7. LEAP – Richard Pryor and the Power of Belief

My name is Wendell Bauer, and this is Middle America.

Jared Grabb “Prison Bars (Middle America Version)”

Jared Grabb “Down by the Riverside”

7A

The Army hadn’t work out for Richard. He joined up at age 18 in order to get out of his abusive father’s house and into the world. At the time, many black men like future Secretary of State Colin (like colon) Powell found serving in West Germany to be a liberating experience in contrast with the United States. However, this was far from the case in the towns of Kaiserslautern and Baumholder (like bomb holder), where Richard spent his time.

Richard had served as a unit’s plumber under officers from the southern U.S. who fostered an environment that proved to be even more racist that Richard’s hometown of Peoria, Illinois.[1] When Richard called in to the base before arriving, an officer told him that he was so happy that Richard was coming. The officer used the “n-word” to demean the man who had been serving with him for the previous three years.[2] Of course, this officer awkwardly back-pedaled upon Richard’s arrival. “You’re Private Pryor? The guy I talked to on the telephone? I hope you don’t get upset about anything I say. You can ask all the people around here, especially the colored folks. They know I’m a nice guy.”

Richard’s inevitable unhappiness with his situation manifested through formations missed, complaints of physical ailments, the berating of senior officers, and the eventual stabbing of an officer during a disagreement spawned from racial tensions.

And so, on August 27th of 1960, following the stabbing and just over 16 months after his enrollment, Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor found himself discharged from the U.S. Army with little to show for the time spent. To his chagrin, he was quickly back in his father’s house, jobless and drifting.

With no money to escape into his own lodging, Richard spent much of his time crashing on a friend’s couch, wandering the streets, or residing on bar stools at the Blue Shadow, the Villa, or Harold’s Club, three bars known for their mixed crowds and lively characters. It was at the last of these three, Harold’s Club, that Richard received his first steady paying gig as a comedian.

Richard had convinced the club’s owner and family friend, Harold Parker, to let him perform a night of piano tunes at the club. Richard’s bluff became obvious when instead of performing in the style of Nat King Cole, as advertised, he aimlessly wandered about the instrument using only four chords and some gibberish for lyrics.

Lucky for Richard, Harold admired the gall of the bluff and while being through with Richard Pryor the musician, hired Richard on as a bartender and short-set comedian for when bands were taking intermission.

Richard had spent most of his childhood as the class clown and neighborhood jokester, creating a stage for his comedy routine wherever he could. In his early routines, Richard Pryor imitated the styles of fellow Midwesterners Dick Gregory of Chicago, Jonathan Winters of Dayton, and Redd Foxx of St. Louis, preferring to physically inhabit a cast of wild characters to rival his wild audiences rather than dispense punchlines and gags ala Bob Hope.

Richard was happy working this gig for a slim $50 per week. However, he soon impregnated the 17-year-old Patricia Watts. Yearning to be a good, stand-up family man while still only possessing the maturity of a child, Richard married the young woman. Richard always said he was great at falling in love. He just struggled with what came next. The couple quickly had a falling out after Richard hit Patricia and ignored her pleading that he acquire a job at a local hospital. Pat ended up moving back into her parents’ house on Fourth Street only 80 days after the couple’s wedding.

When the owner of Harold’s Club lost his liquor license in 1962, Richard landed nearby at 405 North Washington Street in the newly-opened Collins Corner. Unlike the mixed setting of Harold’s Club, Collins Corner was primarily a black club, and its owner, Bris (like Bree) Collins, was as vocal member of Peoria’s black community. The club regularly donated to the Carver Center, the southside community center that had provided Richard with theatrical training. The club also took the hard stand to NOT serve liquor produced by Hiram (like High Rum) Walker, as the local distillery did not employ blacks outside of menial positions.

For the increased pay of $72 per week, Richard continued to develop his act at Collins Corner. It’s here that Pryor developed his “Imitation of a Baby Being Born.” If you don’t know it, give it an internet search. It’s a sight to see.

And, it was right for babies to be on Richard’s mind. Patricia had given birth to a son, Richard Pryor, Jr. However, both Richard’s parental and comedic maturity were lacking. When in the fall of 1962 Collins Corner suddenly closed due to fiscal mismanagement, rather than seek steady work in town to support a family, Richard left Patricia and Junior behind to pursue a life on the road with some of the other newly jobless entertainers from Collins Corner.[3]

Richard Pryor’s time touring the Midwest’s black clubs known as the Black Belt circuit was to begin at the Faust (like Fowst) Club in East St. Louis. There he was booked to emcee a cross-dressing South Pacific-style burlesque show, and there he would finally begin to see the world and himself through a lens other than that offered by his troubled family and hometown.[4]

John Bellows “Happy Talk”

7B

When Amber invited me to join up, I was still a junior in college. She was a freshman out in Champaign-Urbana herself, but we both had big dreams of making lives out of music.

She already had a rock band put together with some other Peoria folks. All I had to do was step in to fill the recently vacated position on lead guitar. Amber had taken note that, in previous years, I had been traveling a bit by myself with an acoustic guitar. So, when rehearsals started up, I also began teaching Amber what I knew of researching and contacting venues around the country in order to hit the road. Amber’s band already had a CDr demo with the previous lead guitarist, so there was little holding us back.

