Contents
- 1. Transcript
- 1.1. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE ONE APRIL 21, 1994
- 1.2. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE TWO APRIL 21, 1994
- 1.3. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE ONE APRIL 25, 1994
- 1.4. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE TWO APRIL 25, 1994
- 1.5. TAPE NUMBER: III, SIDE ONE MAY 2, 1994
- 1.6. TAPE NUMBER: III, SIDE TWO MAY 2, 1994
- 1.7. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE ONEMAY 4, 1994
- 1.8. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE TWO MAY 4, 1994
- 1.9. TAPE NUMBER: V, SIDE ONE MAY 9, 1994
- 1.10. TAPE NUMBER: V, SIDE TWO MAY 9, 1994
1. Transcript
1.1. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE ONE APRIL 21, 1994
- ISOARDI
- Okay, Hadda, shall we begin with as early as you can remember in your
life? Where you were and--
- BROOKS
- You mean as to what I was, what I did, how I thought that my little life
was coming up?
- ISOARDI
- Exactly. Your family, where you were born, something maybe about the
background of your family, where your family came from.
- BROOKS
- I was born here in Boyle Heights--not at the address where you are. I
was born on the street opposite, just above it. Malabar [Street] is what
the street was called. That's where I was born.
- ISOARDI
- Just one block over from here?
- BROOKS
- One block over. This street is called Boulder [Street], and the street
where I was born-- Even my sister [Kathryn Hopgood Carter] was born over
on Malabar. I grew up on that street.
- ISOARDI
- When were you born? What year was it?
- BROOKS
- I was born on October 29, 1916. That's the actual date; that's when I
was born. I mean, like absolutely. Nineteen sixteen, which would make me
seventy-seven now.
- ISOARDI
- And still going strong. [laughs]
- BROOKS
- Well, all right. Okay, okay. If you want to say so, yeah, I'm still
going strong. I haven't, to a certain extent, had what you might call a
down anything, you know, physically or mentally. I mean, no, this is
where it is. This is where I am. This is where I have come from
seventy-seven years ago. I'm going to actually say I have a very strong
voice. I haven't lost any prominence as far as the age is concerned. I
love how old I am. I am taking in everything that is coming my way in
the age of what I am right now. And I think to a certain extent-- I
don't know who else has anything to say about it, but I say I think it
is a marvelous thing that I have come this far. Anybody else who wants
to bring in my actual age, it's okay with me. I'm very proud of it. I'm
very proud of it. There's no possible reason why-- I am not going to say
that, "Oh, my goodness--" No, no, no, no, no. I wouldn't do that. I am
saying that this is my age, and this is how I am continuing to go on. To
me it's a great accomplishment. It's a great accomplishment. I am making
it. I am talking about it. I am going with it. I don't know what else I
can say. I love it. It's going to be good. It is good. No problem.
- ISOARDI
- All right. So you were born here in Boyle Heights. It's 1916. And your
family lived here? Were you the oldest of the children?
- BROOKS
- I am the oldest. My mother [Goldie Wright Hopgood] and father [John M.
Hopgood] had two children, my sister and me. I am older than my sister.
My mother and my father and my grandfather [Samuel A. Hopgood], who were
the actual family of me, they have gone. They've demised. They've gone,
they've left me. My sister and I are still alive. My granddaddy, he was
the biggest thing in our life to a certain extent. He had a lot of
pride. He was very tall, he was six foot something--maybe three
[inches]--and he was very tall. He walked very proud. My daddy was six
[feet] two [inches], and he was tall, and he walked very proud. My
mother was a little woman. I don't say a little woman by being maybe
five [feet] four [inches]; maybe she was five [feet] six [inches] or
something like that.
- ISOARDI
- Is this your grandfather on your father's side? Or your mother's?
- BROOKS
- My grandfather on my father's side. My mother was not related to either
one of them--not my grandfather. My father married my mother.
- ISOARDI
- Where did your grandparents come from?
- BROOKS
- My grandfather and his sister--they called her Aunt Roxie--they came
from Georgia. My mother came from Chattanooga, Tennessee. My grandfather
and his sister brought their family out from Atlanta, Georgia.
- ISOARDI
- When was that? Do you know?
- BROOKS
- No, I don't know when they came out.
- ISOARDI
- Do you know why they came out?
- BROOKS
- The thing that I can remember to a certain extent, my grandfather
brought his family out to Los Angeles, California, because I guess they
thought they had a better chance of surviving the chances of what you
might call-- I can't even think of it because of the fact that-- They
had a chance of surviving the chance of being somewhat not being brought
into the black race. My grandfather, my grandfather's sister, and all of
my grandfather's cousins or brothers and whatnot were absolutely in the
color of white. They were the color of white. They weren't black. When I
grew up to remember them, I remember all of them being very white. The
only one in my family who was brown skinned was my mother. I said brown
skinned, not light brown skinned. She was brown skinned. My father was
in love with her, and they married. I came out because I was the
firstborn, and I was very, very, red, to be complete. My mother didn't
even want to show me because she thought I was so ugly. And my sister,
which was about two years later, was a brown-skinned little girl, which
was almost right within my mother's color. But the idea of the thing
that went on with us was they didn't want my mother and father to marry.
My mother and father were very much in love. My father was-- Well, he
looked like a white man. He had blue eyes. My mother was brown skinned,
and his family didn't want them to marry.
- ISOARDI
- But they did anyway.
- BROOKS
- They did. They did. As truth will out, if you're in love, you'll get
married.
- ISOARDI
- It doesn't matter.
- BROOKS
- That's right.
- ISOARDI
- What did your grandfather do? Do you know how he made a living?
- BROOKS
- I don't know. I really don't know what my grandfather did, but he had
money. He had money.
- ISOARDI
- So he came out here, and he made it work.
- BROOKS
- He came out here, and after my mother and father got married and I was
born, then they accepted the whole thing as far as that was concerned. I
am now thinking they had to accept it, because I've got news for them,
here I am. I've got news for them. I know exactly what was going on from
the time that I was a child. My grandfather had the money. My
grandfather did not want my father to take care of us, because he wanted
to put the money-- If we wanted this, my grandfather got it. If I wanted
that, my grandfather got it. After my sister was born, my sister got
whatever she wanted. And at twelve years old my sister and I had little
mink coats.
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] He really liked to take care of his granddaughters.
- BROOKS
- That's right.
- ISOARDI
- He was proud of you two.
- BROOKS
- That's right. And my father said, "I don't want you to do that for my
children. I want to take care of them." But my grandfather, he bought me
a mink coat and he bought my sister a mink coat. I mean, at twelve years
old or less than twelve years old, whatever. And as we grew older and
older and older and I graduated from junior high school, my grandfather
bought me an Elgin watch, and he also bought my sister an Elgin watch so
she wouldn't feel bad by me having an Elgin watch. I was the one who was
graduating. But he bought her an Elgin watch along with mine. It
happened all through the years of the life of my grandfather and my
sister and myself. That's how it happened. We were children. We never
did become young ladies because of the fact that we were still children
in their minds. They treated us that way. And I don't know exactly
whatever happened, but--
- ISOARDI
- When did you start school? Did you start kindergarten, I guess, right
around here?
- BROOKS
- Oh, yes. I mean, I lived on the street that's called Malabar in this
area. We lived right next door to a school. The house was here, the
school was there, the fence was there. And my sister and I, we went to
grammar school. Everybody knew my mother. Every schoolteacher knew my
mother, and they knew my grandfather. They didn't know my father because
he was a sheriff and he wasn't home all the time. Whenever anything
happened they called my grandfather down to the house. My mother had to
go to the hospital because she was sick. "I want my two granddaughters
down to see their mother off," and they would come and get us out of our
room. The teacher would bring us down. And just about the time they
brought us down, my mother was coming down in the hospital, and, of
course, naturally, she was sick. But this was the life, the way we had
to go. If my mother was sick, my grandfather called the principal and
said, "Get my grandchildren down here. Their mother is sick. She's going
to the hospital, and I want them to see her." And they did.
- ISOARDI
- What school were you at?
- BROOKS
- Malabar [Street Elementary School].
- ISOARDI
- Oh, that was the name of the school?
- BROOKS
- That was the name of the school next door. It was on Malabar Street.
Malabar. It seems as though we weren't in any trouble. There was no
trouble. We had a nice childhood life. We weren't treated in any extra
ways as far as our name was concerned, and our name was Hopgood. We
weren't overtreated because of that name, but it seemed as though it
came out that we were sort of like, we can say, extracurricular
children.
- ISOARDI
- What do you mean?
- BROOKS
- We were the extra children on the block. Well, I mean, like let's say
the Hopgood children were the Hopgood children. We were special.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, I see. Special kids on the block.
- BROOKS
- Special kids on the block. But we, my sister and I, didn't know that.
Our family knew it, and the teachers in grammar school catered to my
mother and father and family and treated them like we were, but we
didn't know that. We didn't know that.
- ISOARDI
- Was that because of your father being a sheriff?
- BROOKS
- No. No, it wasn't. Because of my mother. My mother would say-- She'd
send me with a note to the principal and say, "On Thursday there is
going to be a special luncheon"--each of the teachers would pay maybe a
dollar or something like that--"for a special occasion at church." And
all the teachers would come. All the teachers in that school would come.
My mother would fix the luncheon. She would fix the food. All of them
would come. They waited for her to do this, so she might do it every two
months, and they would come and eat. They loved it. They loved it. They
had the best food there was that there wasn't anywhere in their
cafeteria. They would come and eat the lunch. My mother would do it
every two months. The benefits would go to her church. And they would
come. That was the whole thing. That was it.
- ISOARDI
- Which church was it?
- BROOKS
- Maybe charge $1.50 or whatever they wanted. They wanted some chicken,
they wanted some-- Let's see. Some chicken, or she wanted some pork
chops, or she wanted a steak or something like that--$1.50 and $2.50.
- ISOARDI
- You say that your mother would then take the money and she would donate
the money to her church.
- BROOKS
- She gave it to the church.
- ISOARDI
- Which church?
- BROOKS
- The African Methodist Episcopal.
- ISOARDI
- And is that the church that you went to then?
- BROOKS
- Every Sunday. African Methodist Episcopal Church.
- ISOARDI
- Did your father go to church with you, also?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- He was not religious?
