there were a lot of people that were rapping, but it was positive rap. It didn’t just come from today.
Dana Aritonovich [00:04:19] And what kind of music did your parents listen to? Any contemporary music, any, like, top 40 type stuff?
George Hendricks [00:04:25] My dad did. Like I said, we were in the barbershop, you know, it was a Casey Kasem coming on, and we would listen to all of that. And then we used to watch Ed Sullivan. You know, like, then you didn’t have all the stuff like kids have now. Everybody had one place to be in the evening that was in front of the tv. So whatever was on tv, we all watched it together. It wasn’t like everybody had a tv of their own and all that. We were lucky to have the one.
Dana Aritonovich [00:04:55] And talk about, like, the neighborhoods that you lived in, what were they like? Were they integrated at all? Where was everything? I know most things at that time. Were still pretty segregated, right? What was like your. What school did you go to?
George Hendricks [00:05:06] Well, I went to Quincy Elementary school, Rawlings Junior High School. Then I went to John Hay High School. And in our neighborhood, there was one gypsy family that had a fortune. They had, like, they lived in a storefront when they lived in the back. They had the fortune telling stuff in the front, and they lived in the back. And then there was one white family in the whole neighborhood. I remember him. Eddie was one of my best friends. And, I mean, it was amazing. I mean, we never thought about it like that. Like, even today, it probably would seem out of place, maybe in some areas, but we never. I mean, we never looked at him as anybody but Eddie, you know? And, in fact, being from the south, I saw a lot of, you know, bigotry and racism. But where I grew up, there wasn’t. I guess we were isolated, more or less, because then you didn’t mix a lot. The first time I ran into a situation where I would say environment fires with racism was when I got older and started entertaining and traveling, you know, different, with bands and different things. And believe it or not, it started right here in Cleveland. At that time, it was like east and west. The blacks was on the east, white was on the west. And when we first started working a few, there was a guy called Dave C. Dave C and the Sharptones. I don’t know if you heard of him or not, but they were. He was a black guy and his band was white, so he kind of broke the ice to be playing to the white audiences. In fact, there used to be a tv show called the Upbeat tv show. You remember that? And Dave C and the Sharptones was the band that brought on. They were like the house band. And so at that time, in fact, Lou Ragland and I, we were singing together as a duet, Pucci and Ejo [?]. And we were playing with a group called the Van Doors Band [?]. And we played a club called. Well, you want me to give the names of the club? Yeah.
Dana Aritonovich [00:07:30] Yeah.
George Hendricks [00:07:30] Well, this one was called the Cancan. It was on West 25th. We were there for so long. I don’t remember how. How long we were there, but it was like. It was just every week we was there two or three, four nights a week. And when we first started playing there, the one thing I remember is we weren’t allowed to mingle. They didn’t want us to talk to the girls at all. So in between shows, we had to sit in the dressing rooms. And this hasn’t been that long ago. It’s in the sixties. So after that. Well, this is after growing up. This is like, after we were grown, you know, basically. But I skipped all past teenage years. But I guess when I got to, speaking of the integration and stuff, you know, that’s where I got to that point. Up until then, basically, we didn’t have that much contact with anybody, but just. Just other black people. Like I said, the school I went to there was. You might see one or two. And like I said, they just. At that time, they just blended in. And even when all the stuff going on down south, I remember in the summers we would go south because my grandfather was still there and he had gotten married again. So my father would send us to Alabama every summer as soon as school started, we would stay there until, you know, time to come back, go back to school. And I was old enough then to realize, you know, that there was a difference, you know, because when you’re young, you really don’t think about it, you know, not unless somebody beats in your head. And my parents were never like that. They always said, treat everybody the same unless they do something to you. You. So I wasn’t raised to hate anybody because of their color, their skin, or anything. And, well, we were brought up basically in church most of our lives, anyway.
Dana Aritonovich [00:09:35] And when you would go and visit, you know, relatives in the south, did you.
George Hendricks [00:09:39] What.
Dana Aritonovich [00:09:40] What did you notice specifically, you know, about differences in the way that you were treated?
George Hendricks [00:09:45] Well, actually, the last time I went south, I think I was about 14, because I told him I refused to go because that was during the time when Emmett Till had got lynched. And I remember incidents where, you know, we were on the bus, and we had to get up and move. If the bus was full, they had a sign white only, and then the colored, you know, then if the bus got full, they moved the sign back, and you’d have to get up, and if it got full, you’d have to stand. I remember stuff like that. I remember driving from Cleveland to Alabama and having to use the restrooms, and we couldn’t use them. You know, we had to go around the back of the building or something like that. So I actually remember all that. I remember some of that even as an entertainer, traveling, you know. And this was, like, in the sixties, like in North Carolina, Georgia, and different places like that, you know, where we could play in the clubs, but we weren’t allowed to, like, sit out in the club, or we couldn’t sit in the restaurants and eat, but we could bring anything you want back to your dressing rooms.
