{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/iiif/jq0sq8r471/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["James Thomas Dorsey oral history, 2002 September 30"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/008/original/peabody-institute.logo.large.horizontal.blue.cropped.png?1549570058","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":[" James T. Dorsey (1908-2010) is interviewed about his friendship and work with Isaiah (Ike) Dixon Sr., owner of the Comedy Club on Pennsylvania Avenue, and about other music clubs on the Avenue and his encounters with touring musicians such as Lionel Hampton and Dusty Fletcher. Dorsey owned a gas station on Pennsylvania Avenue for 31 years and was well known in the community. (Abstract)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":[" 2002 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":[" Dorsey, James Thomas, 1908-2010 (Interviewee)"," Davis, Daniel Thomas (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":[" English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["audio/mp3"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["The collection is open for use. Contact peabodyarchives@lists.jhu.edu for more information."]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://aspace.library.jhu.edu/repositories/4/archival_objects/215348"]}}],"summary":{"en":[" James T. Dorsey (1908-2010) is interviewed about his friendship and work with Isaiah (Ike) Dixon Sr., owner of the Comedy Club on Pennsylvania Avenue, and about other music clubs on the Avenue and his encounters with touring musicians such as Lionel Hampton and Dusty Fletcher. Dorsey owned a gas station on Pennsylvania Avenue for 31 years and was well known in the community."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["The collection is open for use. Contact peabodyarchives@lists.jhu.edu for more information."]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/008/original/peabody-institute.logo.large.horizontal.blue.cropped.png?1549570058","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/117/403/small/dorsey.jpg?1649884324","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 2 - pims0091_DorseyJT_01.mp3"]},"duration":3026.05061,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/117/403/small/dorsey.jpg?1649884324","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/403/original/pims0091_DorseyJT_01.mp3?1624270811","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":3026.05061,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Dorsey1_OHMS_20220113 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DANIEL DAVIS: All right. Today is Monday, September 30, 2002. I'm here with Mr.\nJames T. Dorsey. Thanks, Mr. Dorsey. All right.\n\nJAMES THOMAS DORSEY: You let that thing go.\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. We should be able to go. So, you grew up here in Baltimore?\n\nDORSEY: How's that?\n\nDAVIS: Were you born here in Baltimore?\n\nDORSEY: I was born in Howard County.\n\nDAVIS: Howard County.\n\nDORSEY: Ellicott City. Just four miles above Ellicott City. See, my father was a\nchauffeur and overseer for General Charles D. Gaither, which was the first\npolice commissioner of Baltimore City, and he worked there twenty-seven years.\nOf course, I was born on the place, and in 1922, when I was coming out that\none-room schoolhouse out there in Howard County, my father had some ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=0.0,60.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ladies out\nthere clean up Mr. Gaither's house for him, and I brought this little diploma in\nthere, and one of the ladies said, \"John, what are you going to do with him\nnow?\" See, the Lord had us standing there because my father said, \"I don't know\nwhat I'm going to do, but I'm going to have to do something because he can't\nstop school now. He's got to keep on.\" She spoke up and said, \"Why don't you let\nhim come stay with me? I can be his aunt. I'll be his aunt and he can stay with\nme, and get in.\" Because in those days, Maryland, with twenty-three counties,\nhad one colored high school, and that was in Baltimore City. It didn't even have\na name. Baltimore City Colored High School. And she said okay, and that's what\nhappened. I come here and went to high school.\n\nDAVIS: I see. So you're growing up in Howard County, in the country, I'm\nguessing. So you lived on the--did you live--\n\nDORSEY: Gaither's place.\n\nDAVIS: Okay, you lived out on Mr. Gaither's place.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=60.0,120.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DORSEY: My father lived on Gaither's place. We didn't have to pay rent. We had\neverything we needed. Plenty of vegetables, plenty of chickens, plenty of hogs,\nplenty of everything we need. I never knew anything about any depression, to\ntell the truth, because my father made everything possible for us, and we stayed\nthere until all of us got grown and we went to work.\n\nI don't want to sound egotistical or bragging, but we didn't have no hard times\ncoming along, as far as living concerns. Of course, it was segregation anyway.\nIt was and it still is. I'm not talking about the end of it. But we had a good\ntime because we didn't want for anything. I don't want to sound like I'm\nbragging about our life, but we didn't want for a thing. My father and mother\nhad everything for us we needed. And I come in here, and I went to school, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=120.0,180.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and I\nhad twenty-five cents on Fridays to get home with, and car fare was seven cents\nthose days, and it was three fares from Baltimore to Ellicott City, and when I\ngot to Ellicott City, I had four cents and I'd go into Yates' store and get four\ncents' worth of gingersnaps and walk the four miles home.\n\nDAVIS: That's great.\n\nDORSEY: Because I wouldn't stay away from my mother and father. I just\nloved--Sundays they'd put me in the--my father had a brand new Ford in 1922, and\nhe put me in that and bring me back into Vine Street.\n\nDAVIS: I see.\n\nDORSEY: I have had a beautiful life with my father and mother.\n\nDAVIS: So, when did you come into Baltimore City?\n\nDORSEY: When did I come in?\n\nDAVIS: How old were you?\n\nDORSEY: I was thirteen.\n\nDAVIS: Thirteen years old.\n\nDORSEY: Thirteen.\n\nDAVIS: You'd gone to a county school?\n\nDORSEY: I was going to the school up there. It was a one-room schoolhouse. But\ncoming here, I went to 110 Waesche Street School when I first came in here, and\nthen I went from there on out to high school.\n\nDAVIS: That was Douglass.\n\nDORSEY: It wasn't Douglass then. It was Baltimore City Colored High School. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=180.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And\nthen after they built the school at Baker and Calhoun, then they named that\nschool Douglass. But this school that I went to at first and graduated from\ndidn't have no name and them kind of things.\n\nDAVIS: Right. Tell me a little bit about your experience in high school.\n\nDORSEY: High school. My experience in high school was a pleasure because I think\nwe had the finest teachers that was in any high school or anywhere else. I\ndidn't have any trouble learning. Bobby Deak [phonetic] was the president of the\nclass and Helen Hope [phonetic] was the valedictorian, and I had a pleasure\nthose four years I spent in high school.\n\nAnd when I come out of high school, I wanted to go to Lincoln because everybody,\nall my friends, was going up there, but there wasn't no money, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=240.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"so I went over to\nthe Baltimore City Training School. I was going over and I'd tell my father, I\nsaid, I'll go over here because we won't have to pay. When I got over there,\nthere wasn't but one man in the whole school. That was Cutie Brown [phonetic].\nAnd he turned out to be a very important person because he was a coach and he\nplayed basketball and went to Morgan, finished Morgan, and then he went to some\nother college. We're still friends today.\n\nDAVIS: Oh, great. Wow!\n\nDORSEY: And he's still living and I'm--[laughs]. He's a fine fellow. I knew his\nbrothers and all. But I quit. I couldn't go. I said I can't go over here. There\nain't but one man in the whole school. And I went to work. I went to night\nschool for four more years, and then I went in the army and come out and I\nopened up that filling station.\n\nDAVIS: What was West Baltimore like when you first moved in?\n\nDORSEY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=300.0,360.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Baltimore?\n\nDAVIS: Where were you? Were you on the Avenue?\n\nDORSEY: Well, when I first come into Baltimore, at that age, I worked at a job\nworking for Mr. Young down on Fremont Avenue. He had an ice cream store down\nthere, and I worked for him after school hours, and then I set duckpins down on\nEutaw Street at nights when I didn't have too much work. But it was a pleasure\nfor me. I had a good time because the whole time up at high school, I had plenty\nof friends, and it was a pleasure for me. But I wasn't going to put a weight on\nmy mother and father to send me to Lincoln, and I just went on to work, and I\ntold them I'd make it. But I made it. I made it all right. Absolutely. It was a\npleasure to me to have the kind of people that I had.\n\nI had the best mother and father in the world ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=360.0,420.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"because they were good to me and\n[saw] that I got everything. And when I got to be a man, I tried to turn it\naround. I was just like them, with them, that way. But I didn't have no hard\nlife coming on. A whole lot of people say they had a hard time. I didn't have\nit. Because there's no use me saying I had a hard time because my mother and\nfather looked out for me. I had an older brother and a sister, and they treated\nme like I was a king. There's no use in me telling you that I had a hard time. I\ndidn't. I didn't have no hard time coming up.\n\nDAVIS: Right. Did you have any music in your family when you were a kid?\n\nDORSEY: Music?\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. As a child.\n\nDORSEY: Well, I played. My sister played piano and organ. We always had an\norgan. I was learning on the clarinet. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=420.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But I didn't stick with it long enough. I\ngot rid of it. I didn't stick with the clarinet long enough. But other than\nthat, I didn't have any--I used to always fool around with music because I was\nwith Ike Dixon and [Littleton B.] Gamby all the time going places. We used to go\nas far as Virginia. Ike used to book bands all over the country. He booked bands\neverywhere, and I used to drive him, and he was nice to me. He'd give me money\nwhen I didn't have any. It was a nice thing.\n\nI had a friend named Harrison Logan that was with Gamby like I was with Ike, and\nwe used to all go together. And it was just a lovely--I never had no hardship\ndoing nothing like that.\n\nDAVIS: Who was the first person you encountered in terms of bands and music and\nPennsylvania Avenue culture and all that stuff? Who was the first person who got\nyou into all that?\n\nDORSEY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=480.0,540.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, the first person for that was Ike Dixon.