- BROOKS
- No. No. No. My mother prayed every Sunday that my father would come, and
he didn't. He didn't, oh, not for a long time. Because on Sunday was a
baseball game, and my father was a baseball fan, and he would go to the
baseball [game], to-- What's that great big park that's an old park?
Wrigley Field. Wrigley Field.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, down on Fortieth [Street], Forty-second [Street]?
- BROOKS
- Wrigley Field. He would go to see that baseball game. And one time he
came into the church. For some reason or other, I don't know, he decided
he would go up and join the church, and he went up and joined the
church.
- ISOARDI
- Just all of a sudden?
- BROOKS
- All of a sudden.
- ISOARDI
- You didn't know he was going to do it? He just did it one day?
- BROOKS
- We didn't know he was going to do it.
- ISOARDI
- That must have surprised the hell out of your mother.
- BROOKS
- It surprised the hell out of my mother. After he got up and went down
there, she got up and walked right behind him. And I mean, everybody was
just sort of absolutely, you know, "hallelujah" and all that sort of
stuff. And I mean, I didn't know anything about it, my sister didn't
know anything about it, except I knew that my daddy went down and was
joining the church. He didn't change his ways. He did everything he
wanted to do that he was doing before he joined the church. But when you
join the church you're not supposed to jump in and join the church and
get religion and all of a sudden say, "I'm holy, and I don't want to do
this, and I'm not going to drink anymore, and I'm not going to smoke
anymore." No. He joined the church, that's all. That's all he did.
- ISOARDI
- You said he was a sheriff. Did he work for the L.A. County sheriff's
office? Was that his job?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, yeah. Well, he had a couple of other jobs that-- See, my daddy was
in the color of-- I mean, he didn't know whether he was black or white.
He was very white. He had started working in what you might call a soda
fountain. He worked and worked and worked, and he was serving this and
serving that and serving that and serving the other when he first
started. And then he heard somebody say something about "nigger," and he
didn't like it. Not that he considered himself "nigger" but that he
didn't think that they even knew that he was of some parts of a black
race. So he quit. He quit the job and then went into Bullock's
[department store] downtown and was driving the elevators. And then he
went into being a sheriff. But he first of all didn't like the word
"nigger," because, I mean-- They weren't talking about him, but they
were refusing to serve somebody black in the soda fountain that he was
in, and they called him a nigger, so he left, he quit. That was all
there was to it. There was no way in the world that he was going to go
back there, and there was no way in the world that he was going to
tolerate that. I mean, seemingly he was black race, not that it was
anything blacker than your black shoes, but if you were a little darker
than him-- And he was very white, he had blue eyes, gray eyes, you know.
I mean, you're going to talk about black, and he knew where he came
from. He wasn't going to tolerate it. Even if you didn't know he was
black, he wasn't going to tolerate it. And he didn't. That's about the
only thing that-- You know, he said, "I have one child"--which was
me--"I've got one child to take care of. I'm not going to go through
this. I'm not going to stay here in order--" He went somewhere. He did
this. He got another job. He did this. Then, when he got my sister, then
he had a very, very, very good job. He wasn't about to turn around and
say, "I can't do this because they said 'nigger.' I've got children and
a family to take care of." And he took care of his family until he died
all the way. There was no way.
- ISOARDI
- What was the neighborhood like back then when you were a kid?
- BROOKS
- This neighborhood was like-- I've got news for you. We could leave our
doors open. Nobody would bother you. Nobody would come into you. When I
was going to school I went with all the little Jewish kids, Mexican
kids, and black kids--one or two of them. We'd all go to school
together. We'd meet up at the top of the hill up there, and we'd walk to
Belvedere Junior High [School]. We all met there. We never locked our
doors, never locked our doors. There was no way in the world we could
lock our doors, because nobody was going to come by and hurt us. We
didn't know anybody who was going to come by and hurt us. And when
anybody came to my mother's back door or a side door, and they would
come back-- Like a man would come by and say, "I'm hungry," my mother
would give him plenty of food. She'd put it right out there on the
steps, and he would eat it. She'd give it to him. Maybe once or twice
every two weeks he'd come by and have something. There was a lady who
came by and would sell dresses and socks and underwear and everything,
and if my mother needed something she would buy it. She had a great big
suitcase, and she had everything in that. My mother would buy from her.
My mother would give him, this man, she would give him his food,
anything that we had to eat in the house. I was never hungry in my life.
We had the best of food. Never hungry in my life. I had never known when
my mother had said to us, "You don't have anything to eat," no. We had
everything to eat, everything to eat. There was no way in the world my
sister and I and my father and grandfather and my mother went hungry. No
way. Right now I don't do that. I've got more food back there for me
living one year than I can give up to anybody who wants to come by here
and ask for food. No way have I ever been hungry. None whatsoever. My
mother wouldn't allow it.
- ISOARDI
- So this was very much a racially mixed area. And you went to school, and
you had friends--
- BROOKS
- I had a couple of Mexican friends, I had a couple of Jewish friends. I
used to go up on Brooklyn Avenue, which was all Jewish. I used to go to
Canter Brothers and get pastrami. They've left here. They've gone. I
used to go to all those shops. In the summertime I'd go get my bathing
suit, absolute wool, $1.95. And I used to go up there-- "Oh, no, not
$1.95. Come on. I can go across the street and get $1.25." And he'd say,
"Oh, come on. No, no, no." I said, "Well, I'll go across the street.
I'll get it for a $1.25, the same bathing suit." And he said, "Okay. All
right, $1.25." Then I'd get the bathing suit. I didn't even know the man
across the street. We were like little stupid children. Smarts, that's
all.
- ISOARDI
- Where would you go swimming?
- BROOKS
- Oh, oh, oh, oh. There was a swimming pool over on Evergreen [Avenue] and
Fourth Street.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, just over here where the park is?
- BROOKS
- That's right, but they've covered it over now. But, I mean, when we were
children we used to go there for twenty-five cents for a towel. My
mother used to take us over there. I used to bellyflop all over the
doggone place. Sure, how did I know how to dive? I'd ka-plook! I mean, I
got into it. We had a ball. Every Saturday we'd go over there and go
swimming.
- ISOARDI
- Did you ever go out to the beach?
- BROOKS
- Every summer my mother would take my sister and myself down to Santa
Monica beach into these little-- They were little cabins. We'd stay
three weeks. My daddy would send us down there for three weeks.
- ISOARDI
- You'd rent a cabin in Santa Monica for three weeks?
- BROOKS
- Yeah. But my daddy didn't want us to go down there because he didn't
want us to get brown. He wanted us to stay real white.
- ISOARDI
- Ah.
- BROOKS
- But right outside of the cabin was a peach that big all over the place.
And they would tell us, "Don't pick the peaches." Every time we went I'd
pick the freaking peaches. We'd get a peach. We'd go down, "Well, it was
there; it fell on the ground." We'd pick it up. We didn't, you know.
We'd get a cabin down there. Every summer my daddy would send us down
there. Let me tell you something. My grandfather and my daddy would come
down in suits. I'm talking about three-piece suits [laughs]--the vest,
the coat, and the pants, the socks and the shoes--and they'd stand up,
say, like right there. We were here. We were here on the beach, and this
is all sand, and my daddy and granddad would stand up there, and they
wouldn't come down on the sand. They'd come down to see how we were, but
they wouldn't come down on the sand. They'd come down there and they'd
see us. I mean, they wouldn't get the sand in their shoes or anything.
- ISOARDI
- Never even took their shoes off, probably, right?
- BROOKS
- What do you mean? They didn't come down to the sand! They didn't come
down to the sand! Take their shoes off? What do you mean? [laughs] They
were right there, over there, and my sister and I, we'd run up and hug
daddy and granddad, and they'd, "Get away, get away, get away!" [laughs]
My mother never moved. We'd go down to the beach every summer.
- ISOARDI
- You must have looked forward to that.
- BROOKS
- We as children did. Well, it's a big ocean, you know what I mean? We
were living down there. We had this cabin. And then my sister and I were
having a lot of fun. We met a couple of friends down there. We would run
up and down the Ocean Park and run back and have fun, you know what I
mean? But my mother didn't care. She was having fun. She was a little
heavy, on the heavy side. There was one little rope over there on the
other side, and the ocean would run into her. And one of her friends
would come by, her elderly friends would come by, and they'd stand up
there by the rope, and the water would run on them, and they would
laugh, and they'd knock it down. Oh, Jesus Christ, it was so funny, you
know. But they were happy. They were happy. They were having a good
time. And when we got ready to come home, my mother was so tired, she'd
be ready to go to sleep after she cooked our dinner and we'd eaten. And
we'd go to sleep until we met our friends, and then-- I've got news for
you, my mother was a beautiful, beautiful woman. She was the kind of
woman, if it was nice and if it was good to a certain extent, her
children, me and my sister, she would go along with it. I mean, she did
not believe that we were going to get in trouble, because she had raised
us this way.
- ISOARDI
- So she trusted you and--
- BROOKS
- She trusted us.
- ISOARDI
- How long did you keep going down to the beach?
- BROOKS
- For about four or five years, until we were going into high school or
going into college. It wasn't the idea that we didn't want to go to the
beach, it was the idea that it had gone past our idea of what was-- You
know, okay, we could go down there with our friends and go to the beach.
We didn't have to go down there with mama.
- ISOARDI
- You're growing up. [laughs]
- BROOKS
- We're growing up. There you go. You know, we didn't have to go down
there with mama to go to the beach. We were going down there with our
friends, you know, getting on the beach on Sunday afternoon and coming
home. We weren't staying down there three weeks at a time with mama.
That was lots of fun. She was beautiful. She was a beautiful woman. Oh,
my God, was she a gorgeous woman, I mean, in looks and in her face and
her mind. Oh, Jesus Christ. I couldn't touch her, couldn't touch her.
She was a gorgeous woman. I couldn't touch her. No way.
- ISOARDI
- Was she a housewife her whole life?
- BROOKS
- That's all she was. She never worked. No, she was--what do you call?--a
practitioner to a certain extent. You couldn't die in the neighborhood
unless my mother was there. You know, that was it. They called on my
mother every time they got sick.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, really? So she knew something about medicine?
- BROOKS
- She had something to do with medicine. And she had a lot of medicine.
She saved a lot of lives. She had a lot to do with medicine.
- ISOARDI
- Do you know how she got that knowledge?
