The First Famous Person In My Life

Who was the first entertainer I ever saw?  I always thought it was in the early-fifties when I snuck under the back end of a juke joint by a muddy creek somewhere on the outskirts near Texarkana.  I’d heard a song some local blacks had played and I could not get the beat out of my head…” Boom, Chaka, Boom Chaka, boom, boom, boom”-- “Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley, Where You Been?” I learned that the man who did this song would be at the Tigers Den, Jaguar Lounge or some other exotic wild animal named place, I think.   Yes, I’d heard the “Great Bo” himself was coming and I just had to see him, but it was the fifties and you just didn’t walk into a club full of black people, especially down south if you were white.  So, I had cruised by the club a couple of times and discovered the rear was propped up on stilts and if I crawled under there….

That night in 1954 was hot and humid, but squeezed up under the back of the joint I could see shadowy flashes of him through the cracks of the floor and a sloping wall bouncing around, and singing from above.  It was noisy, with people stomping on the planked flooring, yetl with the sweat running in my eyes, the mosquitos buzzing, and biting, I got caught up swatting and scratching to this wild music with a beat.  That night I just knew I heard the door to my musical future and history open.  A little later on I’d play that very song on the radio myself.

As I grew older, I’d somehow cemented the Diddley incident as the first singing artist I ever heard or saw in person.  (Hey, sort of seeing movement through the cracks counts doesn’t it?)

Then one day years later in about 1998…my Dad was propped back in his easy chair listening to me tell stories of the Rock and Roll fifties.  In the middle of the Diddley story he interrupted me with, “Nope, son…you’re wrong.  You saw your first famous singing star in the forties.”

Shock!

 My Daddy had been a traveling oil exploration worker; known in the 40’s and 50’s as a, “Doodle bugger.”  He’d live in as many as ten or twelve towns a year, going where ever the oil company thought there might be oil.  Sometimes, he’d pick me up from the fishing camp in the swamps where I was staying with my great-grand parents and take me with him.

His home was a small twenty-one foot plywood box on wheels; he’d pull behind his 1946 Chevy.  It had one tiny bed, in the back separated by a curtain.  In front, a small cot doubled as a place to sit and sleep and

Gorgeous George

the kitchen had a bucket for a sink, a kerosene burner and a wooden tin-lined box that held a block of ice, to keep stuff cold...uh, make that cool.  He said he’d bought it from, “Gorgeous” George.  He was a famous wrestler at the time, who would swagger around the ring throwing out gold bobby-pins from his peroxided platinum-blonde hair to ringside fans.  Daddy even had one of the bobby-pins he’d flash around as proof.

“It was in Opelousas, Louisiana”, Daddy started the story.  “We were parked behind a service station and next door to an empty lot.  One day, workers set up a couple of tents and a stage.  At first I thought it was a small carnival, but it turned out to be the Louisiana Hadacol Caravan.”

Now, if you lived down south in the forties you more than likely had a couple of bottles of this ‘cure-all’ elixir in your home.  Recommend by a doctor, (later uncovered as an ex-convict, who served time for, ‘practicing medicine without a license,’) Hadacol made bizarre claims like, “Two months ago I couldn't read nor write. I took four bottles of Hadacol, and now I'm teaching school."  Really!   Amazing as it sounds, at one time, it was the second most advertised product in America behind Coca Cola.  Stars like Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, Mickey Rooney even Judy Garland and other big names starred in the Hadacol shows.

So, here was this grand medicine show, the last of its kind in the quant town of Opelousas, with its moss-draped Oaks and board-covered sidewalks.  With much anticipation I watched all the banners, flags and flash spread out over the parking lot and that night Daddy took me to the show.

The well-known Dixie Blue Boys opened the show singing the ‘Hadacol Boogie’ (a song which Jerry Lee Lewis would record later), and the tent full of cheering, clapping local folks went wild.  The show had a magic act, followed by a pitch for Hadacol, then another act…a banjo player, and another Hadacol pitch.  On and on it went, a band or a singer, a juggler or another singer or magic act and Hadacol pitches between each act, selling hundreds of bottles of this strange brew.  I’d really been impressed by the clowns and by the Indian Chief with his huge feathered headdress, his tom tom drum dance and his strange chants.  But most of the other acts got a little boring for me.  After all, I was about seven years old and as the night wore on my little dust-filled eyes got heaver.  I rubbed them until gritty tears flowed forming a muddy trail down my face.  The smell of popcorn, cotton candy mixed with the noises of loud music and shouting voices and everything seemed to jumble in my head and—

“That’s when I finally woke you up son.  You missed the biggest act of all that closed the show; The Drifting

Hank Williams

Cowboy himself, one of the biggest legends ever in music, Hank Williams!”

My, my…did I hear that, “Whippoorwill singing”?  Did I hear that, “Lonesome Whistle blow?”  Yeah, somewhat, I reckon.  Did I see that tall, skinny man in the light grey suit and white cowboy hat?  Yes, though it was all fuzzy.   Yes, I also remember the hooting, whistling voices and the thunder of the applause, and then things went black again.  I was in dreamland surrounded by clowns and Indians.

Daddy carried me back to the trailer draped over his shoulder.

Hank Williams, imagine that!

Dave Donahue is a Hall of Fame DJ and Author. He currently writes from his offices in East Texas, just miles from his childhood home. You can contact Dave via his website (new site coming soon) at www.DJDaveDonahue.com, and be sure to follow him at facebook.com/djdavedonahue.