\n\nDAVIS: Really? How old were you?\n\nDORSEY: Ike Dixon was--I remember when I was working around with Ike, there was\na church on the comer of Pennsylvania Avenue and Mosher Street, and I told Ike\none day, I said, \"Ike, I'd sure like to tear that church down and put a filling\nstation there.\" I had no idea in my life that ever a filling station would be\nthere. And finally they tore the church down, years and years after that, and\nbuilt a station there, and I didn't have nothing to do with it because Chandler\nWynn and his brother had it. He had the station, and I was a friend of his. When\nI come out of the army, that's when I found out that they was trying to open up\nthat station again. They had had some trouble with the stamps during the war. He\nhad the option. I got with Chandler and got a deal through him, and he got the\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=540.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"station for me right there at Pennsylvania Avenue and Mosher Street. And after\nthat I got four fellows stations through the company that I was working for.\n\nDAVIS: You had four stations in Baltimore.\n\nDORSEY: I didn't have them. I had the one, but my friends [did]. I made contact\nwith Jim Jones and Brown, and there was another fellow. They got stations. They\ngot their stations. I recommended them to the company, and they got gas\nstations. But I had mine thirty-one years there on the Avenue.\n\nI seen all them bands come here. They'd come there at that station. I remember\nDusty Fletcher coming there one night. Had people there. I thought I'd have to\nclose up because the people--he was calling somebody in New York, and when he\nwas talking to that person in New York, he talked just like he was on the stage\n[laughs]. And people got to laughing. He was funny. It really was funny.\n\nTruthfully speaking, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=600.0,660.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I was there thirty-one years, but I had a good time for\nthose thirty years selling gasoline.\n\nDAVIS: What all did you do on Pennsylvania Avenue before you opened the station?\n\nDORSEY: Before I opened my station?\n\nDAVIS: Did you go to the clubs? Did you go to the Royal?\n\nDORSEY: Before I opened my station, I was on the Avenue every time I got out of\nhigh school, and then after I finished high school, I was on there. I had a\nfriend named Harrison Logan. Him and I was on the Avenue every night because L.\nB. Gamby had a rhythm club on the Avenue and there [was] where we used to hang\nout. And I was on the Avenue all the time.\n\nDAVIS: What was the name of the rhythm club?\n\nDORSEY: That was Gamby's rhythm club. He used to have the guys in there. We\nplayed cards in there all the time and everything. And Harrison was with Gamby\nlike I was with Ike, and they used to promote dances all over the country and\neverything, and we used to drive them. And I had a good time on the Avenue.\nThen, when I opened up my business, of course I knew everybody on the Avenue.\nAnd the Royal ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=660.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Theatre was in bloom. I got the history of that now. Should never\nhave tore it down. It was a terrible thing.\n\nJ. C. Bailey was in the Alhambra, and Ike had the Comedy Club, and Willie had\nthe Casino, and Gamby had the club down there on Pennsylvania Avenue near Miss\nGreb's [phonetic] confectionary store. She had been on the Avenue, her and Mr.\nGreb had been there on Pennsylvania, moved across the street from me. They had\nbeen on the Avenue for years and years and years. And finally, one of them died\nand they closed up. They tore all that down now. But I was on the Avenue when\neverything was--\n\nDAVIS: Everybody was there. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=720.0,780.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Everybody you knew was on the Avenue. I assume you'd\nget off work and then you'd go?\n\nDORSEY: Well, when I got off work, I used to have to go home. I had to go home\nbecause I was full of gasoline and I had to take a bath. See, I had gotten\nmarried. I got married in '42 and I went in the army. Got married on a Tuesday\nand went in the army on Thursday [laughs].\n\nDAVIS: I see. Wow! Did getting married have anything to do with going into the army?\n\nDORSEY: No. What happened, I had been going with my wife. She came out of high\nschool the same year I did, but I wasn't going with her then. But I had been\ngoing with her for ten years.\n\nDAVIS: My goodness.\n\nDORSEY: I tried to tell her that I was going in the army and I'd come out or get\na furlough and get married. And she said, no, you're getting married before you\ngo in the army. And I don't know how she knew it, but it was the smartest thing\nto do, because ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=780.0,840.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"after I got in the army, I found out if you come in there\nmarried, you go to the personnel and get everything straightened out right then\nand all. But if you wait until you get in, get married after you get in there,\nit's hard to get yourself straightened out. And I was glad for that.\n\nShe lived until 1958 in this house, and she died sudden. My wife died sudden.\nAnd I got married again and stayed married ten more years, and that wife died\nwith the cancer. So I don't have a wife now.\n\nDAVIS: In high school or shortly thereafter, you go to Pennsylvania Avenue, you\ngo to Gamby's. You listen to music, you play cards. Was this every night a week?\n\nDORSEY: When I was in high school, most of the time I would go to Howard County\n[at the] ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=840.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"time I got out of school, see. But the time I spent on the Avenue,\nafter that I spent every night on there. Before I even thought about opening\nup--because I went to night school, and I'd come back down on the Avenue. And\nevery night when school closed I used to come down there on the Avenue. I'd\nleave my books in Gamby's place and then we'd be on the Avenue or the Comedy\nClub or anywhere else, or J. C. Bailey's at the Alhambra. Keys had a club at the\nMoonglow. All those things. And Willie had opened up the Casino. Everything was\non the Avenue. We just could have a good time on the Avenue. And I was on the\nAvenue every night, every day. And then after I got the filling station, that\nwas my job on the Avenue. I worked on the Avenue then and I kept that thirty-one\nyears. It's not on the Avenue now. Nothing to it now.\n\nDAVIS: What would you do in the Comedy Club, for example?\n\nDORSEY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=900.0,960.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In the Comedy Club?\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. You'd go in, you'd sit down. What do you do?\n\nDORSEY: What we did in the Comedy Club--we had Earl Brown, who was the bartender\nat the Comedy Club, and the bar was on the second floor. And I'd go in there and\nleave my books. Ike and I were real close friends. I never did drink too much. I\nnever did drink, but we had a drink that we called Earl Brown's drink, a little\nsomething with gin in it or something. But I never did drink too much. We'd go\nin there and stay in there with all them waitresses and everything. We just had\na good time in the Comedy Club. It was just one of them things. Ike would just\nlet us have a good time. We used to hang in there every night. That was every\nnight after school.\n\nBut I had a good time on the Avenue. I never did dream when I was on the Avenue\nthat I was going to open up a business on the Avenue and stay in the business\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=960.0,1020.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"thirty-one years on the Avenue. I didn't. But the day I opened up my station--I\nhad told Ike Dixon one time I said we ought to tear that church down over there\nand open a filling station. Top of my head. And the day I opened up the filling\nstation, Ike was in the Providence Hospital getting his leg taken off. He had to\ntake one of his legs off. And when somebody went around there and told him that\nI was opening up, he said, \"Ain't that something. That guy said\nhe'd--[laughter]. He mentioned that years ago.\" And Ike and I was close friends\nuntil he died. Yeah.\n\nDAVIS: How did you meet Ike Dixon?\n\nDORSEY: It's like going to New Albert and places and all. I can't even remember\nwhen I didn't know him. I never can remember when I didn't know Ike Dixon. He\nused to have dances, promote dances at the New Albert Hall [at] the time they\nbuilt it. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1020.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then Gamby was promoting dances at the Odd Fellows the time they\nbuilt that. I knew him all my life, looked like to me. He lived at 717 Dolphin\nStreet. He was friendly. And after I got out of school, I used to do things for\nhim. He'd give me money. See, I'd work for him.\n\nDAVIS: Well, what was New Albert like?\n\nDORSEY: New Albert?\n\nDAVIS: Was it like the Comedy Club?\n\nDORSEY: New Albert was--a man named Mr. Carpenter had that built. He was an\ninsurance man. He built that and it was one of the most beautiful recreation\nplaces. They had a dance hall--you had to go upstairs. I don't know why they\never tore it down. I don't know. And they had things down under the bottom. I\nthink Ike had an office in there one time under the Albert. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1080.0,1140.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It was a beautiful\nplace. They tore it down for some reason. I don't know why they tore it down.\nBut that's one of the biggest places they had to have dances at until they built\nthe Strand Ballroom. And then they used to have dances in there and all. And\nthere was Ike Dixon, Gamby, and Miss Reed [phonetic]. They promoted the most of\nthe dances in Baltimore City around there.\n\nDAVIS: So they had live music at the dances, I'm assuming.\n\nDORSEY: Oh, they used to have live music. They used to have a band. See, Ike had\na band. He had an orchestra. He used to play--he used to go New York and\neverywhere else.\n\nDAVIS: Philadelphia. I know he went there.\n\nDORSEY: With his band. And one year he won the cup.\n\nDAVIS: That was the Philadelphia one, I think.\n\nDORSEY: [Laughs] He went up there and won the cup one time. He just was a nice\nfellow. Ike was a fine man. I don't care what you say, anybody saying things\nabout him. He just was a fine man. He gave a whole lot of people chances. A\nwhole ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1140.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"lot of guys. Wallace Jones, that played with Duke Ellington's band, he\nworked for Ike a long time. Ike helped a lot of people. He was in business and\nhe helped a lot of people out. He was fine man. He was my friend anyhow. I don't\ncare what they say. You got the history of the New Albert, I guess.\n\nDAVIS: Little bit. Not as much. A lot of people don't remember the New Albert. I\nthink it was before a lot of people--\n\nDORSEY: How about the Royal?\n\nDAVIS: The Royal, yeah.\n\nDORSEY: How about the Royal Theatre?\n\nDAVIS: Oh, absolutely.\n\nDORSEY: You got the history of that, haven't you?\n\nDAVIS: Now, tell me about you and the Royal. When would you go to the Royal? Did\nyou go a lot?