- BROOKS
- I don't know. She was from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
- ISOARDI
- And she'd been through high school?
- BROOKS
- Don't know. I don't even know that. I don't even know that. But this was
the actual knowledge that she had as far as medicine was concerned.
Anytime anybody got sick they'd come to my mother.
1.2. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE TWO APRIL 21, 1994
- ISOARDI
- When did music come in? Was your family musical at all? Did your parents
play? Or did your grandfather play anything?
- BROOKS
- No. My father loved music greatly. He loved it. And since I was a
firstborn, he wanted to give me music lessons. So he hired a teacher,
and she came to the house. She had me put my little finger and the thumb
on the piano to make an octave. And I couldn't.
- ISOARDI
- How old were you?
- BROOKS
- Four. So she said, "When she can make an octave from this small finger
to this thumb, when she can make an octave, I'll take her. I'll work
with her." And she told me how to push the thing. I had the bottom of
the piano. My father had bought me a baby grand piano, and I had the
bottom of the piano, and I was pushing like that, boom, boom, boom.
Pushing, pushing, pushing.
- ISOARDI
- So you were pushing against the base of the keys trying to force--
- BROOKS
- Pushing, pushing. This one. This is my left hand. She wanted--
- ISOARDI
- So you were trying to push your fingers apart so you could reach it?
- BROOKS
- And I did.
- ISOARDI
- So you really wanted to start playing the piano, then.
- BROOKS
- No, I was trying to please my father, and I was trying to do what she
said. So that's what I did. I pushed my little finger and my thumb up
against the keyboard, the bottom of the piano board, until I could do--
Boom, boom. It took me two weeks.
- ISOARDI
- Only two weeks and you were able to make the octave?
- BROOKS
- Uh-huh. And when she came back she took me, you know, and she looked at
me, and she said, you know, boom, boom, boom, and that was it. And then
she gave me a couple of exercises to do. I stayed with her and she
stayed with me twenty years.
- ISOARDI
- Twenty years?
- BROOKS
- Twenty years.
- ISOARDI
- Long time!
- BROOKS
- Well, I think the point of the twenty years was that my mother and
father wanted her to complete everything that she knew with me. She was
absolutely brilliant. Everything that she knew they wanted her to give
me.
- ISOARDI
- What was her name?
- BROOKS
- Florence Bruni.
- ISOARDI
- Did she just teach privately? Or did she teach--?
- BROOKS
- She taught me privately. I don't know who else she taught.
- ISOARDI
- Did she teach music in the school?
- BROOKS
- No, no.
- ISOARDI
- Did she play professionally?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- Just a teacher. She just taught privately?
- BROOKS
- She taught me everything I knew. She taught me everything I knew. I
don't know who else she had, and I don't know who else-- Oh, she had my
sister, but my sister didn't take but five years. I took twenty years.
My daddy told us both, he said, "Okay, if you don't want to take lessons
anymore, don't let me spend the money. Say no and I'll stop you. I'm not
going to be angry with you, and I will not be upset, but if you don't
want it, don't do it."
- ISOARDI
- How old were you then?
- BROOKS
- How old was I? I was four years old. I was up to my eighteen or nineteen
or something like that. I mean, what's twenty years from four?
- ISOARDI
- No, I mean when your father told you that?
- BROOKS
- Oh, my father told me that, yeah, and my sister that. I don't know. I
was five or six. My sister was five or six, because she was maybe two
years younger than me, because I was two years older than her. He told
her, "If you don't want it anymore, forget it. Don't worry." And when
she didn't want it anymore, she told him, and he stopped it. But I kept
going, going, going, going. Mrs. Bruni kept coming to me every Saturday.
And I did a graduation solo in junior high, and I did a graduation solo
in high school, and I did a graduation solo in my college. And then,
after that, I told her, "You can go home."
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] What was her training like? Was it classical training? Just
classical.
- BROOKS
- Classical. And she was so gentle. See, that's the only way I could learn
from her. She was very gentle. She talked to me softly. She talked to
me. She showed me where my hands should be, she showed me how I should
do this. If she did this, if she did that, get out! I don't go that way.
You do not come down on me with any force and have me turn around and
produce. She showed me everything that was classical, I've got news for
you. She had such gorgeous hands, such gorgeous fingers. Very beautiful.
She showed me everything I wanted to know. I did everything she told me.
Then, when I went from her to high school, I had a special curricular
program to go to from my junior high school to my high school. I wasn't
going to Roosevelt [High School]; I was going to a special music
curricular at [Los Angeles] Polytechnic High School. I was awarded that,
and I went over there. I went with this man who was the biggest and
supposedly the best teacher. That's why I was going there, to get the
best teaching there. This man was there. I played with him. What I mean
when I say I played with him, I played with him. I'd show up, but up
underneath the table I'd hide, and when he would say "Hadda Brooks," I'd
say, "Hi. Here I am." Every day I'd do that, and he absolutely accepted
it. And when I would come out and he'd call on me to do my show-- I had
a four-manual organ that he taught me on. When I'd do my exercise and I
would do my program and I would do my song and whatnot, he'd listen. I'd
do no wrong. I did the right thing because I loved him. I loved him
because he took me right there in his hands. He took me right there in
his hands. He pushed me right through. Even though I was up underneath
the table hiding from him, he knew where I was.
- ISOARDI
- Were you just shy? Why were you hiding?
- BROOKS
- Just to be shitass. But that isn't the word I knew then. I was hiding
because I knew that he loved me, I knew that I liked him. He said,
"Hadda." I was up underneath the table; he knew where I was. And ten
minutes later, I'd say, "Oh, hi." Frank [L.] Anderson was his name, and
I called him Uncle Frank. And when I did the solo when I graduated,
Caprice Veinoir by Fritz Kreisler, and I got off, I took ahold of his
arm, and I pinched the hell out of it. I know he was black and blue. I
pinched the hell out of it. I used to play the organ barefooted. I'd
take my shoes off. I'd play the organ barefooted. And when I got off on
that graduation night, my solo that I did, Caprice Veinoir by Fritz
Kreisler, he knew that I'd done it. He dropped his hat, and I went back
and I pinched the hell out of him. [laughs] I did. I pinched the hell
out of him. I had graduated. That was the night of graduation. I
graduated.
- ISOARDI
- What did you want to do then? Here you were graduating from high school.
You'd been studying since you were four--what?--fourteen years?
- BROOKS
- I didn't know.
- ISOARDI
- You didn't have any goals or ambitions?
- BROOKS
- Not one clue.
- ISOARDI
- Did you know you wanted to be a musician then?
- BROOKS
- No. It wasn't the idea that I knew I wanted to be a musician. I mean, I
had started out as a child of four. And here I am, it's going on and
going on and going on, and I'm getting all kinds of beautiful grades for
a child. I mean, sixteen, fourteen, fifteen years old, and I'm in high
school, I'm going to a special class, a special thing of musicians, an
extracurricular thing that this high school had to offer. I had received
that thing. They gave me the idea that I could go. I did not go to the
Roosevelt High School over here. I did not go there. They sent me over
to Polytechnic High School because of my education as far as music was
concerned.
- ISOARDI
- When you went to Polytechnic then, was it a program where you studied
mostly music, then?
- BROOKS
- Oh, I studied the biggest part of music, yes, the biggest part of music.
- ISOARDI
- So it's a program in music.
- BROOKS
- Yes. The biggest part of music. But my other classes were history,
American and English literature. I excelled in that, too. And when I
graduated, I mean, that was the biggest thing in my life. And Uncle
Frank was my biggest teacher. When I went to college I couldn't take it,
because I couldn't take the woman who was teaching me. She was German,
and I told her to go to hell. She wanted me to do Bach. I said, "No, I'm
not doing Bach. Bach is too mathematical. Melodically I am inclined. If
you can't give me something melodically I cannot take it." Then I went
back to Frank Anderson, Uncle Frank. I said, "She wants to give me Bach.
She wants to do this. She wants to do that." Then of course, naturally,
he said, "Well, she's a professor. She wants you to do this and she
wants you to do that." I said, "Uncle Frank, I can't do that. Uncle
Frank, I cannot do that. I can't do Bach, not the way she wants me to do
Bach. I can't do it." So he said, "Well, okay. You come back in another
couple of weeks." But in another couple of weeks, when I went back, I
sat with him for about twenty-five minutes, and he had a brain tumor,
and it had gone into cancer, and within the next two weeks he was gone.
I told her. I said, "My master is gone. My master has died. My master is
not going to give me any more, you know, a form of things that I want to
take, so I'm leaving your class." And I left her. I wouldn't take
anything from her, and I wouldn't take anything more from her, and I
wouldn't do anything-- After he died, I said, "He taught me everything I
know. I don't want to know any more. If there is anything else to take,
I don't want to know anything more. Uncle Frank, Frank L. Anderson, has
taught me everything I want to know. I can sit on a five-case organ
right now. I don't need Bach. I know counterpoint. I know the difference
in where this hand is going and what this hand is going to do and
counterpoint and whatever." This is the best thing that you can do in
lesson learning to create something where this hand can go one way, this
hand can go another way, and it all comes in the same vein. I know where
it's going. My music told me that. My teaching has told me that. Frank
L. Anderson has helped me to develop that. What do I want to know? The
idea that I have all of this knowledge as far as the concern of whatever
I am doing right now is where I am right as of today. I am absolutely
pushing it right now. I'm doing it. It might be in a different vein,
because I'm singing and playing and pushing my two hands into what I
might think is a combination of a beautiful sound behind my vocal
chords. Not that I'm giving you a concert. It's my vocal chords. It's
why, it's where, and it's what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't know.
"Well, what are you going to do?" "What do you mean, what am I going to
do? I'm going to do the best I can. I'm going to do the things that I
know how to do, that I should do as far as music is concerned." And you
take the rest of this and sort of maybe throw it out somewhere, put this
other and every other word as to what I can say as to how important it
might be. Not what I said but how important the one word can be to each
other word, you know. I don't know. I had no idea, Steve, none
whatsoever, when I came out of college as to what I was going to do with
my musical education.
- ISOARDI
- Where were you going to college, where was this taking place?
- BROOKS
- I went so long to UCLA and so long to-- Let me see. Wait. Northwestern
[University]. Anyway--
- ISOARDI
- Is that where you met this German teacher?
