In the next installment of Uncommon History, WKMS Morning Edition host Daniel Hurt speaks to local historian J.T. Crawford about Paducah’s connection to the Chitlin Circuit and iconic African American artists who once played the city’s local halls and hotels. The Chitlin’ Circuit, named after the soul food dish, was a collection of music venues throughout the Midwest and South that provided cultural and commercial acceptance for African American musicians and comedians. Prominent Black artists, including James Brown, B.B. King, Louis Armstrong, and Cab Calloway toured on the circuit, making stops in Memphis and Chicago, but also smaller towns like Paducah.
“At that time in the 1950s and 60s, you were not forced to travel to St. Louis or Chicago to see these well-known artists, and they were well-known when they played Paducah, but you could see them in smaller, more intimate venues,” Crawford said. “There aren’t too many famous artists like Ike and Tina Turner playing local civic centers now. They are big ticketed events in larger cities, and you travel hours if you live in a smaller town.”
"The Chitlin' Circuit was an unofficial map of locations where Black artists could play. They could stay at certain places when they were in town. Hotel Metropolitan in Paducah was a huge part of that. Any artist who came through could play in Paducah, and they could stay at the Hotel Metropolitan. When African American artists came into town, they could not just stay anywhere because of segregation."
One Hotel Metropolitan guest was a young future King of Blues, B.B. King, who stayed at the hotel in the 1950s and could be seen practicing for shows, guitar in hand, sitting on the front porch. "There are a couple ads for B.B. King shows that appeared in the Paducah Sun," Crawford said. "He was just this young, skinny, early blues man. There are stories of him sitting on the porch at the Hotel Metropolitan in the afternoon before a show, and he would have his guitar in hand, and he was kind of running through his licks, practicing, doing different things, getting ready for that night. But can you imagine hearing this blues man playing in the front of the Hotel Metropolitan and come to find out that it was B.B. King?"
Crawford said Betty Dobson, who runs the hotel, was instrumental in preserving the hotel and African American history. "The hotel really had a period where it was about to probably go away, mostly by neglect, and Betty came along and was extremely instrumental in saving that building from demolition by neglect but also in bringing back a lot of the history. She met some of the tour folks, the managers of artists who had come through, and remembered the Hotel Metropolitan and told her about some of the rooms."
B.B. King's time in Paducah is a testament to the city's journey from segregated to non-segregated. "Some of these stories come full circle. You have B.B. King, who has to stay at the Hotel Metropolitan because he can't stay anywhere else. He can only play in certain venues because he's Black. He was there the opening weekend of the Carson Center and then came back again later on. You kind of go from, 'here's your space, here's where you can play, and here's the audience you can play to,' and then really getting a place of honor down the road."
Crawford said Louis Armstrong was another regular performer in Paducah, where he was discovered by Paducah native and riverboat bandleader Fate Marable, who "used to go up and down the river and brought [Armstrong] to New Orleans. So, Louis Armstrong would have been kind of familiar with Velma Hammock, who owned Hammock Funeral Home in Paducah. She knew Armstrong fairly well and was a singer herself. When he would come through, he would always visit her. He played at multiple places, including Tilghman High School. He would play dances sometimes over at the Irvin Cobb Hotel. There is a story that's told of him being allowed to come in with his band, but because the Irvin Cobb was a white-only hotel, he was allowed to play, but they weren't allowed to do anything else within that hotel. So, when they were asked to take a break, they were given coffee cans to go outside and use the bathroom. They could play, but they could not use the restrooms at the hotel."
Crawford said that, unfortunately, incidents like this were common and reflected a tragic part of U.S. history. Armstrong wasn't the only Black artist who experienced racism in Paducah, either. "There's another story of Duke Ellington coming to town, and he had a big, big Cadillac at the time. There were a bunch of kids that gathered around the car when he pulled in and parked. He had to shoo them away and get them away from the car."
It wasn't just current and future stars that visited Paducah. "You had some artists that were kind of up and coming at the time," Crawford said. "Duke Ellington was well-established, and he would play at the skating rink in town. Really, mostly during the 1940s, that was the center of the Chitlin' Circuit for Paducah. A lot of big names came there. Amazingly, skating rinks were really huge from the early 1900s to the mid-century. You had a Black skating rink that was at 10th and Broadway. A couple of nights a week, they would convert it into a music venue. They would have tables, or you could get seats, and they would have people come through like Duke Ellington, B.B. King, and Cab Calloway. I try to imagine Cab Calloway playing at a skating rink, you know, on Broadway in Paducah."
"You can only imagine the kind of energy that would happen in one of these [shows], like in the skating rink with Cab Calloway or B.B. King. If you let your imagination run wild, you can really see people dancing to Cab Calloway with all of his energy. You could see him leading his orchestra and his band. The ad in the newspaper called him 'His Highness Hi-de-ho.' He just brought a ton of energy to his shows, but here he was at a skating rink in Paducah, Kentucky."
The legendary swing artist and scat man Cab Calloway is possibly best known by modern audiences for his role in the 1980s film The Blues Brothers, starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. Calloway played Curtis, a man who served as a father figure to the lead protagonists. He famously performed "Minnie the Moocher" in the film and experienced a resurgence in popularity.
Crawford said one of the most memorable performances by an artist in Paducah on the Chitlin' Circuit was Ike and Tina Turner's show at the Paducah Civic Center. "As far as mass memory, there's a lot of people who remember that one. There's a great story of a gentleman who was so excited to see Tina Turner that he was up at the front of the stage, and he reached out and touched her leg. Ike got a glimpse of that, walked over, and bonked the guy on the head with the end of his guitar and never missed a lick."
While the Turners might have been one of the most collectively remembered Paducah shows, perhaps the most famous performer who played in the city was James Brown. He was already known as 'Mr. Dynamite' when he performed with his band on a hot summer night in 1965 at Brooks Stadium in Paducah. He performed on August 17, and days before, he had just released "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag."
"James Brown was a big name, but you didn't have shows that were in huge arenas or stadiums," Crawford continued. "Nowadays, you go see an artist like that, you might have to travel to St. Louis, Nashville and see them in a big venue. Of course, the Beatles came along and changed all that with Shea Stadium. But it's just amazing to me that we had such a rich moment in music history where all these really amazing artists were playing the Chitlin' Circuit and were coming to these smaller towns and playing music that we see as iconic today."
"It's a really unique opportunity for people. One of the ways that segregation began to be broken down, as you had people of all backgrounds and all races loved the music. So, that really brought a lot of people together, and I think them touring around and putting a face on who's behind these songs really made a big difference."
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