Dana Aritonovich [00:10:58] What kind of crowds were you playing to in the south?
George Hendricks [00:10:59] At that particular time? Basically white. You know, when we were booked up. When I was booked up with a booking agent, we did Grog Shops [?], Ramada Inns and stuff like that, basically all over. But the ones we did in the south was, you know, until later on. Then it got better, you know, after. Let’s see, I went into service in 64, and when I came back in 68, it was a little different. You know, things were, Martin Luther King had been assassinated, and, you know, Kennedy had been assassinated, and it was. People had been, you know, rioting and marching and everything like that. So it wasn’t totally, you know, free from prejudice, but it was a little better. And I found in the later years, as entertaining, the south got better than the north. Yeah, really. They treat you better. I remember going to when I was in Atlanta, and I was surprised when I went down there, how well I was treated, you know, and that was during the time when the west side was still, you know, kind of like, you know, certain areas you can go, but, you know, and it’s some places like that now, really. But as far as entertaining, music kind of breaks through the color barrier in a lot of sense, because back in the day, if you wanted to work in white clubs with it, that’s where you made most of your money. You either had a female in your group or one white horn player or guitar player, a drummer, just so you had that one face in there. Now, the females, it was easier to get females into the white clubs. We used to always say it was because they were afraid. The women seemed, well, you know, it’s not just because we were black. It’s just because women, they’re just like entertainers, and the guys didn’t particularly care for that. So in order for to keep the problems down as far as the club owners, they didn’t want any problems. So they would tell us, look, we don’t care. They’ll always tell you this, look, I’m not prejudiced, you know, I don’t care. But, you know, my clientele, I have to look out for them. You know, they don’t like it. I don’t care. I’ve heard that so many times. But, you know, we really knew what was going on.
Dana Aritonovich [00:13:46] And what kind of response did you get from the fans themselves? Was it different from the club owners or other people?
George Hendricks [00:13:48] When we were. When we were performing? Oh, I mean, they loved. They loved the show. They loved the music. But like I said, it was like when you would come down, we would find that most of the younger guys were more, you know, they would adapt to us more so because they would come up and say, hey, man, you guys sound good. Start talking to you. But, you know, the older guys, you know, they were still kind of like, they would say, I enjoyed you, but as long as you wasn’t talking to those girls, as long as he was just in your place, as they say, you had no problems. But then, I mean, there’s always been a few. I mean, even today, we haven’t done a whole lot of stuff around here in Cleveland that much because there’s really not a lot of clubs that really have, like, the kind of music that we do. You know, we do mostly R & B, doowop, the old oldies, but goodies, you know, and mostly everybody around here want hip hop, you know, and stuff. Like that. We’re too old for that. So we do a lot. We work in casinos, basically, and we do supper clubs and, you know, weddings and stuff like that. And most of our audience is, you know, a mature audience, although we do certain dance, we do bar mitzvahs and stuff like that. And of course, you have young ones, old ones and everything, you know, and everybody seems to still like our music more. Actually. I was amazed the first time we did a show at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The only black people that was there was the people that came with us, and it was having, like, old groups, you know, and I was amazed because I said, you know, this is our culture, and if it’s not Jay Z or somebody, you know, they don’t want to come out. But I’m noticing now that people are getting back to listening to words in songs again. There’s a friend of mine, in fact, Lou, and I was talking about writing a song called whatever happened to the love songs? Because there’s no more love songs anymore. All the songs about hating or who’s no good, you broke my heart or, you know, you killed a dog or shoot the police or something, you know. So basically, our songs are about love. When we do our shows, we basically do. We do what people want, but we try to build our repertoire around love songs and stuff to make you feel good, like our audience, most of the people there, the songs we sing that says, oh, man, I remember when I was in junior high, or I remember when I was to the prom, that was my favorite song, you know, and we can sit down, we can watch them singing along with us, you know, and it makes you feel good when you look out in the audience and you see them really enjoying the music now. Next. Yeah, next Friday, next Saturday the 7th, we’re going to be in Erie, Pennsylvania, with the white doowop group from the sixties. They called The Contels. And we have been working together off and on for the last two or three years. And, I mean, they’re just like family to us. But when we go there, I mean, it was like we were The Temptations or Jackson Five. That’s the response that give us up there, you know, because we’re doing that kind of music. And the audience, I’d say 45 and up in age, and they love it. They love it. They just sit there and when we’re done, it’s just sing some more, you know, and that’s the thrill when you get to be our age. It just makes you feel good. To know that you appreciate it and that people still appreciate that good music, you know, it just won’t never go away. If you ever sit up late at night and you see some of these programs where they’re telling you, mostly public tv, you ever sit, watch those at night, look in your audience, what do you see? Yeah, what do you see? The baby boomers. And most of them are young. They were the young teenage white kids then, and that’s when they first started listening to rock and roll. And they still love those songs. They still love them.