- BROOKS
- No, I met the German teacher in junior college, Chapman College. When I
left high school I went to--
- ISOARDI
- You went to Chapman?
- BROOKS
- I went to Chapman.
- ISOARDI
- Why Chapman? Because they had a good music program?
- BROOKS
- Well, I had thought they did. I had thought they did. And it was still
in the city of Los Angeles, see. I thought it was right here, and I
couldn't go any further, you know. And there was no way in the world--
And this German teacher was out there in Chapman College. [tape recorder
off]
- ISOARDI
- So you're just sort of taking it a year at a time, and you're studying,
and you're learning, and you're practicing, I guess, a great deal on
your own, then, at this time, too. Did this take up most of your time,
music, then?
- BROOKS
- No, it didn't, because to a certain extent I did not know where all of
this education as far as music was concerned was going to take me. I had
no idea that it was going to come into this or whatever it was going to
come into. I had no idea. There was no way in the world that I thought
it would. No way.
- ISOARDI
- Were most of your friends, then, also studying music?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- This was just a thing you did and then went out and had--?
- BROOKS
- Most of my friends were not studying. My girlfriend who lived across the
street over there, she-- I don't know about her curriculum and how great
it was, but because of me she did get a thing to go over to Polytechnic
High School because of the music curriculum, which was a higher grade.
Say like you've got a sweater, but you've got a sweater that cost
forty-nine dollars, and then you've got a sweater that costs sixty-nine
dollars, which is not much difference, but the sixty-nine dollars
sweater will engage you into a higher curriculum. Okay. Seemingly, as of
right now, I'm going to the point where I think that that's exactly what
it was. The only teachers who were absolutely higher than the teachers
of the school that I was supposed to go to had a bit of a higher
education as far as music was concerned, and they were supposed to help
the pupils that had a bit of a higher education as far as music was
concerned. If you said from A to A natural, and I could hear it without
you even playing it, then I was ready. They wanted me, you see. I had a
bit of a higher education than the average student as far as music was
concerned. And I was so enamored with this man, Frank Anderson, who took
care of me, who brought me out into everything as far as music was
concerned. I was so enamored with him. I mean, I played games with him.
I know he knew where I was. I know he knew I knew my lesson. I know when
he called my name, and if I didn't answer he knew I was up underneath
the stage there somewhere. He knew I knew that. And when it came time to
graduate he said, "You will play the graduation solo on the organ,
Caprice Veinoir by Fritz Kreisler." I played it. When I got off I
pinched him so hard he turned black and blue. I knew. I wasn't going to
say, "Show me your arm," you know. But that was, to a certain extent,
Steve, one of the greatest things--well, to a certain extent, as I keep
saying--in my life. This man had so much faith in me. I mean, there was
nobody [who was] going to take my place. There was nobody [who was]
going to take my place. And as far as I'm concerned, I loved him. I
loved him. I played with him, and he knew what I was doing. I had nerve
enough to play with the teacher. I had nerve enough to play with the
teacher.
- ISOARDI
- What was your favorite music then? What did you enjoy playing most?
- BROOKS
- I played the most melodic things in the world.
- ISOARDI
- Such as?
- BROOKS
- Oh, I don't know. Debussy, Chopin, Schubert, all the things that they
wrote. Dvorak. All the things that they wrote that were melodic, that
could flow, where I could do this with the organ, where I could do this
with my feet. I did not do anything that was--huh!--heavens to betsy,
rake your head right up, you know. I couldn't do it. He knew that I
couldn't do it. [sings grandiose phrase] Forget it! I couldn't do it.
- ISOARDI
- You probably weren't playing much atonal music, then. [laughs]
- BROOKS
- I wasn't playing anything that took me way out somewhere in a field that
absolutely had bulls running towards me, you know. And all of a sudden
here-- I mean, I've got news for you, I had to be very, very careful to
jump away from them. And then all of a sudden here comes the soft music
with the lambs. No, I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that.
- ISOARDI
- Outside of school, though, you were a teenager, you were in high school.
What kind of music were you listening to outside of school? Did you
listen to Chopin recordings outside of school also? Or were you
listening to popular music then?
- BROOKS
- Popular music. I was listening to popular music. The popular music on
the side of-- Let's see. Wait a minute. Hold on now. Give me time,
because I've got to think. Because I've got news. My daddy, he almost
threw me out of the house. "Body and Soul." I was playing-- Oh, I had a
lot of popular music, you know. I went and bought popular music, and I
would put it in the bench. And every Saturday, when my teacher would
come, Miss Bruni, she wouldn't know anything about it. But while I was
getting-- I was asleep, and she would come. And when I was getting ready
and taking my shower, and she would have breakfast with my mother--like
bacon and eggs and whatnot--I would sneak back into the living room
while they were having breakfast and put the sheet music in the bench.
But there was one tune I had, "Body and Soul," and when my daddy heard
me say, [sings] "I'll gladly surrender myself to you, body and soul"--
"What do you mean by singing that?" "I'm all for yours body and soul." I
said, "Daddy, it's a song. It's a song." "You're not going to
surrender--"
- ISOARDI
- You told me he loved music.
- BROOKS
- He loved music, but he didn't like the lyrics of that song. "I'm going
to surrender myself to you body and soul." "What are you talking about?"
- ISOARDI
- So he didn't want his daughter singing anything like that.
- BROOKS
- No! "I'm going to surrender myself to you body and--" "What are you
talking about? What do you mean? Surrender yourself to who?" So I said,
"Okay." So then I turned it away. I've never sung it again.
- ISOARDI
- "Body and Soul"? You've never done that?
- BROOKS
- I was nine to ten years old. I have never sung it again, because my
father turned me off of it, and I've never sung it again.
- ISOARDI
- No kidding.
- BROOKS
- [sings melody] It's a gorgeous tune. [sings again] "I'd gladly surrender
myself to you body and--" Oh, Jesus Christmas. I've got news, my daddy
darn near had a fit. He almost had a baby, and he wasn't a woman.
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] What were his tastes in music?
- BROOKS
- He loved beautiful tunes like-- Oh, my God. You're calling on me now,
and I can't even think-- Let me see.
- ISOARDI
- Did he have records in the house?
- BROOKS
- Oh, yeah. He had records. He and my grandfather had records of [Amelita]
Galli-Curci and [Enrico] Caruso.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, they were opera fans.
- BROOKS
- And then they had records of this guy, he's a comedian. Williams. I
can't think of this guy's name, but I liked Williams. He had a lot of--
Oh, he was beautiful. He was a comedian, a black comedian. But then--
- ISOARDI
- Bert Williams?
- BROOKS
- I think that could be his name. Bert Williams.
- ISOARDI
- It rings a bell with me. It's what comes to my mind.
- BROOKS
- Bert Williams. He used to sing, "I'm going to quit Saturday." He had one
of those things that he'd talk about. Oh, he had a lot of things, and he
was funny. Bert Williams, I think that was his name. Bert Williams. But,
my God, they had Galli-Curci and Caruso and-- They had one of those
high, great big Victrolas, you know.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, yeah.
- BROOKS
- One of the best ones that was ever put out. Not the ones that sit down
here. I mean, they had one that was high. But I can think of a few other
names as we go on now that they had. As far as Bert Williams was
concerned--
- ISOARDI
- Did they listen much to the big bands back then?
- BROOKS
- What big bands? What big bands? I don't know about big bands. What big
bands?
- ISOARDI
- Fletcher Henderson's band? Benny Goodman's band? None of those?
- BROOKS
- No. No. We used to absolutely, when we had a radio on and when-- What's
his name? He used to be so loud. He used to be so loud, you know.
[sings] "Oh, your feets too big. Oh, your feets too big." What was his
name?
- ISOARDI
- I don't know that one.
- BROOKS
- Oh, yeah. Fats Waller.
- ISOARDI
- Oh! [laughs]
- BROOKS
- Fats Waller. That was his name. Fats Waller. "Your feets too big." And
he had other great big songs. He was so loud. And my grandfather and
them played the radio, and they heard them, but whenever they wanted to
play the specials-- Oh, no. They didn't come on radio. They had the
great big records of Galli-Curci and Caruso. They'd put it on the record
thing, the great big Victrola.
- ISOARDI
- Did they take you out to concerts much?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- You never went out and heard people perform?
- BROOKS
- No. No. No. My teacher, my piano teacher, took me out to concerts. She
took me out to Saturday concerts.
- ISOARDI
- Where?
- BROOKS
- At the Philharmonic [Hall] downtown and other places, around the
Pasadena places, you know. She had a chauffer that would drive her.
Semi-concerts that were like that, you know. Nothing very heavy. Nothing
very heavy, because she didn't want to hurt my head. She didn't want to
put too much on me, you know. She wanted me to listen to this as what
she knew that I liked--melodic things, you know. So it was a
semi-concert to a certain extent. I went with her, and I enjoyed it
because of the fact that I knew that it wasn't too heavy and she wasn't
putting it on top of me. And when she came out with it, then she said,
"Did you enjoy it?" I said, "Yes." Because I did. I did. It wasn't, you
know, [screams], you know. I couldn't take that. She knew I couldn't
take that.
- ISOARDI
- What about when you were a teenager? Did you go to dances or to clubs or
anything like that to hear music?
- BROOKS
- I went to a lot of dances. I went to a lot of clubs.
- ISOARDI
- What were your favorites?
- BROOKS
- My favorite what?
- ISOARDI
- Your favorite clubs.
- BROOKS
- There were no special clubs that were named. We had clubs as a special
group, and we would give dances, but we didn't go to a club. You
understand what I'm trying to say? I didn't go to a club like the kids
go to clubs now. We didn't go to drink. We didn't have any drinks
whatsoever. We went, and the band was there, and we were there to dance,
and that's all. But we didn't go to a club where they had beer or
liquor. No, no, we didn't go. We didn't know what it was to drink. Jeez,
I wish I didn't know now. [laughs] The idea is at that particular time,
Steve, we didn't drink. We didn't go to any clubs that had liquor. We
just went to a club as a dance.
- ISOARDI
- Right. Your father probably watched you pretty carefully, I would think.
