Blues Before Sunrise: The Radio Interviews

Cadillac Baby

Cadillac Baby Narvel eatmon was known to blues fans around the world as Cadillac Baby. He was the owner and operator of Cadillac Baby’s Show Lounge, one of Chicago’s premier blues clubs of the 1950s, and the owner and operator of the Bea & Baby record label, which issued records by eddie Boyd, Sunnyland Slim, L. C. McKinley, and many others. By the time I met Cadillac Baby all the good times had passed him by. the club and the record label were both long gone, and he was operating a neighborhood candy store, Aladdin’s Cavern, at 4405 South State—directly across the street from Chicago’s notorious robert taylor Homes. He sold candy, pop, potato chips—and the latest 45 rpm records. I compared notes with several fellow blues enthusiasts and found that we each had good Cadillac Baby in his la-Z Boy. Photo courtesy of Cadillac Baby. times and great adventures in his company and under his guidance. It was a great place for a novice blues enthusiast to step into the world of blues. My introduction to Cadillac took place in 1971–1972. I believe I heard him being interviewed by Amy van Singel on her radio program, Atomic Mama’s Wang Dang Doodle Blues Show, which aired onwNIB in Chicago. I know for certain that she was plugging an LP he had issued.the LP , “Colossal Blues, ” was a story in itself. According to Jim O’Neal, the entire sequence went down something like this: Jim and Amy van Singel were husband and wife at the time.they were owners and editors of Living Blues magazine. In one of their earliest issues they ran a feature on Cadillac Baby, his blues club, and his record label. As it happened, Cadillac still had copies of the original 45s issued on his Bea & Baby label, and so they ran a small ad in Living Blues magazine to sell the 45s he still had on hand. He had success selling them and decided he’d like to release an LP , a compilation of the sides originally released as 45s. He placed an ad for his LP in Living Blues—and started receiving orders from customers—even though he hadn’t yet produced the LP . when the orders started coming in, he decided—with encouragement from Jim and Amy—to go ahead with production of the LP . But instead of a simple compilation of the sides on his label, he decided to present the original studio recordings as though they were live performances captured at Cadillac Baby’s Show Lounge back in the 1950s, with dubbed-in club ambiance and Cadillac in the recording studio re-creating his role as master of ceremonies, introducing each artist in turn. And typical of Cadillac’s bargain-basement production values, he sought to create club ambiance with only a handful—five or six at the most—people, including Jim and Amy!this all eventually turned into the unintentional kitsch classic “Colossal Blues. ” In the words of Cadillac Baby himself: “Colossal—it means bigger than the world!” I heard the plug for the LP and read the article on Cadillac Baby. I phoned Jim O’Neal to ask him if Cadillac Baby was receptive to visitors—and if it was safe to go where he lived. with Jim’s assurances, I made a visit one winter weekday afternoon. It was January 22, 1973. Cadillac lived in the back of his store, where most activities took place around a potbellied wood-burning stove and a La-Z Boy recliner that sat directly next to the stove. Here Cadillac would play host and entertain for hours at a time. On my first visit we were joined by a pair of his longtime friends—blues pianist Sunnyland Slim and record label owner/producer Joe Brown of Chicago’s famed J.O.B. label. that afternoon I had my first Champale—a malt liquor popular with African Americans—and somebody cadill ac baby 213 brought in raccoon meat, which was cooked in a pan of water on the woodburning stove. I drank the Champale; I passed on the raccoon. A few nights later Cadillac invited me to come along on an outing to a local blues club, the High Chaparral. this was a real blues bonanza, as the featured artists that evening were blues mandolinist JohnnyYoung, Lee Jackson,winehead willie williams, Sunnyland Slim, and Hound...