\n\nDORSEY: I never did go a whole lot, but I used to go down there and see a good\nshow. My wife used to go to the movies. My first wife, she always loved the\nmovies all the time. I remember the Cinemascope was at the Regent Theater. I had\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1200.0,1260.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"to go with her that night, and Henry Hornstein, him and his father, owned that,\na Jewish gentleman. They owned the Regent Theater. And when I walked in with my\nwife, Henry spoke to my wife, because he knew her, and he said, \"I'll see you\nagain, but God knows when I'll see him!\" [Laughter] Because he knew I didn't go\nto the movies. See, I didn't like the movies. My wife used to love the movies.\nWhen the one over on Gilmor Street opened up, she used to go over there. But I\nused to go maybe once a week on Sundays. Sunday afternoon I'd go. She went over\nthere. And I went with her to see the Cinemascope or something that opened, I\nsaw that, but I didn't bother going to movies on the Avenue.\n\nIt was a pleasure getting to the Avenue. When you did what you had to do,\nnighttime--like I was going to night school, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1260.0,1320.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and by the time I got through that,\nI went right down to Gamby's, put my books in the office, and then we'd be\nthere. We'd play cards and [they] had a pool table in there and every other thing.\n\nDAVIS: How long would you be there?\n\nDORSEY: I'd stay there until maybe ten, eleven o'clock. Some nights twelve\no'clock. Because I had to get up and go to work the next morning.\n\nDAVIS: Bet you're tired if you've been working all day and then you party all\nnight. [Laughter]\n\nDORSEY: See, I never had a job that took too much energy, to tell you the truth.\nI always was a chauffeur or something like that. I worked in Guilford. I stayed\nout there almost ten years I worked out there while I was going to night school.\nI worked for old man Dietrich and I was a chauffeur. I didn't do no hard work. I\nused to have to cut the lawns and all that stuff, but I'd drive the car. I could\nhang out nighttime and then it wouldn't be too hard ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1320.0,1380.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"to go into work the next\nday, like going to Sparrows Point or some place like that.\n\nI used to study a whole lot. When my youngest sister was coming out of high\nschool in the daytime, I had spent four more years nighttime, in night high\nschool. Because I wanted to go to Lincoln University. I never stopped studying.\nI never stopped. The guys all laughed at me because they said I told them I had\nto learn Lincoln's Gettysburg Address before I could get into high school.\nThat's what they told me, but they never asked for it. And one guy said, \"He\nstill knows it!\" I said, well, anything you ever learned you should know.\n\nDAVIS: You still know it now?\n\nDORSEY: [Laughs] And I know some of Longfellow's poems. I'd tell the guys, \"Tell\nme not in mournful numbers, life is but an empty dream, and the soul is dead\nthat slumbers, things are ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1380.0,1440.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"not\"--I know that whole poem, see. And sometime you\nhave to get out and make a speech, you got to rely on a poem. I'd go away with\nthe Masonic order, and I've been in there for over fifty years, and they all\nknow me because I'm an old-timer. And they might ask me to have something to\nsay, and if you know some poems, one of them will fit right in.\n\nI remember down in Virginia, I went down there with the grandmaster Redding, and\nall them old-timers down there knew me and they come over and say they want me\nto have something to say. I say, well, there's the grandmaster sitting over\nthere. Let him talk. When they said something to him, he said go back and tell\nhim that. I got right up and I remembered one of them poems that would fit right\nin with what they were doing. That saves you a lot of times. I tell these guys\ntoday, you ought to get yourself a book of poems and learn some of them, so if\nyou have to speak out someplace, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1440.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"don't be stupid, you just rely on one of the\npoems. And they always fit in. I don't have no problem with learning all that stuff.\n\n[FAINT RUMBLING]\n\nDAVIS: Is that the train?\n\nDORSEY: Sounds like thunder out there.\n\nDAVIS: Yeah, it does. So you're chauffeur for a while, right? You're\nchauffeuring around and then you decide--\n\nDORSEY: I chauffeured for a good while. I had a brother-in-law--he wasn't my\nbrother-in-law; he was a friend of mine. He wind up being my brother-in-law\nbecause I married his wife's sister. A fellow named Duke Bell. We opened a place\non Arlington Avenue, wash rack and all like that.\n\nDAVIS: That's in South Baltimore, isn't it?\n\nDORSEY: No, that's right up in West Baltimore. That wasn't getting me anyplace,\nso I said I'm going to work for--my father always wanted me to work for the\ngovernor if I wasn't going to be in business. So I went to Curtis B. as a\nmessenger for the governor, and I had a good job. And that's where I stayed\nuntil I got drafted. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1500.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I got drafted, and I got married on a Tuesday and I went in\nthe army on Thursday, and I stayed in there going on four years or more. I come\nout in 1955, I got out the army, because my father died in '54. I come out in\n'55. And when I got out the army, I went back to my job, and the job wasn't like\nI left it. It was an easy job, see? And so many guys want it, and they mess it\nup. And so I stayed there a while and I opened up my filling station. And that\nwas it. And I did that for thirty-one years and retired.\n\nDAVIS: Well, let's get started. Tell me about this filling station. I guess you\ngot out and you said, \"I want to open up a station on Pennsylvania Avenue\"?\n\nDORSEY: Well, what happened, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1560.0,1620.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"when I got out, I used to go with--I knew Chandler\nWynn, and I asked him about what happened. And he said that they had to close it\nup, but I found out they closed it up on account of they were doing something\nwith the stamps that they wasn't supposed to do. You see?\n\nDAVIS: A little illicit business practice, I guess.\n\nDORSEY: So I told him I'll get it and we'll go in [as] partners. So he wanted to\nlend me the money to open it up. So I said, \"Well, Chandler, Mamie has saved\nevery nickel I sent home, and I think I got enough money to open it up.\" But he\nlent me $842, and I paid him back in less than six months. Because when I opened\nthat station up, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1620.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I couldn't hardly get enough gas to sell. That's how much gas I\nwas selling. Because there wasn't [crosstalk]--\n\nDAVIS: Well, there's so much traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue.\n\nDORSEY: Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. So I got to going, and so I told\nhim--of course, he wanted a lifetime partnership. But I had Calvin Douglass, a\nfriend of mine, a lawyer, a manager, down at Northwestern, to draw me up a paper\nthat [said] I would stay and split the profits with him for five years, and\nthat's what I did. And after five years, he didn't have no more to do with me,\nand I paid him back his eight hundred and some dollars, and we just stayed\nfriends and he didn't get nothing. And I'd run that filling station. And it was\nvery good. There was no filling station like it on Pennsylvania Avenue, you see?\nSo that was it.\n\nDAVIS: Well, who were some of the first people who you started having coming\nthrough your station? Who all came to your station? Who were the first ones?\n\nDORSEY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1680.0,1740.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Everybody in Baltimore. I had customers in East Baltimore, West\nBaltimore, North Baltimore. If you wanted to see anybody in Baltimore that stood\nfor anything, he would pass that corner one time in the day.\n\nDAVIS: Now is this the same corner with what's-his-face's deli--Brinsfield's\ndeli on the other side?\n\nDORSEY: Who was that?\n\nDAVIS: Brinsfield's deli. Is that the same corner?\n\nDORSEY: Brinsfield?\n\nDAVIS: There was a deli, I think, on Pennsylvania Avenue, too, that a lot of\npeople went to. The guy with the submarine sandwich. Harley something, I think.\n\nDORSEY: No. What I did--Miss Greb was over on the other corner, and Jim Bumby\n[phonetic] got it after. After she got it, Jim Bumby had the place, and he used\nto sell food and all that kind of stuff. But that was the only really lunchroom\nright close to me. Because the Alhambra, J. C. Bailey, he had a lunchroom in his\nplace at Smithton Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1740.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And Willie and them served\nsomething to eat in the Casino. You could get something to eat in there. But\nthose were the only places right close to me.\n\nDAVIS: So did you have a lot of people just sitting around during the day and talking?\n\nDORSEY: No. You see, what happened, there was always somebody there, but very\nfew people hanging around my place. Dr. Carr was one who used to come every day.\nDr. Carr and Dr. Sykes from East Baltimore. He was in the 1200 block of Preston\nStreet, and he'd come to my place around two o'clock in the evening and stay for\ntwo hours. And Dr. Carr--because when my wife died, he came in to have a card\nparty and couldn't get in. And I was in J. J.'s barbershop and they come in over\nthere and got me and told me to come over here and they couldn't get in. So I\nrun down to the station and got Dr. Carr and come over here, and my wife was\ndead in the bathtub.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1800.0,1860.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But all of them used to come. They used to have somebody there every day sitting\naround. I'd be selling gas. I didn't stay in there with them talking. It was a\ncrowd in there nearly every day like that. In there arguing and raising hell and\nall that stuff [laughs]. But I wasn't in there with them unless it was a day\nthat things was going slow. And then they'd kid me about it. See, what I would\ndo, I'd come through there and start something, say something, and then I'd be\ngone doing my business, and they'd be in there arguing--[laughs]\n\nDAVIS: You'd come in and you'd hear them still talking.\n\nDORSEY: And it was a pleasure. I used to have a lot of fun with them. I had a\nlot of fun down there. It was a filling station and livelihood, but it was a\npleasure for me. I had a good time for thirty-one years there with the people.\n\nDAVIS: What musicians came through that you met? Who were some of the--who stick\nout in your mind?\n\nDORSEY: Well, all of them. I tell you, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1860.0,1920.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Lionel Hampton come through with his\nband. His whole band came through. And Dusty Fletcher came up. Anything went to\nthe Royal Theatre, they would stop there, all the bands.\n\nDAVIS: Well, that was everybody. Everybody went to the Royal.