- BROOKS
- Oh, he watched me pretty carefully. Steve, if I said I'd be home at
twelve [o'clock] and I didn't get home till ten minutes after twelve,
they'd be standing on the porch. I was just ten minutes late, driving
up, and they'd be standing on the porch--my mother, my grandfather, and
my father--standing on the porch, my front porch, like, "What?" Like the
idea is this: I was going to have a baby right now, eh? After nine
months or eight months, I was going to give a baby right now? I had
stopped somewhere? We're going to have sex? I went through this until I
got married.
- ISOARDI
- No kidding.
- BROOKS
- I went through this till I got married. They were standing on the steps.
I was a very beautiful girl. I was a very beautiful girl. And my
grandfather didn't want to be out there, but he had to hold up with his
son, who was my father. And my mother trusted me. My father's the one
who didn't.
- ISOARDI
- Well, probably as a sheriff he'd seen a lot of the bad side of things.
- BROOKS
- Evidently.
- ISOARDI
- It must have been tough, though, on a boy wanting to go out with you to
see both your father and your grandfather-- [laughs]
- BROOKS
- I'm riding up, and he says, "Well, there they are." My boyfriend would
say, "There they are." I'd say, "Yeah." And you know, I'm ten minutes
late. Ten minutes. "Where have you been?" "What do you mean, 'Where have
I been?' Trying to get the hell home. What are you talking about?"
1.3. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE ONE APRIL 25, 1994
- ISOARDI
- Okay, Hadda, before we get into it, let me ask you some informational
things from last time.
- BROOKS
- Okay.
- ISOARDI
- First off, what was the name of the German-- Germanic, I should
say--teacher you had at Chapman College who wasn't quite your cup of
tea? Do you remember her name?
- BROOKS
- Absolutely. Well, it was a woman, and, of course, I didn't fare very
well with women. Her name was Zelman. I'm thinking that her name was
Zelman. She was very, very German.
- ISOARDI
- That was her last name?
- BROOKS
- Zelman.
- ISOARDI
- You don't have a first name for her?
- BROOKS
- No, no, no, no. I didn't have a first name for her. I mean, I didn't
even want to call her Zelman. [laughs] But the idea was just that it
didn't too much matter to me what her last name, first name, or middle
name was. I didn't like her because she was a woman, and she wanted me
to go through Bach, you know, Johann Sebastian Bach. I'd already been
through that on the piano with my teacher Miss [Florence] Bruni. Mr.
Frank [L.] Anderson did not put me through Bach. And when she wanted me
to go through Bach, I said, "Listen, I flunked math. I mean, like,
Johann Sebastian Bach is nothing but a mathematical thing as far as the
music is concerned. Counterpoint." I didn't want to go through it. I had
become now, when I got to junior college, very melodic, and I didn't
want to go through it. She didn't accept my not wanting to go through
it, and I figured that she was going to become very hostile-- The word
isn't hostile, the word is strong. Maybe I can say that. Strong for not
wanting to do what she wanted me to do. And at that particular point, I
wasn't going to let her tell me what she wanted me to do, and I said,
"No, I won't do it." So then I told my mother, "I will not take her
class anymore." I said, "Don't send your money, because it's a waste. I
will not take her class anymore." And even though I did maybe about
three months of Bach-- She knew that I could do it. She knew that I had
completed the exercises of Bach that she wanted me to do and even play
some of the compositions of Bach. She wouldn't let me alone. She just
wanted me to keep on continuing with Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach. I said,
"I'm not going to." I said, "I've shown you. I'm playing right now. I'm
going to play Bach for you, and right now I am going to absolutely let
you know what I think about Johann Sebastian Bach, even though he is
supposedly one of the greatest musicians in the world before I ever got
here. I mean, Bach is great, but I am not in tune to like him, so I
won't play him." That didn't set well with her. And I told my mother, "I
will not take her classes anymore." So that was the end of her.
- ISOARDI
- Let me ask you one or two other names to fill in. Of course, last time
you referred to your mother, father, grandfather, etc., but you didn't
give me some names. What was your grandfather's name?
- BROOKS
- Hopgood.
- ISOARDI
- And his first name?
- BROOKS
- Samuel Alexander.
- ISOARDI
- What about your father?
- BROOKS
- My father was named John Marsalis.
- ISOARDI
- As in Wynton Marsalis?
- BROOKS
- I don't know. Wherever they got the Marsalis. I don't know wherever they
got it, but his name was John. Of course, when I was quite young my
father was called Jack. Of course, now, Jack is called John. I don't
know about that. But I always knew my father as John
M.--Marsalis--Hopgood.
- ISOARDI
- And your mother's?
- BROOKS
- My mother's name was Goldie Magdelena Wright. They met somewhere in the
South, I mean, before they--
- ISOARDI
- Oh, so they knew each other before they came out here?
- BROOKS
- Before they came out here. My daddy w s very, very definitely-- Oh, he
was going to marry her. He was going to marry her. But his family, if
truth will out, his family--my grandfather and my Aunt Roxie and quite a
few of the other relatives--did not want them to marry, only because my
mother was, truth will out, brown skinned.
- ISOARDI
- So they wanted someone lighter.
- BROOKS
- Well, they didn't say that in particular, but the point of that
possibility of things that they didn't want them to do was because of
that fact. My father didn't want me or my sister [Kathryn Hopgood
Carter] to go to the beach on the summer vacation my mother wanted to
take us on, like for three weeks on vacation down in Santa Monica,
because we were going to be at the beach, and we were going to be in the
sun. You want the truth? That's it. My father would come down, my
grandfather would come down in their three-piece suits, dressed to the
nines, but they would not come on the sand, because they had their shoes
on and everything else. We would have to come up to them when they were
standing on the sidewalk of Ocean Park or Santa Monica. We'd have to
come up and say, "Hi, Daddy, hi, Granddad." They would come down because
we were gone maybe two weeks, and they'd come down to see how we were
doing. We were down on the beach just covered with sand. When you come
out of the water you are covered with sand, you know. I mean, you were
children. So we would say, "Hi, Granddaddy" and " Hi, Daddy." Oh, no. We
couldn't go up to them. They never hugged us because of the fact they
had their gorgeous suits on and their shoes on.
- ISOARDI
- You mentioned last time that your mother's family came from Chattanooga,
Tennessee.
- BROOKS
- Well, my mother did. My mother did. I knew my mother's brothers, two
brothers, but I didn't know of any other family that she had. My mother
had two brothers. I met them when I was in Detroit. But I didn't know of
any other family that my mother had.
- ISOARDI
- So you don't know the background in Tennessee or anything?
- BROOKS
- I don't know of anything. I don't know of her mother or her father or
anything. No.
- ISOARDI
- The final thing I wanted to ask you about on some of the things we
talked about last time was you were studying music, I guess, at Poly--
- BROOKS
- [Los Angeles] Polytechnic [High School].
- ISOARDI
- That was your specialty. Were there many other girls studying music
then?
- BROOKS
- I don't know about that. But my musical curriculum from the junior high
school, I can say only that it was to the extent that it was in a
category of being maybe exceptional. I didn't think of it at that time
because nobody told me about it at that time. But when-- Oh, yeah. Let's
see now. Because Roosevelt [High School] was the high school that I
should have gone to.
- ISOARDI
- That's just over here a few blocks away.
- BROOKS
- Over here. This is in my area, in my district. I did not go to that high
school because of my-- What you would call it? Let's see.
- ISOARDI
- Did you win a scholarship to Polytechnic?
- BROOKS
- No, I didn't win a scholarship. My education in music was far ahead of
high school. I was in almost college as far as my musical education. I
was in the college thing when I didn't even understand at that time. I
was way above Roosevelt. They didn't have the musical [program]. They
didn't have that.
- ISOARDI
- So how did you go to Poly, then? Was it your junior high schoolteachers?
- BROOKS
- Because my mother had asked for special permission on special musical
education for me to go to Polytechnic. Polytechnic had the educational
thing.
- ISOARDI
- So was Polytechnic then sort of looked upon as where the better students
went to school?
- BROOKS
- The better students in educational music things. As far as I was
concerned it was musical. Right. I was accepted there because of that.
- ISOARDI
- I see.
- BROOKS
- I was accepted there because of that. I can remember my mother taking me
to Polytechnic. It was the first time after she took me to grammar
school that she took me on the bus, and we got over to Polytechnic. I
had four or five friends who were going to Polytechnic. And when my
mother brought me over there and walked me up to the bunch of my
friends, everybody just threw their arms out to me, "Welcome," you know.
They just said, "We're happy you're here." And when my mother found out
that I was going to be well taken care of because of some of my friends,
then my mother went back and took the streetcar back home.
- ISOARDI
- Did you make friends at Polytechnic who turned out to be life-long
friends?
- BROOKS
- Quite a few.
- ISOARDI
- Were they also musicians?
- BROOKS
- Yes.
- ISOARDI
- Really?
- BROOKS
- Yes. I have one friend that's called John Winslow. He was a heavy foot
on the organ. He was a great musician. I see him now. I see him maybe
once every two or three years. He has an organ in his home. It is not a
Hammond organ, it is a regular three-manual, what you call a pipe organ.
It's a regular organ. And he's a beautiful musician. The idea about John
Winslow, I liked him very much, and he liked me very much as far as my
musical ability was concerned, but he never did make it to play the
graduation solo at high school. But he is a very technical, I would call
technical--not melodic--organ player. He's a technical musician. He's a
good musician. Technically we would call him an extremely good musician
still.
- ISOARDI
- So you could put anything in front of him and he could play it?
- BROOKS
- Absolutely. Absolutely. And the idea was this: What I liked about John
Winslow, when he wasn't selected to play the graduation solo there was
no animosity. It was just one of those things where he had thought like,
"Hadda Brooks, she deserved it." And he said, "I'm okay." This man Frank
L. Anderson taught him everything he knew and taught me everything I
knew, and he was very happy with that.
- ISOARDI
- Did he go on to have a career in music?
- BROOKS
- No career in music, no. No career in music. He still plays. I am not
sure as to-- He didn't do any show business, no. As of right now, I
mean, if you're not doing jazz organ you're not doing anything at all,
so he probably more than likely--which I'm not sure of--played for
church with the great big sound of the organ. But he didn't do any
solos, and he didn't do any concerts as far as I knew. I don't know
that.
- ISOARDI
- Maybe you can talk a little bit about what the music program was like at
Polytechnic. What were you studying musically? Was it harmony every
year? Were there bands that people would also play in? Or orchestras,
classical orchestras, that they would have students play in?