During that first inexperienced summer as a band, we were able to pull off a couple week-long tours. The first trip was the week after finals and led us east to Pennsylvania and back with shows in Chicago, Indiana, and Ohio in between. As an unknown act, half of our gigs were house shows, but we were thrilled. Pennsylvania had been our goal since I had previously had some great experiences hanging out and playing music in the industrial valley town of Wilkes-Barre. The music scene there felt incredibly motivated, welcoming, and optimistic. Plus, outside of houses, all-ages venues could be tough to come by and Wilkes-Barre had a thriving all-ages club called Café Metropolis.

While in the state, we also played a show at an independent bookstore in Easton, another valley town. The other dates included two house shows, with one being shut down by the police, and an uncomfortably secular performance in a Christian Youth Center.

Returning home, I thought we were pretty damn cool… until I put my slacks and polo shirt back on to clock in at my fast food job. It would be two more months before the second trip, during which time I could often be found calling promoters, packing mailers, or strumming a guitar on the restaurant’s parking lot curb during my lunch breaks.

Colorado was our second destination, and this trip is where we learned that there are a lot fewer places to perform on the western prairie than there are out east. We got one show in Omaha on the way out and one show in Des Moines on the way back. Both were terrible all-ages club shows with no promotion and too many touring acts.

But, as I said, we were headed to Colorado. I had gone backpacking with my family in the Rocky Mountains during my younger years. In my mind, Colorado was the prettiest place one could go play rock and roll.

We managed to get three small shows out there. The first was a tiny bar and pizza place called Surfside 7. While in a different location now, this bar still exists. I don’t get the joke of surfing in this land-locked state, but it’s a cozy place to play.

The second was at an irreverent show house in Colorado Springs called the High Life House. I can’t imagine playing in a tinier space, but that tiny space was packed in with some good people.

Finally, our third show was in downtown Denver at a bar called 15th Street Tavern. I was the only band member over 21 and bar patrons couldn’t have cared less about our set. It seems like Denver has cleaned up and become a yuppie haven in recent years, but at this time, downtown Denver had a thick layer of grime. It felt worlds away from the pristine forests located only a few miles to the west.

And then, that was it. Summer ended, and we went back to school. We had lost money. We still had lots of unsold t-shirts and CDs in the van upon returning home. Our eyes were opening to how long the journey toward even covering our gas expenses was going to be. In spite of this, we still booked time in a small recording studio out of Champaign-Urbana for winter break. Money or not, we decided it was time to make a properly manufactured release.

Tina Sparkle “Oh Redheads”

7C

Nearing the end of Richard Pryor’s time in East St. Louis, he got the useful advice from an emcee that his stage presence might need an adjustment.

“You’ve got to talk to the people,” the emcee said. “You always look like you want to kill them. Persuade ‘em.”

But, Richard was desperate and poor. Traveling as a performer can feel like constantly giving out energy that falls flat. Some nights are good, but there are plenty of bad nights that an artist usually goes through to get to those good nights. To succeed, you need to have an air that you’re already successful; that rejection doesn’t matter; that you’re happy to have the crowd, but you don’t need the crowd. It’s quite a mask to put on when you are sleeping on dirty floors and eating cold soup out of a can.

After East St. Louis, Pryor followed any leads he could get from other entertainers on the circuit. He traveled by car, bus, train, and hitchhiking, performing in cities like Chicago, Cleveland, and Youngstown.[5]

During the frigid month of January 1963, Richard found himself in Pittsburgh and freshly released from a run-in with the law. Sammy Davis Jr. passed through town, and Richard sat outside the star’s hotel room overnight in a full suit trying to get a glimpse. At morning, Sammy finally came out and gave Richard a cigarette and some quick conversation. While Richard didn’t get the employment that he was seeking from his hero, the attention did make the cold and lost Richard Pryor feel human again. It also allowed him to see how this star carried himself, and Richard took note.

From Pittsburgh, Richard headed up north to Buffalo where he met the comedian Donnie Simpson. Together they headed across the border into Canada, performing for largely white audiences in Windsor and then Toronto. [6] Richard wouldn’t have nice things to say about these Canadian bookings in later years.

In Toronto, as they ran out of road in June of 1963, Richard opened up the latest copy of Newsweek to find that someone in the business had beaten him to the punch. The black comedian Bill Cosby had broken into the mainstream.[7]

Devastated, Richard complained to Donnie that Cosby was doing what Richard was trying to do and that there just wasn’t room for two mainstream black comedians. In reply, Donnie asked Richard why in the world he was out on the road then. The place to be who Richard wanted to be was in New York City.[8]

Donnie was right, too. Bill Cosby had broken through by performing in hip cafes in Philadelphia and New York, finally getting catapulted upward after a residency at the now famous Greenwich Village café the Gaslight.