Dana Aritonovich [00:18:36] So what do you think it is about that music that keeps that draw? Because that’s what I grew up listening to was like, you know, oldies. You know, what’s now called oldies? Old records. And I didn’t realize that music was old when I was five or six years old. I just thought it was good music. What do you think it is that people respond to that, that like 50 years later they’re still listening to Chuck Berry and Elvis?
George Hendricks [00:18:54] What did you just say? It’s good music.
Dana Aritonovich [00:18:56] Exactly.
George Hendricks [00:18:57] And not only that, if you listen to those songs somewhere in your life, you can relate to them. I mean, what can you relate to with the stuff they put out nowadays? I mean, who wants to relate to it, you know? What’s that one song I heard standing in the window naked, taking your rump or something like that? What is it? This one guy says, I like big butts. He made a lot of money off of it, though, you know. But I mean, that’s not what. Will they still be listening to that 60 years from now? I doubt it. Yeah, I doubt it. But a song like my girl, just my imagination. You ain’t nothing but a hound dog or Elvis songs like that. I mean, even my favorite Elvis song is love me tender. I used to sing that song when I was. Oh, man, love that song. I still love it, too. It’s a beautiful song and it means something. I mean, if you listen to the words to most of all of your, what we say, oldies but goodies, now, they all tell a story, you know, it may be a simple story, it may be some of them are heartbreakers, but they still told the story, you know. What’s the song? I got my boyfriend back. You know, I remember when I was, like I said, in my dad’s barbershop listening to that stuff. Johnny Mathis. First time. I love Johnny Mathis, you know, and those songs people still got. I still got albums that I got, you know, that for my mom and dad, I still have albums and every now and then I sit down and I put them on. I still got one of those little jukeboxes. But Cleveland, I would say, is probably one of the most underrated cities there is when it comes to music. We have had so much good talent right here in Cleveland. The only difference between Cleveland and Motown Detroit is that we never had a Barry Gordy here.
Dana Aritonovich [00:21:12] You know, I’m glad you mentioned that, because I was going to ask about that, because that’s another future project for me. Was wondering why we do have so much talent here, and we always have. But they happen to have Barry Gordy, and we didn’t. Why do you think we didn’t have a Motown here? We had bands, but most of them didn’t go national like they did in Detroit. Why do you think that is?
George Hendricks [00:21:31] I can speak from my own personal experience. If you ever run into anybody from my era, they mentioned the group Sahibs. They would tell you we probably was the best group around. But there was nobody in Cleveland. There was a disdain named Ken Hawkins. He was like, he would bring all the big shows to Cleveland. We were on the show with everybody. Any big artists. Jackie Wilson, Theresa Franklin, James Brown, Drifters. I mean, anybody that ever came here, we were always open. It was a local actor opened up for everybody. And people used to always say, why don’t you guys go to Motown? Nobody ever said, why don’t you guys record? There was one recording studio here. It was called Boddie’s. I know Lou probably talked to you about Boddie’s, and Mister Boddie had the best studio at that particular time. But he was dealing mostly with gospel music, you know, spiritual. There was no one that was saying and say, hey, let’s get these groups and these bands together and record it via Motown. We were all trying to get to Detroit. Everybody was either trying to get to Detroit or New York somewhere, because there was no studios here. Well, I would say that was for a black entertainer. I think they had, like, what’s that? WHK? But they weren’t. They weren’t interested in what we were doing. And then Jim Brown came here, and they had Way Out Records. He invested some money in a company called Way Out. There was a few people that recorded. He put a little money in it. But the difference in the guys that was running it than Barry Gordy. Barry Gordy took every penny he had and put into his dream. These guys, everybody bought a Cadillac. And we had a lot of guys that we recorded, but none of us made any money. The records never got off. Now, it’s amazing. Some of those records from Way Out right now are selling over in England because he asked me about some of the records that were made. But most, most of. Most of those people are dead or, you know, this. Away from entertainment all together now it’s a little too late. Cleveland. Even today, if you ask any entertainer that they said, Cleveland, if you can make it in Cleveland, you can make it in anywhere. Cleveland is a hard city. It is hard. Most of the people that make it, they make it after they leave. Don’t make it. Give you a good example, O’Jays. They were from Canton originally. They were called The Mascots. They came here. They had a record. I was called Ball and Chain. They did ok, and they basically became Cleveland’s own. We were singing. We were out singing most everybody here, but we never had a record. We were on all the shows. We never got recorded. We went to. Ken Hawkins took us to Motown. And