\n\nDORSEY: [Laughs] All of them would stop there. If they had a car, they'd get\ntheir gasoline there. And if they didn't, somebody that hangs around the filling\nstation would bring them up there for no good reason at all, and then we'd be\nthere arguing and kidding and talking. It was a pleasure. The days went like it\nwas two, three hours.\n\nDAVIS: Well, tell me about Dusty.\n\nDORSEY: Who?\n\nDAVIS: Tell me about Dusty.\n\nDORSEY: Who?\n\nDAVIS: Dusty Fletcher.\n\nDORSEY: Dusty Fletcher. He came in my place one night, and he was going to call\nNew York. And when he said \"Hello, baby,\" everybody had to go out the place.\n[Laughter] He was just like he was on the stage. He said \"Hello, baby.\" Boy, the\nguys went every which way because they didn't want to laugh while he was in\nthere talking on the phone! ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1920.0,1980.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I laughed.\n\nDusty Fletcher came in there. Joe Louis came to my place. I got his picture\naround here somewhere. That guy had the biggest hands. My God! He shook hands\nwith me, and he just wrapped around my hand. [Laughter] Yeah, he came in there.\n\nAll of them. If anybody came to Baltimore, most of them stopped there. Because\nthere wasn't but one station. We didn't have but one station.\n\nDAVIS: And they wouldn't just stop and have somebody get gas. They'd stop and\nget out and talk.\n\nDORSEY: Get out and talk. Get out and talk. All of them would get out. If they'd\ncome in there, I'd raise some kind of conversation with them to hold them up for\na few minutes. You know? Yeah, I knew all those guys.\n\nDAVIS: Did they want to talk? I mean, a lot of the younger artists, they have\nthese bodyguards and they don't want to talk to anybody.\n\nDORSEY: Well, them old-timers would talk to you. When Dusty Fletcher come in\nthere that night, I thought I'd have to close up, because he started to talk to\nthat lady on the telephone, everybody got laughing. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=1980.0,2040.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It was funny. It really was\nfunny. My time at that station was a pleasure. I had a good time there. Of\ncourse, I was making a livelihood. Still, I moved over. I opened up there in\n'47, and I moved here in 1950.\n\nDAVIS: This house?\n\nDORSEY: Mmm-hmm. In 1950. And my wife died in 1958. And she would say--I had a\nclub cellar downstairs. I fixed it up for her and it was beautiful. And we was\ndown there one night, and the fellow that sold me the house, he come by. He\nsaid, \"You done so much to this house, I wanted to just come by.\" And she said,\nyeah, we have had eight years here ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2040.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and it was a pleasure, she said. And she died\nthe next day. Yes, sir, she died the next day.\n\nBut it was a pleasure. It took me seventeen years to get married again. I had\ntwo good wives. And my last wife died with the cancer. But I had two good wives.\nYes, sir.\n\nAnd that station on Pennsylvania Avenue did a good thing for me because I made a\nliving on Pennsylvania Avenue.\n\nDAVIS: And you met great people.\n\nDORSEY: [Laughs] Yeah, I met everybody. Everybody that come through there, I met\nthem all.\n\nDAVIS: Did Ike Dixon stop by sometimes?\n\nDORSEY: Ike Dixon? Before Ike died. See, he didn't live long after I got the\nstation. He was getting his leg off the day I opened up. But I saw his son--I\nbelieve it was yesterday, one of them. I see his sons now, Ike and Howard, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2100.0,2160.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and\nthey're just as friendly with me as their father was.\n\nDAVIS: When did you drive for him?\n\nDORSEY: When did I drive? If he was going down to Virginia with a band, I'd go\nwith him. I'd go down there with him and he'd pay me for going down there. I'd\nhave a good time and get some money too. I was out there hustling. And I could\ngo get money from Ike anytime if I was broke. Yes, sir, anytime.\n\nA guy did something to me one time when I had a wash rack on Arlington Avenue,\nand he was supposed to be a bad fellow, and I took and jumped in the car and run\nover to Ike's and went behind the counter. Ike used to keep a pistol behind the\ncounter, and I didn't have a pistol that day. And I said I'm going to use this\npistol. \"Don't take that, Dorsey! Don't take it!\" I said I'll see you later. I\ntook his pistol and went on back over to my place. I was going to shoot that guy\nbut he didn't come back. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2160.0,2220.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I got out there and I took Ike's pistol on back and\nput it back there where I got it [laughs]. Ike said, \"Don't take it. Don't take\nthat pistol!\" Yeah, Ike Dixon was a fine guy. I liked Ike.\n\nDAVIS: So what were those tours like? What were the tours like that you'd go on?\nThe road trips with Ike or Gamby--\n\nDORSEY: If we went down to a place like Norfolk, you couldn't come back that\nnight. You had to stay down there, see? And I stopped. I didn't go on too many\ntours with Ike because Ike got to the point where he'd start booking bands like\nthat. Every dance he had down here--he had a fellow named Coots, used to work\ndown to the shoe shop down on Baltimore Street, Hess Shoe Store on Baltimore\nStreet. A little fellow. He was always on the door. I never had to pay nothing\nto go in to dances or nothing, because I'd just walk ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2220.0,2280.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"right on in. Because I used\nto work for Ike all the time. And Gamby was the same way. Ike Dixon was a nice\nfellow. I liked him.\n\nDAVIS: Where would he get his musicians from to go on these [crosstalk]--\n\nDORSEY: Ike booked the bands.\n\nDAVIS: Right. Where did he get people from? Just all over Baltimore?\n\nDORSEY: No. Out of New York.\n\nDAVIS: Out of New York.\n\nDORSEY: He booked them. Him and Gamby and Miss Reed used to book the bands out\nof--I did it one time. You see, what happened, Percy Glascoe had a band in East\nBaltimore. And when I was in high school, two more fellows, we sat down there\nduring the lunch period one time and decided that we were going to have a battle\nof music. Percy Glascoe and Fletcher Henderson. And we had placards this big\nwith \"Battle of Music\" and Percy Glascoe and Fletcher Henderson. Fletcher didn't\nknow a thing about it. See? We just did that, and we advertised it, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2280.0,2340.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and that\nnight, it was like at the New Albert, ten-thirty, they'd come [from] the station\nhouse and told us, don't let nobody else in here. Because the place was packed.\n\nDAVIS: This was Fletcher Henderson.\n\nDORSEY: We got all the money, put it in a cigar box, went on uptown, and divided\nthe money up. Paid the band and divide the money up. We made that right up in\nthe cafeteria downstairs at lunchtime at high school.\n\nDAVIS: You just decided to do it.\n\nDORSEY: Yeah, we decided that we was going to have a battle of music with Percy\nGlascoe and Fletcher Henderson.\n\nDAVIS: Who won?\n\nDORSEY: Fletcher never come. He did never come. He didn't know nothing about it.\n\nDAVIS: Oh, I see, I see. It was a joke.\n\nDORSEY: As far as the funds was concerned, you can't do that now. Because if a\nband is booked here out of New York, the local union here, they know about it,\nand they're going to check on when he's coming and all like that. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2340.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But them days,\nwe could pull that one off on them. But that stopped. You couldn't do that no\nmore now.\n\nDAVIS: Did it upset people, or were they happy to hear anything?\n\nDORSEY: They were still looking for Fletcher to come in. Everybody was all,\n\"When is Fletcher going to get here?\" I said, \"I don't know, he must have had\nsome road trouble.\"\n\nDAVIS: Oh, that's funny.\n\nDORSEY: And he never did get there. He didn't know nothing about it. And we got\nthat money and put it in a cigar box and got in a cab and went on uptown.\nBecause the police, they don't let nobody else in there. The place was crowded.\n\nDAVIS: How old were you at that point?\n\nDORSEY: How old was I then?\n\nDAVIS: Yeah.\n\nDORSEY: Let me see. I might have been eighteen or nineteen, something like that.\nI was going to high school. Getting ready to come out of high school. A fellow\nnamed Phil Chapman and Frank Veney. Veney was a great big fellow. He used to\nplay football up there. Four of us did it. John Smith, Phil Chapman, Frank\nVeney, and myself. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2400.0,2460.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We sat down in the cafeteria at lunch and planned all that\nstuff and got away with it. But you couldn't get away with it now.\n\nDAVIS: Right. No, no, no. They'd catch you for that quick.\n\nDORSEY: You couldn't get away with it now.\n\nDAVIS: Going back to your filling station, other than Dusty, who else sticks out\nin your mind?\n\nDORSEY: Dusty Fletcher came in there. Joe Louis impressed me more than anybody\nelse coming in there because he was so sociable and he shook hands with you, and\nhis hand was bigger than two of my hands. But everybody stopped there. Everybody\nthat'd come down always stopped at the filling station for some reason. And if\nthey had a car, they used to gas up there. I got a lot of them in my books\naround here. Lionel Hampton, he brought ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2460.0,2520.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"his whole band up there.\n\nDAVIS: Well, tell me the Lionel story.\n\nDORSEY: Lionel brought the whole band up there. I had built a rack there for\nsome holiday. We was going to have something. And he got on top of that, and\nit's like in that book that I got, and his band played, and when they finished\nplaying--people come from everywhere listening. And I told him, I said, \"Look,\ndon't stop playing. Just take them all. Go right down the Avenue, take them with\nyou.\" [Laughter] So they played. They come down off that rack and started\nplaying going down the Avenue, and that led the people away from there, see?\n\nDAVIS: So he played his vibes up on the--\n\nDORSEY: He had something up there. He didn't do much. He didn't have no vibes or\nsomething, but he had something up there with him. He was more directing the\nband. I showed it to you. I think I did. But he was up there singing and\ncarrying on. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2520.0,2580.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Let me see if I can find it in here. This is it. Me and this book\nof my life. And that's the first trip oversea. I got a lodge over in Bad\nKreuznach, north Germany, named after me.\n\nDAVIS: My goodness.\n\nDORSEY: And this fellow here, Doc Wongus [phonetic], and he was not a doctor,\nbut he was called Doc Wongus, and he did everything around Baltimore. But that's\nLionel's whole band up on top of that stand.\n\nDAVIS: This is at your gas station.\n\nDORSEY: That's my station down there. A couple pictures in there.\n\nDAVIS: How long did Lionel Hampton's band play up there?\n\nDORSEY: Oh, they played for almost an hour.\n\nDAVIS: My goodness. That's a show.\n\nDORSEY: Yeah! Was a show. Everybody crazy. They couldn't get in there. I\ncouldn't do no business.