- BROOKS
- Well, yes, as everybody else. But what I'm going to say to you is this:
Supposedly they told them about me, I don't know. They treated me like a
special student.
- ISOARDI
- At Polytechnic?
- BROOKS
- At Polytechnic. Everything that happened there, I had to be, or they
were picking me as, or they selected me as, part of it. I don't care
what show they did. I don't care what program they had, there was a solo
I had to do.
- ISOARDI
- Really? From almost as soon as you got there?
- BROOKS
- Almost as soon as I got there. When I came into the point of-- Now,
look, I'll correct you. Not as soon as I got there. But until I came
into the point of knowing just exactly how to manipulate a four-manual
organ with pipes. I have never played a Hammond organ, because I don't
think it's-- It's not beautiful enough for me. If you want to play a
Hammond organ, you're going to go jazz. Well, I never played jazz organ.
But when I got there, every time that they had a show Uncle Frank just
sort of put me right in to the point where, "You've got to have her on
it. You've got to do her on it. She's going to play on it. She's going
to make it on it. You're going to put Hadda Brooks on it." I used to
hide from him up underneath the stage. And he'd say, "Hadda Brooks--"
And he didn't see me sitting out there with the rest of the class. He'd
say, "Hadda Brooks," and I'd be underneath the stage. "Yeah, I'm here."
He'd say, "Okay." Because he knew where I was.
- ISOARDI
- Did he ever talk to you about what you should do with your music? Did he
ever say, "Hadda, you should really point towards this" or anything like
that?
- BROOKS
- No. No. He was a person who was-- The reason I got so much from him is
because he would talk to me very gently. That's the only way I can
learn. That's how come I put my teacher down, the German teacher down in
Chapman College. She demanded that I do. And I've got news for you,
don't demand that I do anything. You don't demand that I do anything.
You don't tell me and point your finger. I will go on my own. I will
upset you. And I upset her. But Frank L. Anderson would just talk to me.
He didn't tell me what I should do. He didn't tell me where I should go,
here or there or the other. He trained me to do exactly what I did:
learn that four-manual organ to perfection and then tell the principal
and everybody in that school that I'm going to play a graduation solo.
"I have her, she is capable, and that's what's going to be happening.
Put her down on the program." That's all he did. You see, what I'm
trying to say is that he knew my nature. He knew where my head was
coming from. He knew what I was going to do. He didn't tell me what to
do. He taught me and expected me to go through his teachings. And when I
made a mistake, he didn't say anything. He knew I knew I made a mistake.
He didn't say, "You're wrong. You made a mistake. Do it again." He
didn't say that. He knew I knew I made a mistake.
- ISOARDI
- Great teacher.
- BROOKS
- Beautiful teacher.
- ISOARDI
- He put you in touch with yourself.
- BROOKS
- Beautiful teacher. I have never and will never forget him, because he
was absolutely the point of me being almost to a certain extent where I
am right now. He gave me my confidence. He gave me my security. He gave
me the thought that I knew what I could do. And when I was wrong he gave
me the thought that I knew. He didn't have to tell me when I was wrong.
I knew when I was wrong. And I would change, correct, and follow
through. And the next day he would say, when I came back to class, "You
just hit." And I knew he understood that I had corrected it. The night
of the graduation, when I played the solo Caprice Veinoir, when I got
through--because I always played with my left foot barefoot, I took my
shoe off, I played barefoot--I got off, and I went down, because he was
sitting behind me, maybe over here like, and when I got through I knew I
did it. I knew what I did. I knew he was happy. I knew he was very
proud. I know he had followed me clear through the whole thing that he
taught me. And I pinched him so he was black and blue on his arm. Bam! I
pinched him so hard. I mean, if he hadn't been a gentlemen he would have
taken off his coat and shirt and showed me the black and blue mark
that-- I pinched him so hard, because I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew he
knew what I did. I knew, I knew that he was happy. I knew that he was
satisfied. I pinched the heck out of him. And he never flinched. He
never flinched. He didn't do this, he didn't do that. I mean, I got on
this side, on this left arm. I pinched the hell out of him and walked
back up in my cap and gown back on the stage and sat down in my seat.
[laughs] I knew he was happy. I knew he was happy. I miss him very much.
I miss him. I miss him very much.
- ISOARDI
- I can tell. Well, after Poly you went through Chapman, but you didn't
last long in Chapman thanks to this Germanic teacher. Then what did you
do after you left Chapman?
- BROOKS
- Well, I didn't leave Chapman so much on account of her. Chapman was a
college that-- I mean, like even moving away from Frank L. Anderson and
going to a junior college, I mean-- You know how you leave friends. You
just sort of seem not sad, but you sort of seem like you don't even know
them. They're new. I mean, you're going with four years of all your
students and your friends in high school, then you go to a college and
you don't know anybody. And here's your other organ teacher who is so--
I mean, you don't like her. But I mean, its not the point that you don't
want the education. The point is that to a certain extent you're
lonesome. You don't have your friends, your other friends who might have
gone. Maybe they couldn't afford college. Maybe they went somewhere
else.
- ISOARDI
- So no one you knew was going to Chapman, then?
- BROOKS
- No, no one that I knew. And there was one time that there was a big
dance. And everybody knew I played the piano. There was supposed to be a
piano player and a bass player who played so that everybody could dance.
It was a big dance, you know. And they didn't show up. And here I am
with my little boyfriend, and they know that I can play the piano, and
they're asking me to play the piano for them to dance, the whole school.
I was very upset. I was very upset. "What do you mean? It's the first
time I--" Well, okay, I'm performing now. I'm performing now for the
whole college. I'm playing the piano by myself, and everybody's dancing.
Everybody knows that I'm quite upset. Everybody knows that I don't like
it. Well, I did. I did. I played for maybe three hours, four hours.
- ISOARDI
- You played the whole night?
- BROOKS
- I played the whole night. Where I got the tunes from, I don't know, but
I--
- ISOARDI
- That's the other thing. I was going to ask you what you played for three
hours.
- BROOKS
- I played everything that I thought I had heard on radio. And they danced
and they danced and they danced and they danced. And I sat down there.
My boyfriend was standing there; he wasn't dancing with anybody. He
didn't know anybody. He came with me.
- ISOARDI
- He sat there for three hours?
- BROOKS
- That's right. And they didn't like my attitude. No, they didn't like my
attitude. They didn't like it because I didn't like it. So I met with
them the next day. We had a girls conference or whatever the club was
called. I can't remember. And I said, "I'm very sorry that you didn't
like my attitude." I said, "But if I hadn't been able to produce music
for you, what would you have done? Why are you angry with me because I
was upset?" I said, "I came with my boyfriend to have fun, you came with
your boyfriends to have fun, and all of a sudden when you saw that my
attitude was a bit upsetting, why are you being angry with me?" I said,
"If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have danced." And they danced. I
mean, every time I played [sings] they danced. There's no way in the
world. So I said, "I am very sorry about your attitude, I am very sorry
about how you feel, but the next time you have a dance don't invite me,
because I will not play for you just in case your orchestra doesn't show
up." Every musical thing they had-- I even did the background of "The
Raven," the poem "The Raven." Everything that went on-- I mean, I don't
think there was anybody else there who played the piano. I never thought
about it at the time. I'm just now coming to the point where I don't
think anybody played the piano.
- ISOARDI
- This was junior college? There must have been a lot of music students.
- BROOKS
- I don't know. I was the only one who played this, played that, played--
Every time they had an auditorium assembly I was the one who played the
piano.
- ISOARDI
- They must have thought you were just far and away the best.
- BROOKS
- I don't know. I never thought of it that way myself. You said it, I
didn't.
- ISOARDI
- Well, it must have been. I mean, there had to have been other piano
players.
- BROOKS
- I don't know. There were other musicians there taking musical curricula
and things.
- ISOARDI
- Well, that must have been it.
- BROOKS
- Had to be. Anyway-- [tape recorder off]
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, everyone wanted you to play at Chapman College. We were talking
about the reasons why you left Chapman, too.
- BROOKS
- Well, the reasons I left Chapman--
- ISOARDI
- I mean, aside from your teacher there.
- BROOKS
- --is because that-- Yeah. Is because that unbeknownst to me, I think
that I wanted a little bit more than just going under tutorings as far
as teachers were concerned. And English and history, which I adored-- I
loved history. I was great in history. I mean, I knew all the--what do
you call it?--the 1899s and 1922s and all the dates as far as I was
going to-- I loved it. English literature, I had a great deal in there.
I loved every moment of it. The only thing that I couldn't get was from
that woman, you know. So I think that's why I left.
- ISOARDI
- How long were you there? Was it a year?
- BROOKS
- I left there-- I was there for a year and a half.
- ISOARDI
- A year and a half.
- BROOKS
- And my mother wanted me to stay and keep on going through college. And
then I went through to Northwestern [University] and maybe a few other
things.
- ISOARDI
- Where was Northwestern?
- BROOKS
- Northwestern is in New York, isn't it?
- ISOARDI
- Northwestern University in Illinois?
- BROOKS
- Uh-huh.
- ISOARDI
- Illinois?
- BROOKS
- Yeah.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, you went to the Midwest then?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, I went over there. I went over there, and I stayed there for about
maybe a year, and I left.
- ISOARDI
- Studying music there, I guess?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, yeah. And then I came out. And then, of course, naturally I was
being inducted, if you want to say, inducted. I told my manager, I said,
"Oh, I'm indicted into the hall of fame." He said, "No, you're inducted
into the hall of fame." [laughs] I came out of there and went into show
business.
- ISOARDI
- Out of Northwestern?
- BROOKS
- Yeah.
- ISOARDI
- Is that why you left? You decided you just wanted to--?
- BROOKS
- No, no, no. I didn't leave there. I just said, "What am I doing? What am
I going through? I mean, I've gone though this." I mean, Frank L.
Anderson had given me everything I wanted to know.
- ISOARDI
- So you just felt you weren't getting much out of it?
- BROOKS
- He was long dead. He was gone. I went to see him maybe about two weeks
before he died. I went to his house to see him. And this was like five
or six years later. I said, "I can't get anything more from him. He's
gone. He's given me everything I want. What am I going to do?" And here
these people were saying, you know-- Like I came back home to Los
Angeles, and these people were saying, "Do boogies. Do this, do that, do
the other." I mean, like, "your music ability." So I did.