basically what they told us was, we already got The Temptations. You know, they didn’t want us to compete against The Temptations. We did a show at a place called Local 900 over there. Once we on the show with the Marvelettes, Supremes, Temptations, Contours, the Miracles, Mary Wells and Martha and the Vandellas. And I’m not bragging. We stole the show. They blackballed us. They wouldn’t let us come back over there no more for those shows because we weren’t part of the family. We’ve tried to get to be part of the family, but we would have been too much competition for the Temptations at the time. So they said, we already got one Temptations, Cleveland. I don’t know. It’s just the people that have the money. They weren’t interested in trying to build entertainment. They didn’t want to take the money or the time to invest it in talent here, the people who had the dream and the know how didn’t have the money. And that’s the way it still is, basically, in Cleveland, you know, really. I mean, people like Lou, he left here. He’s been out there. I left a few times. Edwin Starr, when he’s passed knowledge. We knew him in school as Charles Hatcher. We all grew up together, but he left. He. He wrote. He got with Motown for a time. Then there was a dispute about some of the songs that they stole from him. Like War. That was the song. He wrote that song, and they took it over anyway. I think he had a problem. They blackballed him in the States. He went to Europe and never came back. He made it good over there. A lot of your big stars today, if you look back, their roots are from Cleveland, you know, like Temptations, Paul Williams and Eddie Kendrick. I remember when we were singing a place called the Majestic Hotel. There’s a Rose Room. They were washing dishes in the kitchen. A lot of people don’t know Paul Williams and Eddie Kennedy washing dishes, bussing tables and washing dishes in the Majestic Hotel. And they couldn’t get anything going here, so they left and went to Detroit and see what happened. We should have left, but, you know, we. I don’t know. We. I guess we were such a close knit group, and nobody wanted to leave. And then as we got older, see, some of us went to the army, some of us went different ways, went different groups, you know, but that’s why now it’s just. It’s just good to see that music seems to be coming back to Cleveland. You know, live entertainment. You got a few clubs now, but, you know, what kills it is this. There used to be so many clubs you could go to and see a live show. I mean, Thursday through Sunday, they always had live entertainment. Any side of town you could go, you see a band and a group or some singers in a band, and you could go out and have a good time. You know, you could dress up. But now people don’t want to go out because everybody’s getting robbed or afraid to park. The car might get stolen. And the club owner says the only thing they could do was they went with the young hip hop crowd, which is packed all the time, but nobody’s drinking, nobody’s eating, they’re dancing. The floor is full all night, and they’re not making any money, you know. So when you come around and says, hey, man, I got a band. We want to do a gig, he says, well, how much you charge? And you give him a price. He says, oh, I can get a dj for $100 a night and have everybody dancing all night, you know, and they went away for him. But what happened was they ran away. All of the subtle people that would sit, you could have a club with 200 people in it. And out of the 200, maybe 50 or 60 drinking or eating, the rest of them are up dancing or either whatever they doing. Whereas you might get a club with 60 people in it, sitting down, drinking, they’re eating, you know, watching the show, but everybody wants the fast money. They don’t believe in that. Slow pace wins the race, cultivating. And then, too, Cleveland is not a very consistent town when it comes to restaurants, clubs, and stuff like that. They open up these clubs and they look really good, and people start going. And then all of a sudden, the service is lousy, the food is not good as it was. When they open up, drinks are watered down. Then you start running away the money spenders. Now, myself, like I said, I haven’t. I don’t really. We don’t entertain that much in Cleveland itself, but when my wife and I go out, we go out to the suburbs somewhere, because we know we can go out there and sit down and dress up and have a good meal, see a show, you know, and by me being entertained, I know most of all the spots where they got good bands and stuff. So we go as far as Motown right now, if I had the money to really open up a studio, which Barry Gordy only had $700, but that was a different time. But the talent is here. But I don’t know, it’s just the mindset of entertainers nowadays is so crazy, you know, you can say, man, you really can sing. I’d like to sign you up. Sign me up for what? You know, they want to. Then you explain everything to them. And this is. This is what you can do. But you got to sacrifice time to rehearse. The entertainers nowadays, you go to see them. I don’t even want to pay $40 to see somebody with holes in their jeans. You know, I can see that walking down the street for free. I mean, and when we go, when we do shows, we’re dressed up, we’re uniform, we wear tuxes, and people appreciate that. You know, I know if I go see somebody and I’m paying 25, $30, I’m all dressed