I couldn't wait to get to Los Angeles
to get me a zoot suit. I had a pair of drapes but they were too conservative for my countrified taste. As soon as I made my first payday, I started paying on a brown chalkstripe, thirty inches in the knees, with fourteen inch bottoms and a coat down below my knees. I chose the long intermission between matinee and evening performances one Sunday to spring my new suit on the cats in the band, and in my youthful ignorance I thought my zoot suit was going to make a big hit. Feeling very Cab Callowayish, I tipped into the Brownskin Cafe next to the Club Alabam, where some of the cats were enjoying Tila's great chili. The first cat to spot me was Merle Anderson, the tenor sax man, and he almost choked on a mouthful of chili. "What is that shit you got on?"
Thanks for this but links don't appear to be working. Cheers, Wilf
ReplyDeleteSorry. Working now. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteIs the epub version still available (link broken)?
ReplyDeleteTom, just put a new link in the original post.
ReplyDeleteThanks mate, i've been looking for this book for ages.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Mmmmmm....Negro prostitutes, beatings AND whippings AND in-your-face urination! Can't wait to dig into this one! Thanks as always for posting & for broadening my very vanilla horizons : )
ReplyDeleteHeyS&S, sorry if I built up too many sleazy expectations with the post title, the book's really focussed on the Watts riots mixed in with some of Otis' autobiograpical stories, that line comes in a part of the book where he talks about how hung up white folks can be...
ReplyDeleteI read this (library book) in 1971, and it changed my musical life.
ReplyDelete