- ISOARDI
- So you came back from Northwestern. We're talking now about the late
1930s?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- The mid-1930s?
- BROOKS
- When I came back from Chapman College it was '37, '38. In '39, '40, and
'41 I was back in--
- ISOARDI
- Northwestern, okay. So you came back here then. It was about 1941, then?
- BROOKS
- 'Forty-one and '42. And '46 is when I actually started in show business.
- ISOARDI
- So what did you do, then, between '42 and '46?
- BROOKS
- Nothing. Nothing.
- ISOARDI
- Were you working at all?
- BROOKS
- I was playing for a dance director.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, really?
- BROOKS
- Willie Covan. He was one of the most beautiful dance directors I've ever
played for. He taught-- What's his name? I was reading about him today.
He even taught a couple of beautiful routines for the guy who danced
with Ginger Rogers.
- ISOARDI
- Fred Astaire? Really?
- BROOKS
- He taught Ginger Rogers. He taught Shirley Temple. Now, well, I'm trying
to say she-- We had to wake her up. She just slept. She was a little,
slow kid, but she was a little, beautiful kid, because he taught her,
you know. And she picked up on everything and whatnot and what was going
on and all of that. But in between that time, when I came back from
Northwestern and when I got into show business, that's what I was doing.
I was the accompanist for the great Mr. Willie Covan.
- ISOARDI
- Now, how did that happen? How did you get that job?
- BROOKS
- At the particular time, my husband-- I had married. I left home. I
married one of the Harlem Globetrotters.
- ISOARDI
- No kidding. Which one?
- BROOKS
- [Earl] "Shug" Morrison.
- ISOARDI
- No kidding.
- BROOKS
- Yeah. I married him. I ran off, because my mother and father and
grandfather used to stand on the porch every time I went out. If I
didn't get there at twelve o'clock, oh, Jesus Christ, you thought I was
going to jail. [laughs] And I said, "Well, I've got news for them. I'm
not going home anymore." So we got married. We were in love, and he was
a beautiful man.
- ISOARDI
- Where did you meet him?
- BROOKS
- I met him on a Sunday afternoon or a Sunday evening at the-- Wait a
minute. On Sunday afternoon-- There was an auditorium on Central Avenue,
but I can't think of the name of it. It's very well known.
- ISOARDI
- Was it a dance place?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, you could dance there.
- ISOARDI
- The Elks auditorium.
- BROOKS
- There you go. There you go. And the Harlem Globetrotters used to play
the Broadway Clowns every Sunday afternoon. Then, when they'd get though
with their show, they would come over to the guy that I worked with,
Willie Covan, and his wife [Florence Covan] and the other guys and their
wives--not the Harlem Globetrotters but the other guys and their wives.
They would take them over to Willie Covan's house, and the women would
get in there and make great big waffles, cake waffles, with strawberries
and ice cream, and we'd just eat. That's where I met my husband. We
weren't together very long. I mean, we were together about a year, and
then we got married, and maybe four months later he had developed
pulmonary pneumonia, and he died. So then we weren't married but about a
year, maybe four months, you know. And I never married again. This was
like 1941. I never married again.
- ISOARDI
- You didn't want to? Or it just didn't happen?
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, I never found anybody I wanted. I mean, a lot of people
came, blah, blah, blah, because I had now gone into making a career for
myself. I mean, there were a lot of people wanting me, but I couldn't
see them. I'd have in Chicago five millionaires sitting at a table, and
I couldn't do anything but take a drink from them. I wouldn't go up to
the hotel room; I wouldn't go into the bed with them. I wouldn't do
anything. It wasn't my idea. So to a certain extent it still hasn't
been. This was one of the phases of my life with Abe Saperstein, who
absolutely adored my husband. And when he died-- He died here at the--
what do you call it?--the--
- ISOARDI
- The medical center here?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, the hospital over there, yeah. And then, when I brought him back
to Chicago, Abe Saperstein and a few of the basketball players,
Meadowlark [Lemon] and Goose Tatum--at the time they played with
him--they all met us there at the train station when they brought his
body off. And then Abe Saperstein had a great big what-do-you-call-it
car to take him to the funeral home.
1.4. TAPE NUMBER: II, SIDE TWO APRIL 25, 1994
- BROOKS
- So they met him and took him to the funeral home. And then it was just
two days later we had the funeral, and they were all there. I was very
young. I was very young. I mean, that was the only man I loved. That was
the only man that was-- I mean, we weren't together that much, because,
I mean, he was on the road playing with the Harlem Globetrotters, and I
wasn't traveling with him. I wasn't even in show business. And, I mean,
the idea was this: I wasn't traveling with him. When he died, I had a
real heartrending thing. I mean, I just couldn't get over it. But then,
after that, I decided that I was going to do something. I was going to
go into something. I was going to do something. And then, as I went
around a while and started playing for Willie Covan, I met quite a few
people in show business. I was trying to do a boogie on the-- I can't
think of the name of the piece now, but I will tell you. I got the
rhythm. I got Latin things, and I got waltzes, and I got two-steps, and
I got every bit of rhythm out of that piece. Poet and Peasant [by Franz
von Suppé] is the name of the piece. I wanted to get-- [tape recorder
off] I wanted to get boogie on all of those things that I had gotten out
of Poet and Peasant for Willie Covan, who was doing everything. He was
the most marvelous-- I'm doing my arms, which is not noticeable.
- ISOARDI
- You're doing very graceful gestures. [laughs]
- BROOKS
- But he was the most marvelous show dancer. I mean, he did everything to
a song that everybody-- Like [Ernest] Belcher, all of the dance
directors. When he did a show, and when he did a teaching, and when he
did a school--which they had, a dancing teachers school--when Willie
Covan was there they were there to see him do that routine that he
taught them. His movements were the most melodic. His movements were
most beautiful. Every step. It wasn't like a step like you do [sings
brisk dance melody], you know, like the Hines Brothers, who were great,
but they weren't like that. Every step was a picture. It was a picture.
And I thought, "Oh, my God. This is the greatest thing." I mean, I loved
playing for him because of the fact that I created and he created.
That's the way it was. It was gorgeous. And that's before I went into
show business.
- ISOARDI
- Now, did he have his own studio? Or was he working for--?
- BROOKS
- Oh, yes. No, no. Yes, he did. He had his own studio.
- ISOARDI
- So people would come to him for training?
- BROOKS
- Oh, yes. Some of the biggest stars in the country would come to him.
- ISOARDI
- Where was his studio at?
- BROOKS
- His studio was on Forty-first [Street] and Jefferson Boulevard, right
across the street from Jefferson High School. Right across the street.
And the biggest thing was that he didn't have Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. His school was Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday, and I worked Friday and Saturday for the biggest students that
he had. And he would have a show every year. Bless his heart. He's gone.
I have never seen anybody who could make a dance routine into something
that you could follow as the most beautiful thing in the country. I've
never seen-- This wasn't hard tap. This was tap, but tapestry. That's
the way it was. I loved it. I loved it. I took a lesson from him. Yeah,
I did. [laughs] I took a lesson from him.
- ISOARDI
- So how did you hook up with him in the first place?
- BROOKS
- Well, let me see. Let me think. Oh. It was one of those things where, I
mean, he needed a pianist.
- ISOARDI
- Did he advertise?
- BROOKS
- No. Oh. Through the Harlem Globetrotters.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, okay. So you had met your husband by then.
- BROOKS
- Yes. Yes. Because when I used to go to the Elks auditorium to see my
husband play-- I was married to him even then, but I would go and see
them play. Then I'd go over to Willie Covan's and his wife's house, and
other people would be there, and blah, blah, blah, and so and so and so,
and the word came up that I played this and that and the other. I went
down, and he called me down to see if I wanted to work in his studio.
That's how I got there. Otherwise, I hadn't met Willie, his wife-- And
there were other wives there who were familiar with the Harlem
Globetrotters. And they called me. They said, "Well, she plays the
piano." "Do you want to play the piano for me? Can I get you to come
down to my studio?" I said, "Of course."
- ISOARDI
- So you weren't working at this time.
- BROOKS
- I wasn't working. I had just come out of college. I wasn't working. My
father almost-- What do you say? My father-- What do you do when you
disinherit somebody? [laughs] Oh, golly. Oh, dear. He gave me all that
education to do what, play for a dance director?
- ISOARDI
- What did he want you to do?
- BROOKS
- He didn't want me to do anything other than just maybe stay home and let
him take care of me. I'd just gotten out of college. He didn't want me
to do anything but let him take care of me. And when I finally told him,
"I'm making ten dollars a week--" I thought it was money. I thought it
was like a hundred dollars, you know. I said, "I'm making ten dollars a
week, and I'm playing for Willie Covan, the dance director." He thought
I was going into the den of iniquity. [laughs] He really absolutely
couldn't take that for any reason whatsoever that it was good. No. Then,
after he found out I wasn't doing anything but going down on Forty-first
Street across from Jefferson High School and on Friday and Saturday
playing for the dance man, I mean, then that was okay. It was okay.
- ISOARDI
- Well, he probably thought you were going to be hanging out in the clubs
at Forty-first and Central [Avenue] all night.
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, he did eventually almost disinherit me then, too, when I
became Hadda Brooks and was playing boogies and my records were playing
on the jukebox. He thought I was going into prostitution.
- ISOARDI
- No kidding.
- BROOKS
- "You're really going down, aren't you, kid." I said, "What?" But after
he found out, then it was all right. And after he found out-- Whether he
ever came to the point that it was okay, he had come to this much of a
point outside of five or four points that when my records were playing
on the jukebox I wasn't going into a bad scene. I was raised that way. I
was raised that way. When I had become someone giving myself to the
public, then he didn't understand it. And when I sang one song-- and
I've never sung it since--"I'll give myself to you body and soul--"
- ISOARDI
- "Body and Soul."
- BROOKS
- Oh, my God, he almost killed me. "What do you mean? What do you mean?"
- ISOARDI
- How did he react to your getting married to someone like a Harlem
Globetrotter?
- BROOKS
- Well, I've got news for you, he darn near-- He almost divorced my mother
because he didn't think she raised me right, because a Harlem
Globetrotter wasn't the idea of the man that I was supposed to be with.
They cried when I came home. I told my husband Shug, I said, "You stay
here. I'll go. I'm going to go pick up my clothes." I went and picked up
my clothes, and they cried. They cried, they cried, they cried.