up and then looking like somebody just came off the street, man, you charging me this much money for this? And as far as the music dj’s, I could put my CD on my car at home if I just. So I’m a live entertainment person. I love live entertainment. You know, I do it, and all my life I’ve loved it. And there’s a guy here in Cleveland, I don’t know if somebody mentioned. His name is Greg Reese. He’s the director of East Cleveland library. And also he’s like a jazz keeper. He had a book out called Jazz Keepers, and he was trying to keep live music alive. And East Cleveland Library got a beautiful, state of art little auditorium there, and he has live entertainment. Different acts come in periodically, just keeping live music alone live. But he’s been around here. In fact, he used to be a saxophone player, but now he just directs. He loves music. So he still comes around us when we’re working and there’s a few places, but I don’t know. Nobody seems to want to take the chance to invest the money to have a Motown here. We have the talent. I mean, there’s so much talent in Cleveland you wouldn’t believe. I mean, I don’t mean just mediocre talent. I mean great talent that could be American Idol or anybody else they want to be, but. And to be honest with you, most of the musicians in Cleveland are lazy. They don’t want to rehearse. We have the hardest time getting bands to rehearse right now. You know, say, for instance, if we got a month off and we want to put a new show together, we call guys and say, well, look, we got to rehearse, but we ain’t got to show till next month while we rehearse because we want the show to be tight. We want to go up to half. But, you know, you can’t go in and ask for a $1,000 when you look like ten, you know? I mean, that’s the truth. If you’re not ready, you’re only going to get paid for what you worth, you know? And then we have a. We set out a standard for our group that if we can’t get paid a certain amount of money, we just don’t do the gig. So a lot of bands, they don’t want to be with us because you guys don’t work enough. I said, but when we work, we get paid well, you know, I said, you work five gigs. I make as much on one as you make on those five. You know, they want to be seen. I said, I want money. I don’t worry about being seen. But, see, when I was young, I probably was the same way. Just to be out there in the lamb. Like, I love entertaining. I would do it for free, probably, but if I want to do it right, and I. I just feel like if you’re not entertaining the people, that’s why they say entertainer. It’s a different between being a band or a singer. You know, there’s a lot of people that are singers, but they’re not entertainers. You know, you can go see. I know some groups, they’re very good, some bands that are excellent musicians, but when you go see them, all you hear is a bunch of loud noise. It’s like a jam session. Everybody’s playing, everybody’s taking solos, and they’re sounding good. But, I mean, it’s just like a big jam session. It’s not like a show. You know, when I go entertain, or when I go to be entertained, I want to be entertained. You know, they could never make it in Vegas anywhere like that because they’re just playing music. And it’s more to it when they. When you go out there, they want entertainers. You know, it’s entertainers. California, New York, wherever you go. But I don’t know.
Dana Aritonovich [00:35:19] Well, you know, you mentioned James Brown before. And in the previous version of this project that I did, I talk a lot about James Brown. And, you know, when you talk about kind of like a work ethic, I mean, he was like a taskmaster. He wanted everybody on point all the time. He would follow people if they made a small mistake. And tell me about working, you know, what your experience was, you know, with James Brown?
George Hendricks [00:35:39] Well, we didn’t work with him as part of his act. We was just on the show with him. But watching him, I think it. That’s who, where I got a. I lot of my drive today from is watching him and some of the older entertainers. Well, see, I’m from old school. When I started entertaining, it was different. I worked with older musicians, and we worked on shows with professionals. I mean, what we call the show people, personnel. I mean, they were. Some of them had even been in vaudeville, you know, some of the old timers that we worked with. When we started out, we was most of the time the youngest group on the actual. There was a group called the Ubiquity Twelve. And all of them, they were like dancers, comedians, snake charmers. We had all, I mean, all kind of acts when we went on the road with them and they were prompt, on time rehearsal. If they said show started at ten, that don’t mean you get there ten. You better be on that stage and ready when they call you or else you don’t. You don’t work and you don’t get paid. They send a lot of people home for that. When they say be there on a half, that means if the show starts at 10:00, at 10:30, you should be ready and ready to go, because if something happens to the act previous, they’re not there. Okay, you’re up next. You got to be ready. Same thing at the Apollo. You know, they used to go to the Apollo. If you get there in the morning at 08:00 you’re there. Even if the show is not until 10:00 that night, you’re there. They don’t let you out beca
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