Talk Stories Read online

  After that, Ted Mills told us that though Blue Magic was part of the W.M.O.T. Productions Family in Philadelphia, the group itself is a corporation known as Mystic Dragon. We asked him what W.M.O.T. stands for, and why a corporation is called Mystic Dragon. He said, “W.M.O.T. stands for We Men Of Talent, and they are responsible for our record production. Mystic Dragon means that we own ourselves. It means that Vernon will not just design clothes for Blue Magic or Keith choreograph only for Blue Magic, and Wendell can arrange voices for other people as well. Richard is our accountant, and I can handle corporate business. We are very smart. I was studying law when I first joined the group, and we each read at least one book every four days. We chose the name Mystic Dragon because it reflects Blue Magic. We are in tune with the harmony of man itself. We are what happens when the limited seeks the unlimited. One day, through us, I hope to reveal the secrets of Blue Magic.”

  Just before we left, we told them that Blue Magic’s performance was so appealing it made us wish we had lots of miniature sets of Blue Magic to carry with us wherever we go. They laughed, and Vernon Sawyer said, “That’s such a nice idea we just might start working on it.”

  —August 11, 1975

  A Commercial Party

  The other evening, Revlon, the big cosmetics company, threw a party in the first-floor-accessories department (hats, gloves, scarves, cosmetics, things like that) of Bloomingdale’s, to celebrate the opening of the movie Mahogany, starring Diana Ross, and to introduce a new line of “Orient-inspired” colors, called China Bronze, in their Touch & Glow makeup. Since Miss Ross is the model for Touch & Glow in the movie, we naturally assumed that China Bronze was another line of colors for black women. Great. Black is beautiful, true, but it never hurts to try to be more beautiful. Well, we were wrong.

  At the party, we walked in and immediately had our picture taken by a couple of photographers from Polaroid, who then pasted the photograph on a black piece of cardboard and told us that this framed picture of us was taken by the SX-70 camera. We checked out a rumor that Diana Ross might make an appearance and were told that she was in California, about to have a baby. We looked around and saw Tony Perkins, who also stars in the movie, wearing a denim shirt and denim pants; Ben Vereen, wearing a handsome black velvet suit, which he told us was designed specially for him by Jacques Bellini; Jacques Bellini, wearing a handsome black velvet jacket, which he told us he had designed for himself; some unrecognizable well-dressed, smiling people eating Chinese-style spareribs and fried chicken; lots of other unrecognizable well-dressed, smiling people drinking champagne; and more unrecognizable well-dressed, smiling people watching scenes from Mahogany, on a color television set. What we didn’t see were any black women who looked as if they might be wearing the new China Bronze colors.

  Just as we were about to inquire what, exactly, was going on, a slim, pretty, non-black young woman, wearing a cluster of yellow flowers in her hair, a brightly colored shirt, and black pants, came up to us and said that her name was Kathy Fields, that she was a makeup consultant for Revlon, that she was with the China Bronze “collection,” and that she was actually wearing one of the new hues. We took a good look at her face. It was cherry red, as if she had just stuck it in a hot oven. “I think it’s a dynamite look,” she said.

  “But aren’t these colors for black women?” we asked.

  “Well, yes,” she said. “But—”

  Before she could finish, a very light-complexioned Negro man who was standing nearby jumped in and said, “No, they aren’t.”

  The man introduced himself as Ron Marablé, beauty consultant for Revlon. Then he told us, “They’re not black cosmetics. People are no longer into that. There is no longer such a thing as black cosmetics. We don’t believe there is a different makeup for different people. There are many different skin tones in the world, and black is just one of them. I know. I went to art school for eight years, and then I went to Europe. I did Sophia Loren in Rome. I studied with her makeup artist for a year. I have done Melba Moore, Freda Payne, Nina Simone, Virna Lisi, Nancy Wilson, and—oh, Coretta King. Don’t forget that. She was my favorite—Coretta King. I used to be the beauty editor for Ebony. I used to do before-and-after—I would take a woman and make her over. I would take an ugly woman and make her pretty. But this is a makeup for any woman. Any woman can wear it. We have a range of colors here. Bronze, copper, rust—all the warm earth colors. They’re going over well. On the first day, we sold three thousand dollars. Today, we did twenty-five hundred. And tomorrow we hope to do over three thousand.”