\n\nDAVIS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2580.0,2640.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Because everybody wanted to come listen. I bet you had a crowd.\n\nDORSEY: Yeah, but I couldn't do no business. Wouldn't let people in. They\nwouldn't let people in. The band was there playing. Of course, the gas truck\ncame in there. And they was up on top of that first. But they dropped their gas\nand went on. And then they got up on that stand. I don't know whether this was\nthe truck they was on. No, this is the stand they was on. But that's Doc Wongus,\nthey called him. He was around here. He lived in Baltimore. Everybody knew him.\nHe wasn't a real doctor. I don't know why, but that was his name, Doc Wongus.\n\nAnd this fellow here, that's Sam Daniels. He was the grandmaster of Prince Hall\nMasons for thirty-eight years. He's coming in my place. He was the district\ndeputy. Him and I went in together.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2640.0,2700.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"This fellow here, he died last year at 103.\n\nDAVIS: My goodness.\n\nDORSEY: And this guy died. He's a fellow who worked for me for a long time. This\nboy, I got him out of Carver High School, and he got a little place of business\nof his own now. But this big fellow down here with me, Jim Jones, he worked at\nSparrows Point, but I got him away from Sparrows Point. And there's my wife. She\ntaught school, too. And that's the group going oversea. And these pictures here,\nI'm oversea. And that's Martin Luther King. We had him here speaking. I got him\nhere to speak. And that was my first wife.\n\nDAVIS: Did Martin Luther King stop at your station?\n\nDORSEY: No. He was here on a Sunday. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2700.0,2760.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"One time we took him to one place to eat,\nand the next time we got him here, this time, we had him up to Dave Scott's\nhouse to eat dinner. And this is Reverend Kiss [phonetic]. If you wanted Martin\nLuther King to come to Baltimore, you had to talk to him. He's the preacher at\nthe church out there on Park Heights Avenue, the Reverend. He's dead too. He's dead.\n\nAnd this is Wallace. He used to be the radio man around Baltimore. I don't know\nwhere he is now. But that's Martin Luther King again down there.\n\nYeah, we got rather close. He'd come here a couple times for us. I never would\ngo down there when he wasn't coming. And we had a grandmaster, Allen, that was\nhis funeral. They made this book. And that's when I was in the army. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2760.0,2820.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I was first\nsergeant in six months. And there's my mother's picture. But I got a whole lot\nof books around here with this stuff in it.\n\nI showed you that thing about the Royal. If I had a machine here, I'd make a\ncopy of it and give it to you. But I can't do it, and I don't want to get rid of\nthat one. Somebody might want to know some more about the Royal Theatre. Because\npeople don't have no history. They just throw away stuff and then they want to\nknow about this and that. They call you up and want to know--I say, why do you\ncall? Why don't you save some history? See, now, a book like this, I'll have\nthis book. And they don't pay no attention to it. This is all about slave time,\nthe underground tunnel and everything. I know most of these old people in there.\nI know most of them. I met them before they passed on. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2820.0,2880.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But it's always some\nhistory you can get. Just like this. People will get to arguing about the Royal\nTheatre. Now, if you had that, you'd know when it was built and when all this\nkind of stuff, but they don't keep nothing.\n\nDAVIS: So, going back to Lionel Hampton, what made him want to play there? Was\nit a whim?\n\nDORSEY: Well, what happened, somebody went down there and told him--because the\nfirst time he was here, him and I got to be friendly, see? I think Doc Wongus\ntold him, why don't he go up to the station. And when he come up there--see, I'd\nmade things happy for him because I'd stopped work and stopped everything and\nmade room for him, and he got up on there and played. But I told him, I said,\nnow when you get ready to quit, don't stop playing. Take them right on with you.\n[Laughter] And they did. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2880.0,2940.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I got those pictures made of them and all. He was a\nfine guy. I liked him.\n\nI had a way of getting along with people. One of them things. So that's it.\n\nDAVIS: So you just strike up a conversation and next thing you know he's playing\non your station.\n\nDORSEY: That's what it is.\n\nDAVIS: Good for business.\n\nDORSEY: It was good for business, yeah. It was really good for business. Them\npictures, all them pictures. See them trophies up there? Those are my trophies\nthat I won. I don't shoot nothing much now no more. Anything else you want to\nknow from me?\n\nDAVIS: Well, maybe a couple of other things if you don't mind.\n\nDORSEY: Anything. I ain't got do nothing but go get something to eat later on.\n\nDAVIS: Oh, sure. Well, let's see. First of all, who else? Was there anybody else\nwho sticks out in your mind that stopped by? For example, did Duke Ellington\never stop by?\n\nDORSEY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=2940.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403/transcript/35142/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"All the old doctors. Mostly Dr. Carr used to stop every day. And Dr.\nSykes from East Baltimore. And most of the doctors used to stop there every day.\nEvery day there would be somebody in there and staying around, mashing\ncigarettes on the floor and talking and everything. And sometimes they'd be in\nyour way, but you couldn't tell them, get out of the way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117403#t=3000.0,3060.0"}]}]},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 2 - pims0091_DorseyJT_02.mp3"]},"duration":2541.0351,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/117/404/small/dorsey.jpg?1649884349","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/404/original/pims0091_DorseyJT_02.mp3?1624270813","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":2541.0351,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Dorsey2_OHMS_20220113 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DORSEY: It was funny that night. He called his lady friend in New York. When he\nsaid \"hello, baby,\" I sent the band--[laughs].\n\nDAVIS: So, besides Louis and Dusty and Lionel, are there any others that you can\nthink of?\n\nDORSEY: Well, I have a picture over there of Muhammad Ali. He come by there, and\nI got his picture taken with me. It's over there. Most all of them--I can't\nthink about now, but if they was at the Royal, they came by that place before\nthey left here, all the time. Most of the bands. Of course, Tracy [McCleary] was\nthe house band down there.\n\nDAVIS: Well, tell me about Tracy a bit.\n\nDORSEY: Tracy was a homeboy, you know, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=0.0,60.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"in Baltimore. Everybody knew him. I see\nhim now sometime every once in a while out at Anderson Village. He lives across\nfrom there, a place over there. And last time I saw him, he wasn't seeing so\nwell. I don't know whether he's going blind or what. But he was the house band\nfor years down there. And other than that, I don't know. Let's see, who else\ncame by there?\n\nDAVIS: Did the guys from the house band come up to the station much?\n\nDORSEY: Who's that?\n\nDAVIS: Did the guys from the house band come to the station?\n\nDORSEY: Hospital?\n\nDAVIS: House band. Did the guys, I mean the guys who played in the house band at\nthe Royal, did they--?\n\nDORSEY: House band. Oh, I knew all them guys. They were just locals.\n\nDAVIS: Right. Well, tell me about the locals.\n\nDORSEY: One of them died a moment ago. I forget his name. One of them died. It's\nbeen about a month ago. It was just on the Avenue. You didn't pay ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=60.0,120.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"no attention\nto them. And Tracy used to come by once in a while and pass the station. There\nwere so many musicians. I knew so many musicians on account of working around\nwith Ike. We didn't pay them no attention.\n\nDAVIS: Well, tell me about them now. We care now. Tell me about them now. We're\ntrying to pay attention to them, you know.\n\nDORSEY: [Laughs] Ike had a fellow named Wallace Jones. He left here. He used to\nhang around with us all the time. He left here and played with Duke. He was one\nof Duke's top trumpet players, Wallace Jones. He died years ago. Of course, I\nknew all the musicians because I was working with Ike. And a fellow named Tab,\nhe worked with Ike Dixon's band. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=120.0,180.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Oh, Lord, I didn't pay much--and Gamby used to\nhave a whole group of them over there, but I didn't pay no attention to them much.\n\nDAVIS: Did people look at them any differently than anybody else?\n\nDORSEY: What happened, the people that held dances--wasn't nobody around there\nin them days but Gamby, Ike Dixon, and Miss Reed, a lady named Miss Reed. They\nused to promote nearly all the dances that was promoted in Baltimore. Ike had\nhis band a good while, of Bigas [phonetic] and a whole lot of fellows that you\nknow, but then, later years, the band was gone. Gamby and Ike and Miss Reed,\nthey used to promote all the dances at the Albert and the Odd Fellows Hall.\nGamby had that on every Saturday night, and then Friday nights.\n\nAnd Miss Reed, she was down there when they built the Royal. When they had the\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=180.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Strand Theater, Miss Reed used to give all the dances in there. Because Ike had\nbeen giving them at the New Albert until that got messed up. Those were the\npeople mostly that gave all the dances around here in Baltimore at that time.\nThat was it.\n\nDAVIS: What about the musicians who played at them? You said you were friends\nwith a lot of them. Were they just like everybody else?\n\nDORSEY: Ike had a band. The Blue Jays had a band. That was younger guys. A lot\nof my friends played in that band. Percy Glascoe had a band. All them bands\nworked for--and Bubby Johnson was the last one. He had a big band. I think Tracy\ntook his band. But those were the bands around here. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=240.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But Press Duncan had a band\nyears and years ago. Half the people in Baltimore wouldn't remember that band.\nThe International something they called them. They used to play at the Good Hope\nHall most of the time.\n\nDAVIS: Where was the Good Hope exactly?\n\nDORSEY: Good Hope? Good Hope was down on Lexington Street years and years and\nyears ago. When I was going to school, there was Good Hope Hall.\n\nDAVIS: Tell me about the Good Hope. What was it like?\n\nDORSEY: I don't know.\n\nDAVIS: Oh, you never went.\n\nDORSEY: I couldn't go in there. I was too young.\n\nDAVIS: What did you hear?