Richard Pryor’s time on the Black Belt and Chitlin circuits had been short-lived, clocking in at under a year. He arrived at the train station in New York wearing his best suit but only holding ten dollars in his pocket, of which he needed fifty cents for a shower upon arrival. Heading out of the station, Richard then traveled north to the only place he knew of in New York: the Apollo Theater in Harlem.[9]

There, an irritated talented buyer quickly gave him the boot but luckily pointed Richard toward downtown and the Village.[10] Even in his annoyed state, the Apollo’s buyer had given good advice, and soon Richard Pryor was a regular at Café Wha?, the Bitter End, the Living Room, Papa Hud’s, and Improvisation. He ran with a disparate crew of bohemians, including Henry Jaglom, J.J. Barry, Bob Altman, Martin Harvey Friedberg, and Burt Heyman, all seeking to push the boundaries of comedy and break into show business.[11] While mixing in this scene, Richard also crossed paths with George Carlin, Woody Allen, and eventually Bill Cosby.[12]

It all started to pay off and on August 31st of 1964, Richard did what few black comedians had ever managed to do up to that point. He appeared on national television.

His performance was part of Rudy Vallee’s summer variety show On Broadway Tonight.[13] As he walked out wearing a sleek suit and tie, he nervously rubbed his nose and then opened up, “Uh. I’m gonna tell you a few things about myself, because a lot of you probably don’t know me. I’m not a New Yorker. My home’s in Peoria, Illinois. (laughs) And, uh… (laughs).”[14]

Scouts Honor “I Am The Dust”

7D

Amber’s parents bankrolled the studio time, mastering, and manufacturing for our first album. This was never really discussed, just like we never really discussed how our tour van appeared. Amber had the means and just like the rest of the band, I was willing to take the ride.

We had been preparing to support the release of our first album for nearly half a year. I contributed what I could to booking performances but was kept busy by my senior year completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Amber picked up the slack using the contacts that I had collected over the previous couple years along with her new connections from Friendster, AOL Instant Messenger, and Maximum Rocknroll’s BYOFL.

Amber did an incredible job with her first serious effort booking shows, but it competed with her schooling as well. While she had been valedictorian of her high school, I don’t think that her heart had ever really been in going to college, and she quickly ended up dropping out. Seeing that we would both soon be free of school, we planned to just tour full time for as long as we possibly could.

When summer arrived, we played at being rockstars to our hometown crowd in order to scrape together some gas money, and then we hit the highway out east. We had only managed to book about three quarters of the first month of our intended endless trip, so I spent each day in the back of the vehicle packing promotional mailers and calling promoters. I had printed off an unchecked list of internet contacts in the early AM before leaving home. Whenever we had time near a public or university library, Amber and I would run in to check emails and send more electronic press kits out to promoters around the country.

Being on the road for a longer stretch of time meant that we could finally make it out to the west coast. Our road atlas and binder full of Mapquest directions guided us to new stops in Iowa City and Lincoln, Nebraska. Loading in up the treacherous fire escape of Iowa City’s Gabe’s Oasis was a feat, but the show wound up being our first gig of quality in the state.

We were also lucky enough to hit all three of the eastern Colorado cities that we had played during the previous summer. This was followed by three consecutive days off, where we bummed around with our pals at the High Life House. I can’t say that anyone is thrilled to have a full band of dirty musicians living with them for three days, but our fellow musicians took pity on us. Onward from Colorado, it was uncharted territory.

The cold-calling led us to a gig in an art gallery in Provo, Utah. The gods of rock and roll smiled on us as we wound up playing to a room filled with around twenty strangers while hanging out with some well-seasoned California bands. The week of shows heading out had tightened our performance to a respectable level and we managed to make some life-long friends.

As our gig came to an end, word spread that there was another DIY show with touring bands happening at a warehouse a couple blocks away. Following a local who seemed like a possibility for a floor to sleep on, I picked up a case of Utah’s low-percent beer, and we headed over.

The warehouse show was wild. Where our art gallery show had been a largely melodic affair, the bands here were raging punk and post-hardcore with the touring acts hailing from the Rust Belt cities of Cleveland and Detroit. I still had yet to dive into this grittier form of rock music at the time, but I could not deny the vitality of the bands, the audience, and the overall event. Amber, the guys, and I cracked our Utah beers and proceeded stay incredibly sober.

When the lights came on, we were lucky enough to still be friendly with the local, so we walked a few more blocks to her apartment where we laid out our sleeping bags. The rest of the band hit the floor. Around the corner in a tiny kitchenette, I began boiling water for some boxed mac and cheese. In the few minutes while I waited for my pasta to cook, I thought back on the night and our trip.

We had never been to this town and were performing farther from home than we ever had before. Both touring acts and locals alike had welcomed us into their circles, providing us with experiences that weren’t available in our hometown. Beyond the music, the cultural shock of being in Mormon territory was curious and eye-opening.

Hunched over the counter, spooning macaroni from the pot, I was beaming. The world felt full of promise. Everything was unknown. Everything was potential. And, my friends and I were the only ones who had set ourselves on this path. We weren’t doing what our parents wanted or our schools directed. We were making our own realities, and it felt good.

Jared Grabb “Whitewashing (Middle America Version)”