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18 chapter Harlem Hotshots and the Black Experience Cast of Characters Bobby Robinson, Fire-Fury-Enjoy Records Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic Records Paul Winley, Winley Records Marshall Sehorn, promo man Fire-Fury Records Henry “Juggy” Murray Jr., Sue Records Harold Battiste, A.F.O. Records Joe Bihari, Crown-Kent Records In May 2005, Bobby Robinson, still located in his beloved Harlem, had just turned eighty-eight. Sporting a fetching straw boater hat perched on the gray locks that flowed to his shoulders, he was wearing a bright red jacket, multicolored waistcoat, and white pants with bright red shoes. Here he was all show, relishing in his celebrity as the local record man as we meandered down 125th Street for lunch at Sylvia’s soul food restaurant on Lenox Avenue. Walking past the Apollo Theatre, still in business, Bobby remembered “the great music, the entertainment, and the jokes.” Hotel Theresa, where all the top artists stayed (and partied), loomed across the road. Farther on down 125th Street, Robinson shouted out, “All right, babe!” and the happy lady recipient gave a cry of “Daddy-o!” It was a flavor of Harlem as it used to be. The family record shop, Bobby’s Happy House, run by daughter Denise Benjamin with loyal assistant Bootsy at 2332 Amsterdam Avenue , was operating valiantly just around the corner from the original store on 125th Street. In a more innocent age, Bobby Robinson’s ­ Record i-xvi_1-592_Brov.indd 341 11/19/09 10:44:54 AM 342 the hustle is on Shop, as it used to be called, was a mecca for artists playing the Apollo and for their adoring fans. Record men and promo men would drop in regularly to check on the discs that were being snapped up by Bobby’s discerning clientele. An external speaker still blared out R&B and gospel oldies onto the street, but not the latest hits, as of yore. Inside, CDs representing the distant golden age of black music were lined up in racks, but the shellac and vinyl discs were long gone. On the walls were faded photographs of Bobby with Jackie Wilson, Bobby with Fats Domino, Bobby with Sam Cooke, and Bobby with assorted black entertainers, boxers, and politicians of varying degrees of fame. With Harlem enjoying a renaissance, the locale was becoming visibly gentrified. Big retail corporations were moving to 125th Street, the neighboring brownstones were being bought up and renovated, and President Bill Clinton had an office a few blocks down the road. Romantics may have objected, but with investment dollars flowing into the area, there was a vitality about the place that hadn’t been there when drug dealers and heroin addicts had ruled the streets with brooding cynicism not too many years before. Occasionally, a street vendor would play a record like Jackie Wilson’s “Baby Workout” on a portable player, and it sounded great. But the world that Bobby Robinson knew as a record shop owner and independent record man had all but disappeared . Harlem’s creeping gentrification caught up with him when his new landlord’s eviction order took place on January 21, 2008—Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Over a series of lunches, Bobby told endless stories of the “good old days” with natural storytelling ability. He was a perfect candidate for a biography, but, frustratingly , for too many years he had been intent on writing his autobiography without any outside help. Fortunately, he had always been a willing interviewee, and there was no lack of documentation on his fascinating life. With a spiritual air that could be traced back to his Cherokee Indian heritage and with a photographic memory, he recalled how his grandfather farmed his “own” land, “which was rare for coloreds.” According to Robinson, the three hundred acres of pasture , woodlands, and swamp was situated some five miles from Union, South Carolina, toward the north of the state between Spartanburg and Columbia, the capital. The work, from sunup to sundown, was harsh. “We didn’t get rich, but we were free,” said Bobby, adding that “Lincoln was the greatest!” He recalled the long daily walks to and from a small country school along dirt roads and the South Carolina house parties with homemade musical entertainment featuring harmonica, tin tub for percussion, and the “sexy” guitar (in the style of Blind Boy Fuller, Brownie McGhee, and Sonny Terry). Looking to break out from a life of struggle on the land, Bobby Robinson at age twenty took a Carolinian’s natural migratory...

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