\n\nDORSEY: It was on Lexington Street, right down across from Smith Baker down\nthere, Good Hope Hall, and I never was in there. And then they had another dance\nhall over on Preston Street. I forget what they called that one, but those was\nbefore my time. It ain't like it is now. These youngsters go in--anything starts\nup and they have to get in there. But you didn't do that years ago. If it wasn't\nfor you, you didn't go in there. You didn't start nothing. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=300.0,360.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But these people now\nare crazy. You don't know what to think of them. But in those days, they didn't\nhave this kind of trouble what they have nowadays. Lord have mercy, no.\n\nAnd Ike Dixon, L. B. Gamby, and Miss Reed, they promoted the dances in Baltimore City.\n\nDAVIS: How did you think the local musicians played? Do you think that they\nplayed well?\n\nDORSEY: They had good bands around here. Anytime you could take a guy like\nWallace Jones, take him, leave one of these bands, and go right up in New York\nand play with Duke, and playing first trumpet with Duke, you know he must have\nbeen good. Percy Glascoe could play a clarinet just like Benny Goodman. Yes,\nsir. He was a clarinet player. And then the best drummer in New York City come\nfrom Baltimore, Chick Webb.\n\nDAVIS: Of course.\n\nDORSEY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=360.0,420.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Chick Webb. He come out of Baltimore. He was good. I remember one day,\none time I went to Atlantic City with Ike, and Chick was down there on a\nvacation. And we got down there, he was out there in front of the place, and he\nwas telling guys, \"Tell them boys who the best drummer in New York City!\"\n\nAnd the guys was telling us, there he is. Chick Webb, yes, sir. We had a whole\nlot of good musicians left Baltimore City.\n\nDAVIS: Did you know Chick Webb when he was in Baltimore?\n\nDORSEY: No, I didn't know him too well because he was older than I was. But I\nknew him as Chick Webb, you know. But he went to New York, and then my time of\nknowing him, he was in New York mostly, and he used to come here. And when he\ndied, I had a wash rack on Arlington Avenue, and Gene Krupa come here, all of\nthem musicians come here, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=420.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and I made some money that day because I had to go to\na Packard place, which was on North Avenue, and get those cars and bring them\ndown my place and wash them and get them back up there. We had a big funeral\nhere in Baltimore for Chick Webb. Yes, Lord. Them days are gone forever. Yes, sir.\n\nDAVIS: Well, but the memory is still around. The memory of them is still around.\n\nDORSEY: Yes, the memory is still around [laughs]. Have you been taping all this?\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. Absolutely. Now I'm thinking about your tours that you went on. You\nsaid you went Atlantic City, you went to Norfolk. Did the reception of the\ngroups vary from city to city? I know some of the groups who went to places,\nespecially--Virginia had problems [with] finding places to stay--\n\nDORSEY: No, when I went away with Ike Dixon to different places, they didn't\nhave no trouble ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=480.0,540.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"coming back. Sometimes, you went to a lot of these places, and\nyou're coming back that night after the dance is over. We used to go to\nFrederick, and when the dance was over, you'd come on back home. It'd take a\nlong while to get back. We didn't stay in too many places away from Baltimore.\nNo. We didn't stay in too many places. You'd come home. You'd come on back. You\nsee, money wasn't like it was today. If you're going to make some money, you\ncan't spend it on staying somewhere and all that kind of foolishness. I was out\nthere hustling, and if I did anything for Ike, he paid me. Sometimes I didn't do\nanything and he gave me some money anyhow.\n\nDAVIS: Was he like that? Was he that generous with the musicians as well?\n\nDORSEY: Ike paid his musicians. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=540.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I think Ike paid anybody that he had anything to\ndo. That's the type of fellow he was. I couldn't say nothing about him not\npaying them, because he sometimes he'd give me some money and I didn't do\nnothing. And Gamby was the same way with Harrison, that fellow that I used to\nrun around with. And we didn't want for nothing around them. I don't know how\nmuch he ever gave his real musicians, but I know he gave them as much as anybody\nelse would give them. Ike Dixon was a fine guy. Ain't nobody say nothing about\nhim. He was a fine guy. Those boys, I hope they take after him, with the\nreputation that Ike had.\n\nDAVIS: Did the Baltimore musicians hang out with everybody, or more just themselves?\n\nDORSEY: Yeah. All the musicians would just--we all was together, and some of\nthem was musicians and some of them was something else. Yeah. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=600.0,660.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ed Stevenson used\nto live on Fremont Avenue. Wallace Jones before he left here, and a fellow named\nTad Smith come here. He was a man when he got here. All the musicians--I bought\nmy first clarinet from Wilbur James's father, [who] lived on Dolphin Street. And\nthen an old man named Nick Smallwood that learned how to learn play music in\nprison. He was in South Baltimore. He taught everybody music around here. He\ntaught me music. He taught me on the clarinet.\n\nDAVIS: What was his name again?\n\nDORSEY: His name was Nick Smallwood. You'll never hear his name no more. Don't\nnobody know him.\n\nDAVIS: Did a lot of the band musicians study with him, too?\n\nDORSEY: No. I don't know any musicians that had anything to do with him, because\nhe was finished. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=660.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He was way ahead of all them guys. He was finished. But he\ntaught me on the clarinet, and I took lessons from him, but I didn't stick with\nit. I got rid of my clarinet and I didn't fool with it. I never played with no\nband around here. I played in church or Sunday School, but I didn't play in no\nband or nothing. I didn't get that far with it. And I'm glad I didn't because\nthere were so many other things that I could do without playing music. I\nprobably wouldn't have had that filling station if I was playing music. If I did\nfinish high school and then kept on going to school, if I had been fooling with\nthat music, I don't think I'd have been as successful as I was. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=720.0,780.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Because I'd\nnever open up a filling station. Wouldn't have that.\n\nSo many things that you think about what you might do. And I don't mean to be\negotistical or bragging, but I thank the Lord. I had a good life. Lived to be\nold as I am now. I'm ninety-four years old. Thank the Lord for that. Anything\nelse you want to know?\n\nDAVIS: I just was going to ask you about a couple more groups. You mentioned the\nInk Spots before we started recording.\n\nDORSEY: The Ink Spots.\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. Tell me about the Ink Spots.\n\nDORSEY: I didn't have too much to do with them.\n\nDAVIS: Right. Did you hear them and see them?\n\nDORSEY: I heard them sing, but I couldn't comment on them, because I wasn't with\nthem like I was with Ike and Gamby and them with the bands and all. They come\nalong a little late. They were behind me. The Ink Spots, their boy Kenny, he\nused to sing ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=780.0,840.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"good and all like that. But I never had nothing much to do with them.\n\nDAVIS: Were there any kids in your class at Douglass who played in the Park Band?\n\nDORSEY: Yeah, well, there's Vernon Savage. He played in the band, and he's on\nthe picture. I got my class picture out there. And he played with the band. A\nlot of the boys in the high school played music, you know. Cab [Calloway] was in\nmy class. He was supposed to come out with us. They held him back because they\nused to have a show up there, and Cab was in that.\n\nDAVIS: Cab Calloway?\n\nDORSEY: Oh, yeah.\n\nDAVIS: He was in your class at Douglass? Oh, my.\n\nDORSEY: He didn't graduate with us. Let me see if I can show you this.\n\nDAVIS: Hold on. Let's unhook the microphone for a second.\n\n [INTERRUPTION]\n\nDORSEY: When I was in the army, I was stationed in ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=840.0,900.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"California, Camp Stillman,\nand they had a dance in the mess hall one night, and they had to get a band. And\nCab's band come out there, and he was up on the stand, and he looked down, and I\nwas down on the floor dancing. He hollers, \"Homey, homey!\" [laughs].\n\nDAVIS: That's funny.\n\nDORSEY: We had a time in there. But he was something. I didn't care too much for Cab.\n\nDAVIS: Did a lot of people feel that way?\n\nDORSEY: Oh, no. Didn't a whole lot of people feel that way about him. But I\ndidn't think too much of Cab because Cab--between you and I--used to use some\nlanguage that I didn't like all the time. We got along, but I didn't think too\nmuch of him.\n\nDAVIS: Did you know ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=900.0,960.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Avon Long as well?\n\nDORSEY: I know Avon Long very well. He was nice, very capable. He could sing\ntoo. Yeah. But Avon wasn't his brother.\n\nDAVIS: Right. No, no. I know.\n\nDORSEY: But I knew Avon Long well. Yes, Lord, yeah. I knew them all because they\ncome along when I did. Pearl Bailey used to sing right down there on Lafayette Avenue.\n\nDAVIS: Tell me about Pearl.\n\nDORSEY: She used to sing right up from the Frolic on Pennsylvania Avenue.\n\nDAVIS: What was she like?\n\nDORSEY: She was just like what she was when she got away from here and went to\nNew York. She could sing. Very sociable. But I didn't pay much attention to her.\nBecause to tell you the truth, I didn't want to sound egotistical or like that,\nbut they didn't excite me because I was doing my thing, you know. Them\nentertainers and things, I didn't pay no attention to them because I had been\naround with Ike Dixon ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=960.0,1020.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and seen all of them.\n\nDAVIS: They probably started to look the same in a way, I guess. Did they start\nlooking the same?\n\nDORSEY: Yeah, but I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to them. It made no\ndifference to me whether they could sing or not. And I remember one time. See,\nIke used to send all the bands out in the valley and everywhere else to people.\nSo one day--Arthur Evans was in charge of this group and he didn't have a\ndrummer. Ike sent Cab out there with this group. And Cab got to Ike's, and the\nboys come back and told Ike, \"Oh, man, he's out there hollering and carrying on.\nHe's crazy.\" He didn't sing a whole lot, you know. And about a month later a\nlady called up Ike for some music, and she wanted to request the same drummer\n[laughs]. It was Cab! They liked that hollering he would do. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1020.