  —October 27, 1975

  Time with Pryor

  Two things we know about Richard Pryor for sure: he is the funniest man in America, and, after Muhammad Ali, he is the baddest person anywhere. “Bad” here does not mean rotten or no good. It means being so extraordinarily good at doing something that for someone to call you the greatest, or anything like that, does not quite measure up to describing how incredible you are. Only the word “bad” will do. For instance, not long ago we saw Pryor performing at the Felt Forum, in Madison Square Garden, and he said things that are usually considered uncomplimentary about blacks, whites, and women, and the audience, which was made up of blacks, whites, and women, laughed and laughed.

  He was in town the other day, and around dinnertime we stopped by his suite at the Regency Hotel for a chat with him. Before we had a chance to say hello, he stuck a finger out and showed us a ring he was wearing and said, “Look at this ring. It’s nice. Ain’t pimpy at all.” We looked. It was a slim, plain gold band decorated with three delicately set diamonds. Then we looked at him. We had never before seen him close up, and noticed that he is quite handsome. He is tall, slim (he was dieting, he said), with a boyish face that is especially nice when he smiles. He was wearing tapered gray trousers, a mottled black-and-white sweater, and brown mules. In his rooms with him were a woman he introduced as his girl friend, his manager, his valet, and his jeweller.

  We spent three hours with him, and during that time this is what happened: he bought a gold necklace with a heart-shaped, diamond-studded pendant for the woman he had introduced as his girl friend; he bought a gold ring for his manager and a gold ring for his valet; he wrote a check for sixteen hundred dollars to his jeweller; he ordered a dinner of sweet-and-sour fish from Greener Pastures, a health-food restaurant not far from the hotel; he picked up his spinach with his bare hands and said with a British accent, “I like my spinach squeeze-dried, don’t you?”; when the telephone rang, he spoke into his mules; during dinner, he watched The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and mimicked Walter Cronkite many times; after dinner, he disappeared for a while with a copy of U.S. News & World Report. When he was not mimicking Walter Cronkite, these are some of the things he said: “I am now a vegetarian. I was standing at the corner of Forty-second Street, and this man came up to me and said, ‘Rise, and go forth and be a vegetarian.’ One thing I can say—I was lucky he didn’t pick my pocket. Vegetables are funny. They have a great sense of humor. You drop their seeds in the ground and they rub around in the dirt and then they grow up and you can eat them. Politicians are always doing things to Negroes. One will be standing on his head, another on his ass, and another on his foot. Politician to Negro: ‘Look, buddy, this is what I can do for you.’ Negro to politician: ‘Man, will you take your foot off my mother?’ I’m trying to figure out things to sell to the Chinese. They don’t dig Joe DiMaggio. How about an album of Mao’s greatest hits? I was born under the sign of funny. I haven’t met the other people born under that sign yet, but I think a couple of them became scientists. You know how I get to be funny? I go to sleep for about a year. I wake up with cobwebs all over my face. I roll them up in a large ball with milk and sugar, eat it quickly, and then I start laughing. People say, What’s so funny? I tell them. They start laughing. Then I have lunch. Some of the things I say are true, some are not, but it all happened.”

  —January 12, 1976

  Bells and Drells
/>   We recently got an early-morning phone call from our friend Weldon Arthur McDougal III. He is the energetic promo man for Philadelphia International Records, the Philadelphia-based, black-owned record company, and he reminded us that once in a conversation with him we had said that, along with Brenda and the Tabulations, Jay and the Techniques, and Martha and the Vandellas, Archie Bell and the Drells, the black singers from Houston, Texas, had the best name for a singing group, and that their two hit songs from the late sixties, “Tighten Up” and “I Can’t Stop Dancing,” had remained in the best-for-dancing category. “Well,” McDougal said, “Archie Bell and the Drells are now with us. They have a new album, and I’m bringing them to town tomorrow to meet New York, and then I’m throwing a party for them at Leviticus.”

