Billy Connolly's Route 66_ The Big Yin on the Ultimate American Road Trip - Billy Connolly [25]
Ever since then, Bronzeville has continued to bustle with celebrities, intellectuals, musicians and artists. The Regal Theater, located in the heart of the area, was demolished in the 1970s, but in its heyday it played host to the cream of twentieth-century American music. Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, Dinah Washington, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington performed there frequently. The Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Jackson 5, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Jordan, Solomon Burke, Dionne Warwick, James Brown, the Isley Brothers, John Coltrane – the list of performers at the Regal is like a Who’s Who of soul, rhythm’n’blues and jazz. What would anyone have given to be present at the Motown Revue in June 1962, when ‘Little’ Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Mary Wells and the Marvelettes and Marvin Gaye were on the bill? What a line-up.
But until the mid-1960s, when the Civil Rights Act was passed, travelling through America was frequently fraught for African-Americans. Restricted to segregated zones in the South and often discriminated against in other areas too, their journeys along America’s highways – including Route 66 – were far from simple. Some motel and restaurant owners welcomed black Americans; others blatantly discriminated against them.
In 1936 a postal employee from Harlem, New York, came up with the idea of producing a guide to integrated or black-friendly establishments. Although initially it focused on businesses in New York State, Victor Green’s guide was such a success that within a year its coverage had spread nationwide. Under a banner of ‘Now we can travel without embarrassment’, The Green Book was particularly helpful to African-Americans who travelled through what were called ‘sunset towns’, which publicly stated that ‘Negroes’ had to leave by sundown or face arrest. Known unofficially as ‘The Grapevine’, the book became the inspiration for that fantastic song, ‘I Heard it through the Grapevine’, recorded by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and of course, in its definitive version, Marvin Gaye.
I went to meet Preston Jackson, an artist and activist who lives and works in Bronzeville, whose family made it across America using The Green Book. I’d intended to ask him about his family’s experiences, but we ended up talking more about the effects of growing old – like those single hairs that grow out of your ears or eyebrows – and the absurdity of Pat Boone singing ‘Tutti Frutti’. This lovely, intelligent, committed, talented man had come to the same conclusion as me and thousands of others: when Boone recorded ‘Tutti Frutti’, that paragon of clean living didn’t have a clue that the song was about prostitution and gay sex. (The original opening lyrics were: ‘A wop bop a loo mop, a good goddamn!/Tutti frutti, loose booty/If it don’t fit, don’t force it/You can grease it, make it easy’!)
Preston has remained militant in the most gentlemanly, pure way. He’s a good man with a very good heart who cares deeply about the culture of his people and he tries to portray it through his art. He showed me his sculptures, many of which portrayed Harlem in its heyday and the years of its decline. We chatted about all sorts of things. Then, at the end of the meeting, my nemesis caught up with me again.
As I mentioned earlier, in America I am often mistaken for one of the Pythons. Don’t ask me why, as I don’t look anything like John Cleese, especially when my long, grey hair is down, as it was that day. Nevertheless, it often happens. People will come up to me and say, ‘Excuse me. Are you John Cleese?’
Or they’ll say, ‘I love your work.’
‘Oh, thanks