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They had more fun\nlaughing about that. And the boys didn't even want to play with him, and the\nlady wanted the same drummer. [Laughter] And he was hollering that stuff then, see.\n\nBut he used to use some bad language. I went to high school with him, but I\ndidn't think nothing of him. He'd call you one of them things all the time. I\ntold him, \"Don't call me none of them.\" But we got along, I got along with him\nall right. He was a friend of mine. But some people you just can't be bothered\nwith. Don't want to be bothered with. You got somebody using some bad language,\ncalling you a motherfucker, you don't want to hear that. And that was his word.\nHe used to use that all the time.\n\n[PHONE RINGING]\n\nDAVIS: Did you ever--\n\nDORSEY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1080.0,1140.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Is that telephone--\n\nDAVIS: Yeah, let me get you--\n\n [INTERRUPTION]\n\nDORSEY: --lucky.\n\nDAVIS: I was just thinking, now that you mentioned Cab Calloway, did you know\nAnne Wiggins Brown as well?\n\nDORSEY: Yeah, Annie Wiggins Brown. She come out of high school with us. I knew\nher very well and knew Miss Proctor, where she used to work, down on Druid Hill\nAvenue. In my four years in high school, I was working every day, nighttime, and\nthen Friday evening come, I had to catch that car and go home. I didn't have a whole--\n\nDAVIS: You didn't see everybody as much as--\n\nDORSEY: I saw everybody every day, but I didn't have a whole lot of time to be\nfooling around. My father and mother, they wasn't kidding. [Laughs] No, sir. And\nafter I got out of high school--I knew all of them. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1140.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Anne Wiggins Brown and all\nof them, every last one of them.\n\nDAVIS: Did you ever hear her sing?\n\nDORSEY: Oh, yeah. Sure. And that's the reason why Cab--I think they failed him\nup at the high school that last time, to hold him back for that cantata that\nthey had up there. That's what I always thought.\n\nDAVIS: They failed him so he could sing more?\n\nDORSEY: I think. Because he used to take a big part in that. I always did think\nthat. Nobody tell me that, but I just thought. He was supposed to come out in\nthat '27 class that I just showed you out there. But he didn't make it. Of\ncourse, I had to make it. My father didn't take no a whole lot. I used to come\nhome and tell him, \"Well, I passed, Papa.\" He says, \"You was up there five\nmonths, wasn't you?\"\n\nDAVIS: Oh, that's funny.\n\nDORSEY: I had to pass. I didn't have no way that I could go to school and not\npass. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1200.0,1260.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Not come home. No sir. Yes, sir, and I had to get in them books. I worked\nnighttime a lot of times. I failed in 2B English. Second year. And the only\nreason why I failed, I was setting duckpins at nighttime down on Eutaw Street.\nAnd I'd go to school. We had an eight-thirty English class.\n\nDAVIS: You'd fall asleep, I bet.\n\nDORSEY: And that was it. That was it. And I didn't fall asleep in that lady's\nclass. \"You can sleep in here if you want, but you're going to be in here\nagain,\" she used to tell us. And I had a time. I waited until I got in the\nfourth year and went back. Had to make it up. You had to make it up. And I went\nback and I made it up in her class. It was easy then. [Laughter] Yes, sir, I\nwent back and forth in her class. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1260.0,1320.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But these children now, they don't do anything.\n\nYou see all them trophies up there I was telling you about?\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. Yeah. Shooting trophies.\n\nDORSEY: Yeah. I won all them trophies. I don't bother shooting no more now.\nClub's gone.\n\nDAVIS: Here in Baltimore?\n\nDORSEY: Yeah. But you don't have a club no more here like we used to have. We\nused to go all over the country, get in the car and drive to Cincinnati to shoot\njust like it was down the corner.\n\nDAVIS: That's funny. You mentioned a little bit before about--you were on\nPennsylvania Avenue for thirty-something years. How did it change while you were there?\n\nDORSEY: Well, one time the Avenue-- Pop Williams had a barbershop on the Avenue.\nAnd he told me one time in his shop, he said, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1320.0,1380.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\"I've seen this Avenue die down,\ngo, and come back. But let me tell you something.\" He was an old fellow but he\nhad plenty of sense. He said, \"I'm going to tell you something. The next time it\ngoes, it ain't coming back.\" And he was absolutely right. The Avenue ain't\nnothing like it was. He told me. For one thing, they should never have tore the\nRoyal down.\n\nLena--what's her name? Not Lena Lee, Lena something--Lena Boone. She had\nsomething to do with that and let them tear the Royal down. But the Avenue isn't\nanything now. Just like some other street. Gone. Ain't nothing on the Avenue no more.\n\nDAVIS: Did you see it changing and going downhill while you were there?\n\nDORSEY: Oh, yeah. I got away from there ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1380.0,1440.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"just about when--it was going down when\nI left there. I could see it. Anybody could see it wasn't like it used to be.\nThe people that kept the Avenue going was there, but when all of them was gone,\nthese people didn't know. No. J. C. Bailey was gone. Ike Dixon was gone. Gamby\nwas gone. Willie Adams was gone and I was gone. On my corner we had everything.\nAll them people kept that Avenue. They kept their businesses going, and people\ncome from everywhere to do business with them. In my place I had--I don't want\nto sound egotistical or bragging, but I had people come there every day mostly.\nSometimes just drive by, didn't even want gasoline. But when it went, that was\nit. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1440.0,1500.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I got out in time. I think I got out in time. Thirty-one years is long\nenough for me. That's a long time to be in business.\n\nDAVIS: So you watched the Royal close its doors and the Strand close its doors.\n\nDORSEY: Yeah. See all of them closing, and then that was it. I think if they\nhadn't tore the Royal down, I think it had a chance to come back. But Pop\nWilliams told me when it go, it ain't coming back no more. Everything, most of\nthem was gone off the Avenue. Old man Smith had a tea and coffee shop. He sold\ntea and you could smell it all over half of Baltimore, when he was roasting that\ncoffee down there, in the 1400 block. And the joint was jumping around there.\nAnd the Casino was in bloom. The Alhambra was in bloom. Penn Hotel, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1500.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"all them\nplaces. Comedy Club. All them places was going, see. Everybody was doing\nsomething. My station stayed open till ten o'clock at night and it opened up at\nseven o'clock in the morning every day. It was alive. Life was on Pennsylvania\nAvenue. But that was it.\n\nDAVIS: Why do you think things started to close down?\n\nDORSEY: Well, when people go out of business--Ike died, and them youngsters,\nthey kept it a little while, but they didn't want it. Gamby, he had been dead.\nMiss Reed died. J. C. Bailey died. He bought the first house in this block, down\non the corner. He broke the block. He was gone. The people just was gone. I\nwouldn't even let my nephews or anybody have the filling station ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1560.0,1620.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"because that's\na dangerous business. People think you got more money than you do have and\nyou're going to get stuck up. But I didn't get stuck up, thank the Lord.\n\nDAVIS: Not once?\n\nDORSEY: No. I didn't get stuck up at all. One night a fellow broke into my\nplace, and he stole two rolls of quarters that I forgot and left out, and I\nfound out who that was.\n\nDAVIS: Oh, my goodness.\n\nDORSEY: But before I could get to him and get him some time, he stole something\nelse and he went to jail for a little while.\n\nDAVIS: Not a smart guy.\n\nDORSEY: And then when he come back, the first place he come was the filling\nstation. He come back here, and I just didn't say nothing about it and [left]\nhim alone. But I knew who--because the man across the street saw him come out\nthere and he thought he had something because he used to work for me sometimes.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1620.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But that was the only break-in or anything I had. Because I had a dog in the\nplace. Didn't nobody go in there. They broke in there but didn't take--three\nrolls of quarters. That's what I lost that night. That's all I lost. I left them\nout. Because you got a safe in the floor. Ain't no way to get in it. You got to\nhave a key or else you got to have a torch or something. You can't get in that\nsafe. Safe in the floor. Daytime, you set a trash can over the hole, and when\nyou want to go in there, you go down there and take the top off, and it's about\nthat deep in the floor. That was the best kind of safe to have in a filling station.\n\nDAVIS: Were most of the people on the Avenue--I'm thinking about segregation and\npre-1950s, 1960s. Were most of the people on the Avenue--\n\nDORSEY: Segregation?\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. Was the Avenue mixed somewhat?\n\nDORSEY: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1680.0,1740.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, as far as gasoline was concerned, the Avenue was never--Avenue was\nsegregated. Eisenbrandt [phonetic] had a place two doors from the bank. You know\nwhere the bank is on Pennsylvania Avenue? Two doors from the bank was\nEisenbrandt's place. Colored couldn't sit down and eat in there. The Afro had a\nmeeting at the YMCA.\n\nDAVIS: The newspaper.\n\nDORSEY: Afro. They had a staff meeting and they'd get everybody from\nPennsylvania Avenue to come to this meeting. When I walked in there that day,\nIda, Carl Murphy's daughter, was running the meeting. And I said, what about the\nplace where we can't eat? \"Oh, we won't bring that up today.\" I said, well, I\nget my stuff and I'll come on out [leave]. You don't want me in here, because if\nyou can't take care of those kinds of things, you can't take care of nothing for\nme. I'll come on out. I won't bother with them.\n\nAnd when they had the Palmer ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1740.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"organization that was supposed to be on the Avenue,\nI told them, you can't bring it down no further than Pennsylvania and Mosher,\nbecause I don't want no part of it. And I wouldn't take parts with it.\n\nBut the Avenue was nothing--but, see, those Jewish people on the Avenue, most of\nthem, they knew where they was getting their money from. [Isidore] Samuelson and\nall them guys at the pawn shop, they was my close friends. See? And they were\ngetting all their revenue from colored people, so they didn't want nothing like\nthat to happen. And that went on and on and on and on for years. But that place,\nEisenbrandt's up there, they stopped, they broke that down in no time. And that\nbank--we all used the bank on Pennsylvania Avenue. Of course, I got out of there\nwhen I quit, closed my place up, because I didn't leave nothing in there.