sponsored in part by
Page 5
Daddy, on the other hand, was a worker. He was good at his job at the Blackstone Hotel, which was really a very prestigious place in our town, and he also worked sometime at the country club. It was my father who actually got me on the right path toward singing professionally. You see, he knew this white lady who lived at the Blackstone Hotel. My father introduced me to this lady and she told me that she was an organ and piano player and she played in a local radio station. She had a big old suite up at the Blackstone Hotel. After she heard my voice she asked me to come rehearse with her and put some songs down and perhaps get a chance to be on the radio.
I was really shocked and really pleased and really happy about my Dad getting this opportunity for me. This lady actually wanted me to sing on this radio show that she worked on. And I said, sure, but I thought, how in the hell am I going to get upstairs to her suite. Black people, except employees, were not allowed in the Blackstone Hotel. So my father devised a way and somehow he made it happen. My father was one of the few black people that worked at the hotel. There were only about four or five other black men that worked there, they were bellhops and my Dad was their bellcaptain.
He also had another little business on the side that the Blackstone Hotel did not know about. He sold bootleg liquor to the guests there because Tyler was, and has always been and still is a dry town. Very Bible Belt.
Nearby there was another town called Kilgore, Texas, that was wet and you could get all the liquor you needed there. And on the other side of Tyler, there was another town called Gladewater, Texas, which was wet, too. Daddy would go there to either one of those towns at night and come back with so many half pints you couldn't believe it. Sometimes he’d get maybe four or five cases, filling up the trunk of the old car and even the back seat, although legally you were only allowed to bring a case into town for your own use and and at home. Daddy would take his supply right over to the Blackstone Hotel and hide it, and he would sell it until he was sold out. Somehow Dad never got busted for selling liquor there at the hotel. And as far as I know, no one was any the wiser.
In later years, as an entertainer, I used to go places all across the United States that were dry and I would immediately approach the black bellcaptain and say, "Listen, I'm performing in this town, where can you get me a drink?" They'd always respond, "Well, man, go on down to a place over there called Big Mama's or at Stricklands and tell them that I sent you." I would get any kind of drink I wanted. Where there was a will, there was always a way. I guess my father had the will
to get me upstairs into the Blackstone Hotel so that I could make a way for myself in this world.
Daddy used to make a pretty good little extra income on the side with his bootleg liquor business. That's how we were all fed. If it wasn't for his little extra money, we would not eat because his salary at the hotel was pitiful, and the tips he got averaged between a nickel and ten cents, which really was not much at all.
The very first time I went to rehearse, I was able to go straight upstairs by myself to her suite. My Dad had gone on and said to me, "Go on up, nothin's gonna happen to you, I'm taking care of it.." And no one tried to stop me. And nobody bothered me. Not, one person said a thing. I guess it was since my dad worked there. Maybe that's why nobody said anything, but I never knew how he arranged it.
I'd go there constantly and we would rehearse for a few hours singing all types of songs. We would do things like Stardust and classical material, things like I'll Be Seeing You, If I Didn't Care, My Prayer, and all the really pretty ballads and love songs like that. I really enjoyed doing love songs and ballads, and that kind of big band, Frank Sinatra type song.
We continued to rehearse at the Blackstone Hotel for some time until she felt that we had a good enough repertoire to go on the radio. And go on radio we did. Every morning, Monday til 1 o'clock, Friday at 10 o'clock, I was the featured singer on the radio. They would say, Presenting Carl Gardner, and I'd just come in and do this little radio spot.
Word spread around town and everybody at 10 o'clock had their radio tuned into that station to hear me sing some of the prettiest songs ever written. I never got paid a dime but I didn't care, I’d just go in there and sing. I loved it. Now that I look back, she must have been getting paid, but I was a child, I didn't know. And in those days you really didn't know what was happening. I was just so proud to be singing on the radio, to finally be heard by a multitude of people.
CHAPTER ONE
BLACK GOLD TEXAS TEA