  At noon the next day, with McDougal, we hopped over to the Statler Hilton hotel, where Archie Bell and the Drells were staying, to get a daylong view of them. McDougal, who was dressed from head to foot in black, introduced us around—first to Archie Bell and then to Willie Parnell, James Wise, and Lee Bell (Archie’s brother), who make up the Drells. When we were introduced to Archie Bell, he said “Hey, what’s happening, ain’t nothing to it” in one breath. Later, we learned that this is his favorite way of greeting people. We focussed on Archie Bell, because the Drells deferred to him, and because, while the Drells wore a collection of patchwork-denim and polyester outfits, Archie Bell was wearing a smart-looking leisure suit. It was beige, with deep-brown stripes running down the pants legs, and the jacket had darts and tucks that made it fit snugly. After telling us how glad he was to be in New York, he said, “I would like to mention that we have one of the finest tailors in the country. He’s from Houston, Texas, and his name is Johnny Burton. He makes clothes for people like the Temptations and James Brown. He made this suit I am wearing, and he made the suits we are wearing on our album cover—the ones with the little bells all over them.” Then Archie Bell said, “We have been waiting so long to come back. When I had those hit songs ‘Tighten Up’ and ‘I Can’t Stop Dancing,’ I was in the Army, so I couldn’t do any entertaining. When I got out, I was cold. James and Willie and me have been working since we were in high school. We lived in the same neighborhood and went to the same high school. My brother Lee joined the group in 1969. But all the time we didn’t have any hits we were working. We’ve been on the road for three hundred and twenty days out of a year. Sometimes three hundred and fifty. We worked the South a lot. My mother always told us that we could do anything. She has seven children, all of them boys. You ever heard of Ricky Bell? He is a top college football player, and he is my brother.”

  At a quarter to one, McDougal, who had been busy all this time taking pictures, announced that it was time to make the first stop. The first stop was an autographing session at the record store Disc-O-Mat, which was a few blocks away from the hotel, and for the next nine hours this is what Archie Bell and the Drells did: At Disc-O-Mat, they autographed fifty records and about twice that number of publicity stills, and Archie Bell also autographed pictures of Ricky Bell. At a quarter past two, they went to Leviticus for rehearsal. At four o‘clock, they left Leviticus and taxied up to the midtown offices of Cash Box, the music trade magazine, for an interview with a young reporter, who asked them questions like “Do your producers make you feel comfortable in the studio?” and “I’ll confess that I’m a little ignorant about what you guys have been up to, so how about if we kind of clear this up?” On their way out, they met Steve Ostrow, the man who compiles the weekly album charts for Cash Box, and he told them that their new album had just débuted on the charts at No. 183. At five o’clock, the Drells took a taxi to their hotel, and Archie Bell went off to a Nunn Bush shoe store to buy a pair of shoes. At half past six, they were back at Leviticus for the party, wearing the same clothes they had been wearing earlier. There were lots of black people at Leviticus. There were even some easily recognizable black people there. We picked out Lou Rawls, the singer; David Ruffin, the former lead singer of the Temptations; Don Covay, the important R. & B. singer from the sixties; and Harold Melvin, of Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes. At eight o‘clock, Archie Bell and the Drells disappeared into the dressing rooms at Leviticus to change into their show clothes. At half past eight—show time—they reappeared, and they were quite incredible to see. They were wearing identical white skin-tight jumpsuits that had gold studs and brown bells running down the sides, and tight-fitting white bolero jackets over the jumpsuits, and white platform shoes. They sang most of the songs from their new album, plus “Tighten Up” and “I Can’t Stop Dancing.” The audience was very pleased, and cheered and danced. Archie Bell was very pleased. He said to us,”I could do this all day, all night.”