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1800.0,1860.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But those Jews on Pennsylvania Avenue, I couldn't complain about them no time.\nBecause they used to buy gas from me, and before I even went in business, I knew\nthem all. You know? And I never had any problem with people like that. I never\nhad no problem with people like that. But some people had a lot of problems with\nthem. And those Jews made their living on the Avenue, and they treated\npeople--as far as I'm concerned, if they treated them all like they treated me,\nI got along with them. I didn't have no problems. No problems at all.\n\nDAVIS: Did you have a lot of white customers at your station?\n\nDORSEY: Oh, yeah. I had a whole lot of white customers there. Jack Pollack, you\nknow, the politician here in the city? He owned a laundry up on Mosher Street.\nAnd he seen those trucks gassed up in my place. Jack Pollack, now he was a\npolitician, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1860.0,1920.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and a big politician around Baltimore. I guess you've heard of his\nname, haven't you?\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. Yeah.\n\nDORSEY: I had him. And most of those people on the Avenue got their gas in my\nplace. I didn't have no problems with them. I didn't have no problem. But\nSamuelson and them, the others up in the 1600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, they\nused to come around there all the time. Most all of them. Of course, there's\ngoing to be a few of them that probably didn't come in there. But most of them\ncome in there and bought gas from me all the time. I didn't have no problems\ngetting customers when I was on the Avenue. I had people come from East\nBaltimore, South Baltimore, everywhere, come in there and get gas.\n\nDAVIS: A lot of the shows at the Strand and the Royal and the New Albert, were\nthe audiences mixed at all or were they almost completely African American?\n\nDORSEY: What did you say, did they mix it up?\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. Was it a mixed audience for the shows, or were they primarily\nAfrican Americans?\n\nDORSEY: Very seldom. Most of them was colored people.\n\nDAVIS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1920.0,1980.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And on the streets themselves?\n\nDORSEY: Oh, Pennsylvania Avenue was--you go over there now you don't see many\nother than colored people on the Avenue, but in those days, them stores was all\nopen over there. And old man Guff [phonetic] had a hardware store right across\nthe corner from me. And him and I were just like that. I could go in there and\npick up anything I want, and say, \"Mr. Guff, I got so and so and so and so.\"\n\"Okay, Jim,\" he'd say. He was some kind of Jew. I forget what kind they call it.\nAnd he wouldn't allow some people in his store. And I didn't have no problems.\nAnd Rich, he got a son downtown now who's a lawyer. Rich Guff is his son. And we\nwere almost like brothers. [Laughs]\n\nI went to Germany, and I went to Dachau. And I went in the place where they took\nall those Jews in that time and gassed them. I thought about them boys, I had to\ncome out there. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=1980.0,2040.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I couldn't understand it. Because we were just like brothers\nwhen we get on the Avenue. You know? And I thought about Rich and Molly. I said,\nI can't stay in here. I got to come out. It was awful.\n\nI see old Rich every now and then. We didn't have no problem at all. Old man\nGuff. And them Jews, up at Samuelson. He had a ring that I wanted. And Isidore\nhad it, the guy that owned the pawn shop up there. And I said, man, you take\nthis ring, I said, because I can't. And I give this ring back and I think\nIsidore died the next week. [Laughs] I said, if I'd have kept the ring, I told\nthe boys--but I wouldn't want nothing like that to happen.\n\nBut I had a lot of friends on the Avenue. I had all of them. I didn't have no\nproblem with them people on the Avenue, none whatsoever.\n\nDAVIS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=2040.0,2100.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Was it a different culture than the rest of Baltimore? Did you see it as\nsort of a different kind of culture than the rest of Baltimore?\n\nDORSEY: No. It wasn't no different kind of culture because the culture is still\nhere, and it's going to be here as long as Baltimore stands. But, you see, those\nJews on the Avenue was on the Avenue to make money, and they knew where their\nmoney was coming from, most of it coming from on the Avenue. And most of them\nknew how to treat people. You didn't have no problem about people treating them\ndifferent. They knew where their money was coming from, from them colored people\nthere, and they had to treat them like--and truthfully speaking, they'd better\ntreat them like that because there were some rough ones over there. Yes. So they\ndidn't care nothing about them.\n\nDAVIS: Thinking back--Pennsylvania Avenue itself, though, the African-American\nculture, was there really a special culture going on when you were--\n\nDORSEY: Was it a special culture?\n\nDAVIS: Yeah. Was it a special place to be, I guess?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=2100.0,2160.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DORSEY: Well, it was a culture because lots of people brought culture to the\nAvenue. And most of the people that was on the Avenue didn't go below Dolphin\nStreet. We used to call that South Pennsylvania Avenue. There was high-class\npeople on that Avenue, most of them, and they stood for something. We didn't\nbother--below Dolphin Street, we used to call that South Pennsylvania Avenue,\nand we didn't go down there. Because a lot of the stuff happened down below\nDolphin Street.\n\nThe Avenue had some strong people. Old man Frisby. Man, he was--his brother was\na science professor at Douglass, and Frisby was a real estate man, and he dealt\nwith law. Gamby and Ike Dixon, Bailey--them people stood for something. Yes,\nsir. All of them. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=2160.0,2220.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Sam Keys used to own the Penn Hotel. He went to Washington and\nopened up. And Willie kept his places straight. Yes, sir. He was respected on\nthe Avenue. All them people was respected on the Avenue.\n\nChandler Wynn, he took a shotgun and blowed his head off. But there was a lot of\npeople that stood for a lot of things on Pennsylvania Avenue, but it ain't over\nthere no more. No. No. And I used to have a bunch of preachers used to come to\nmy place any day and stay in there until I tell them to get out of here.\nReverend Bascom.\n\nDAVIS: From Douglass, right?\n\nDORSEY: Yeah. Reverend Bascom, Reverend Dobson, and I forget the other one's\nname now. But there was four or five of them used to come there and stay in the\nplace for hours at the time. And people would be coming and going all day like\nthat. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=2220.0,2280.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It was a good thing. I used to love to see them coming round. I used to\nkid them. He'd come in there and raise a whole lot of fuss. [Laughs] \"I ain't\ngoing to have that hollering here today!\" I used to have a lot of fun with them\nwhile I was working over there. Yes, sir. I had a lot of fun for them thirty-one\nyears I spent on the Avenue. It was all right with me. I didn't have no problem\nwith people.\n\nOf course, I carried a .38 everywhere I went every day. I carried a .38 all the\ntime in my pocket, and everybody knew I had it. I had a permit to carry it. And\na guy got in an argument with me one day, there was three people standing over\non the other side of the street waiting for the gun to go off. I said, hey, you\ndon't have to shoot nobody. Everybody in Baltimore knew I carried that gun. And\nthat kept them off me. I didn't have no trouble fooling with them. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=2280.0,2340.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I had a .38\nand I had a permit to carry it. I was supposed to carry it because I went to the\nbank every day. I carried that, kept that in my pocket. I had no trouble with\nthem people, and I didn't take no stuff off them and didn't give them none. And\nthey knew I had it. With all that hustling and everything else over there, they\nknew I had my pistol. I wasn't thinking about them. It was one of them things.\nEither me or you. That's what happened. A lot of people who see me now think I\ncarry a pistol. [Laughs]\n\nDAVIS: That's funny. You don't even need to tell them anything. Let them think\nwhat they want to think.\n\nDORSEY: I don't carry no pistol no more. Yes, sir. Well, we've been talking--I\nhope you got some of the things you wanted.\n\nDAVIS: Oh, it was very interesting. Very interesting. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=2340.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Do you have any words of\nwisdom to end with?\n\nDORSEY: Well, I tell the boys, \"There's a kin that makes us brothers. Man cannot\nwalk this way alone. What you send into the lives of others someday comes into\nyour own.\" And that's the truth. You got to reap what you sow. That is the\ntruth. That's what I tell them. It's how you treat people. Life is like a bowl\nof cherries. You get out what you put in it. And the main thing that I tell\nthese youngsters is how you carry yourself and how you treat people. I don't\ncare whether it's a colored person or a Black person or a White person. You\ncarry yourself in a way that you get respect from everybody. And I don't have\nany problem ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=2400.0,2460.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"because I know how to treat people. I live here by myself. I try to\nkeep my house up so it looks like something when people come in here. It's well\nfurnished. I'm comfortable here. You should know how to treat people. That's one\nthing Ike would say all the time.\n\nI'm happy that that telephone didn't ring. Because most of the time I'm sitting\nhere with my telephone in my chair. Because it rings every time everybody wants\nto know this, can you do this, can you help me with this, can you do this, and\nI'm surprised that we've been here talking all this time this evening, and the\nphone rang once.\n\nDAVIS: Well, I'm happy you had some time to talk to me. It was very helpful.\n\nDORSEY: Well, I hope I was. And it's best if you can help people doing what\nthey're doing. You got to be doing. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=2460.0,2520.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404/transcript/35143/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You're doing something, because anytime you\ntake up this much time getting interviews and all like that, it must mean\nsomething to you. You see what I mean?\n\nDAVIS: Well, it does. Yes, it does. And hopefully it will mean something to\npeople who read the interviews later. Thanks again, Mr. Dorsey.\n\nDORSEY: Yes, sir.\n\n[END OF INTERVIEW]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44124/file/117404#t=2520.0,2580.0"}]}]}]}