chitlin' circuit (Dec. 1966)

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue Feb 18 05:43:42 UTC 2014


On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 1:34 AM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> This isn't exactly what Lou Rawls was talking
> about in the '60s, but it's a significant predecessor.
>

I know what Rawls was talking about. Saint Louis was a major stop on that
circuit. Did y'all know that Ray Charles, among his other talents, could
also play the saxophone? I saw him do it at the old Club Riviera, back in
'55. He also played something called an "electric piano." a term and an
instrument that was new to me. A casual Googling traces the term and the
instrument back to ca. 1909: "... the International Electric Piano Company,
a corporation having its office in the city of St. Louis ..."

Youneverknow.

The question is, what was Sachs talking about? Just the South in general?
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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