  —February 9, 1976

  Lunchtime

  As the weather around here becomes more unbearable, little ways to divert yourself can become important. Nighttime is not a problem. You can take care of that by accepting every invitation that comes your way. Midday is another matter. What to do about lunch? So far, we have tried having it with different sets of people; we have tried having it with the same set of people; we have tried having it alone; we have tried not having it at all. Just the other day, we tried having our lunch while watching a Theatre at Noon production of Maria Irene Fornes’ play Dr. Kheal at St. Peter’s Church, which is on East Fifty-sixth Street, and this new way of having lunch was far better than anything else we had tried.

  There are two shows put on every weekday—one at a quarter past twelve and the other at a quarter past one. We took the early show. We got to St. Peter’s at noon sharp, taking our lunch along, as we had been given to understand we should do. At the door, we learned that there was no admission charge but that donations were invited. We made our donation, walked in with a sandwich (ham salad) and a soft drink (ginger beer), and hoped for a good time. We got a good time. First of all, the theatre is a dimly lighted room with about fifteen medium-sized round tables, a red tablecloth on each table, and four chairs to each table. When we got there, about ten couples were already seated and were unpacking or eating their lunches. It was very cozy and comfortable-looking. We thought we would wait until the show got under way before we had our lunch, and then we were sorry, because we laughed so much. The show began with a man reading this from a piece of paper: “It is with great pleasure that I welcome Dr. Kheal to Theatre at Noon today. With this visit, Dr. Kheal is completing a cross-country lecture tour, which has taken him to more than fifty universities and colleges. After this lecture Dr. Kheal will be returning to Harvard, where he will resume his position as Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics. I am proud to introduce—Dr. Kheal.” Dr. Kheal came onstage. Dr. Kheal, played by a talented young actor named Richard Hamburger, was wearing formal evening clothes and white shoes with red shoelaces. He looked quite comical. Then he started to act quite comical. He walked over to a blackboard that was already on the stage, drew a large square on it, and wrote in the square lecture topics like “On Poetry,” “On Ambition,” “On Energy,” and “On Truth.” All in all, Dr. Kheal—or Richard Hamburger—was a funny man. Also, he said very funny things. The thing he said that we liked best was on the subject of energy. He said, “How does one do a million small things? One at a time. How does one do a million big things? One at a time. How does one do one big thing? Never.”

  —February 16, 1976

  Free-ee-ee

  We have become interested in a young black woman singer named Deniece Williams. We have become interested in her because she sings in a soft, sexy voice. It is a voice we haven’t heard from young black women singers since the early sixties, when young black women singers sang in groups. We first heard Deniece Williams on the car radio. She was singing a song called “Free.” She sang, “But I just got to be me, free, free-ee-ee.” She sang most of the song in a clear soprano. Then, when she got to the “free-ee-ee” part, she shifted her voice upward—way, way up. It seemed effortless, and completely cool.

  We saw
Deniece Williams the other day. She was in town performing in a concert at the Felt Forum, where she was billed third in a lineup of four acts. We visited her in her dressing room shortly before she went onstage. A few friends and aides were with her. She wore a tight-fitting aqua-blue satin jump suit and gray satin platform shoes. She told us that she is from Gary, Indiana; that she has been living in Los Angeles for the last four years; that she has been singing since she was five; that she started singing in church; that when she was seventeen years old she had a job as a salesgirl in a record store, would sing along with the records, and began to think of singing professionally; that years ago she recorded two singles for a label called Toddlin’ Town; that she sang backup for Stevie Wonder for three years; and that she now writes all the songs she sings.

  As she told us these things, she mixed some hot water, lemon juice, and honey in a cup. Then she went into the bathroom and closed the door. From where we were, we could hear her sing in her upper register, “God is truly amazing.” She sang this over and over, sometimes stretching out and emphasizing the word “amazing.” Then she sang some la-la-la-las in the upper register. When she came out of the bathroom, she said “Yuk.”

  Half an hour before she was due onstage, her road manager told her that, because of scheduling confusion, she would have to go on second and could do only a twenty-minute set, instead of thirty-five, as she had expected.