- ISOARDI
- Was your grandfather still alive?
- BROOKS
- Yeah. He cried. But then my grandfather, when my husband died maybe
almost a year later, my grandfather buried him. He put him on the train
and sent him back to his father with me as an accompaniment, you know. I
had to accompany him. So my grandfather was the one who had the money.
It isn't that my father wouldn't have done it, but my grandfather
thought that fast. I mean, "He has to go back to his family. He has to
be buried back in Chicago." That's where he was from. "And we're sending
our daughter back with him." See, my father had been sitting around
scratching his head for ten years, you know. I mean, like, my
grandfather was thinking that fast. "The man's gone, he's passed. We
have to do the right thing." And that's exactly what they did.
- ISOARDI
- But for the brief time you were married, they never came to accept that?
- BROOKS
- It's not the idea that they accepted it, because I never threw it in
their face. We ran off and we got our apartment, yeah. My father and my
grandfather never accepted. My mother brought us food, loads of food
every week. Mama, mama. We weren't waiting on her, but we knew she was
coming. "My daughter is not going to go hungry." So she brought food
every week. We got so sick and tired of lamb. [laughter] Lamb roast
every-- "What are you going to eat, babe?" "We're going to have lamb?
Okay, let's have some lamb. You ain't got nothing else, have you?"
[laughs] You know what I mean. So I've got news for you: Mama brought
the lamb, she brought the potatoes and carrots and a lot of other things
and whatnot, you know, bacon and eggs and stuff. No problem.
- ISOARDI
- Where was your apartment? Where were you living?
- BROOKS
- Over on the west side, over off of-- Oh, Jesus Christmas, I don't know.
I can't think of the name of the street. Anyway, it was what we actually
then called the west side--not Westwood, the west side. I'll think of
it. I'll think of the name of the street in a few moments. It doesn't
come to me now, but here we were. He was tall; he was six foot three. He
was light enough to have freckles-- not many. [laughs] But he was a
good-looking guy. My mother hid the picture that they had put in the
paper when he died because I was grieving so.
- ISOARDI
- So he was very light skinned, but your father and your grandfather were
still upset?
- BROOKS
- No, they weren't upset because of his color. They were upset because of
his--
- ISOARDI
- Because he played basketball?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, because he didn't have a job, supposedly. As far as they were
concerned he didn't have a job. In other words, he didn't go to work and
punch a clock and take care of me as far as that's concerned. And, I
mean, I couldn't have cared less, and they knew that.
- ISOARDI
- So to them, if you were in show business at all you didn't have very
good moral character, then.
- BROOKS
- Well, after that, when I went into show business, I've got news for you,
my father almost disinherited me, because he thought I was going down on
Central and working on Central Avenue. This is what I'm talking about.
My father almost had a freaking fit. But only my records were playing in
all the jukeboxes on Central Avenue, not me. Until he found out they
were my records-- "What is that?" Early, actually, I didn't even go out
of my way to tell him that I wasn't appearing down there. There were a
lot of my father's friends-- My father had a beautiful barber down
there. He used to go and have his hair cut. And the barber told him,
"What are you talking about? She's not down here. She's not working down
here." He said, "There's a jukebox. I'll play her record." And I was
doing boogie, nothing but boogie. I wasn't singing. He put, I think it
was, ten cents or a nickel in there, and he played my record. And my
daddy heard it. He said, "This was playing all over Central Avenue just
in the jukeboxes. She's not appearing down here." My daddy just sort of
calmed down and said, "Well, I thought she was down here." But he said,
"No, jackass!" [laughs] "She's not appearing down here. Her records are
being played. Listen to it. This is what you taught her." Yeah, he
calmed down. He came to accept what was going on, just like a curtain
coming down. He came to accept what was going on.
- ISOARDI
- Did he like it?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, he liked it. Yeah, he liked it. He liked that his little girl
wasn't down there--
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, walking the streets. [laughs]
- BROOKS
- Or, you know, stripping. She wasn't stripping to all that music down on
Central Avenue. When I got started, I was going down on Central Avenue
with Frank Bull, who was a deejay on KFWB, and Al Benson, who was--well,
I can say--his partner. When I started in boogie, Frank Bull loved my
boogies so much he was playing them every night. He was pushing them out
on his radio show. Okay. I'll give you the name of his sponsor. I can't
think of it now. He was playing my boogies every night. Frank Bull was
the one who put me in front with boogies. He was the one who caused me
to be the name of "cream of the boogie."
- ISOARDI
- Did he start calling you that?
- BROOKS
- He did. But Frank Bull didn't like my singing. He didn't want me to
sing. I'm the one who wanted to sing. And every time we would have a
show or Frank Bull would have a show, I'd do two or three boogies. Then
I started singing, and Frank Bull would just get busy off somewhere
else. [laughs] He didn't like it whatsoever. So he would play my
boogies. I went down there one night and sat in the lobby.
- ISOARDI
- Is this at the radio station?
- BROOKS
- Uh-huh. And somebody went up and told Frank Bull that Hadda Brooks was
down in the lobby waiting on him to say hello. He came down, and, oh, my
God, Jesus Christ, you would have thought that Queen Elizabeth was
there. This was the way he received me. I mean, this is the way [gasps],
"Oh, my God." This is the way he went on. And from then on-- I've got
news for you--Frank Bull would say, "Well, why don't we go down to
Central Avenue. Let's go down to the--"
- ISOARDI
- A particular club?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, a particular club.
- ISOARDI
- Do you remember where it was at?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, I remember where it was, but I can't think of the name. Let me
see.
- ISOARDI
- What street was it near?
- BROOKS
- On Central.
- ISOARDI
- I mean the cross street.
- BROOKS
- I don't know. Forty-second [Street], this side, before you got to the
[Club] Alabam.
- ISOARDI
- The Downbeat [Club]? The Last Word?
- BROOKS
- There you go. The Downbeat. The Downbeat. That's where Frank Bull wanted
to go, and that's where he took me. Two or three times he took me down
there. And it was absolutely, maybe-- It wasn't ridiculous, but it was
very funny, because Frank Bull had his girlfriend, and we had our hand
on the table. She had her hand on the table, and Frank Bull had his hand
on the table over here between mine and hers. And they used to say when
they wrote us up whenever we were down there, "Hadda Brooks and Frank
Bull," and then they would show our picture, show us in the
foreground--they showed Frank Bull and they showed Hadda--and then they
would have Frank Bull's girlfriend, they'd show her hand.
- ISOARDI
- That's it?
- BROOKS
- Yeah. So they would say, "Frank Bull, Hadda Brooks," and they'd show her
hand, "and party."
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] She probably didn't like that.
- BROOKS
- "And party." This was her hand. So anyway, we went down there two or
three times and whatnot. And I loved him. I wrote a boogie for him
called "Bully Woolly." His name was Frank Bull, and I wrote "Bully
Woolly." I've got a big sign in there that says "originator of 'Bully
Woolly Boogie,' Hadda Brooks." The last time I saw Frank Bull was about
four years ago. It could be three. I would think it would be four. I was
at a place in Palm Springs, and I can't think of the name of it. I don't
think I'm going to think of the name of it. But Frank Sinatra used to
come in there, and a lot of other people used to come in there and order
racks of lamb. And somebody came over to me. They sent a waitress over
to my room, because I was living at the place at the time, and they
said, "Somebody is waiting for you in the club." I said, "Who?" They
said, "They don't want you to know." I said, "Oh, really? Okay." "So
would you please hurry up, because they've got to go home." I said, "I'm
going to get there just as soon as I can." So I got myself together real
fast, and I walked over there, and I walked into the club, and here
comes Frank Bull walking towards me.
- ISOARDI
- How long had it been since you'd seen him?
- BROOKS
- About five, six, seven years. He was living in Palm Springs.
- ISOARDI
- And you hadn't seen him for a long time?
- BROOKS
- I hadn't seen him for that many years. He walked over to me with his
arms out, and I looked at him. And his wife was standing about as far as
there, as far as the kitchen is concerned. She was standing back there
just to let us be with each other. I said, "Frank, we should have gotten
married." He said, "I know, I know, I know." Then I put my hand out to
her, and we all three hugged each other. Then we all sat down at the
piano. Well, now, he didn't want to hear me sing.
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] Still? [laughs]
- BROOKS
- He wanted me to play boogie woogie, boogie woogie. I played a couple of
boogies, and I've got news for you, then I started singing, and he said
[motions to indicate movement up and out the door], and he left.
[laughs] And the next week-- See, because I used to go down there for
two or three days, then I would come back to Los Angeles. And when I
came back to Palm Springs, I had decided to call him. And when I called
him, his wife answered the phone. I said, "I want to speak to Frank. Hi,
baby." You know, I was talking to her, too. And she said, "Oh, Hadda. I
thought you were calling me because I thought you knew." He had died
just within the week.
- ISOARDI
- Within a week after you saw him?
- BROOKS
- He came to see me, and then he died. I said, "No, I did not know. I'm
not calling because I'm going to extend you sympathy, but I am extending
you sympathy and condolences. But, I mean, I thought I was going to say
hello to Frank." She says, "No." He died maybe a couple of days ago, you
know. I said, "Oh, goddammit," you know. Anyway--
- ISOARDI
- Well, it's nice that you got to see him then when you did.
- BROOKS
- He came in there especially. That's the only way I can put it. That's
the only way I can put it. He came in there to see me. He came in there
to go home. I don't know whether he knew he was going to die or not.
Some-times you do. But I have always thought that "Without anybody
knowing it but you yourself that I'm in love with you-- I'm not going to
do anything about it, but I'm in love with you. And for ten to twelve
years you're in love with me, but you have nothing to do with me. You
don't even know where I am until finally you find out that I am in Palm
Springs, and you're going to say, 'I'm going to see my love just one
more time.' And like tonight, you came to see me, and two days later
you're dead. That's what you wanted. That's exactly what you wanted, and
that's exactly what you did." When I called the next week, when I came
back into Palm Springs, "I thought you knew." I said, "No. I did not
know." His wife told me. She said, "He's always loved you." I said,
"Well, I didn't know that." She said, "Oh, yes, you did." She told me,
"Oh, yes, you did." I said, "He has admired me, yes, admired me for my
renditions of boogie and the 'Bully Woolly Boogie.'" She said, "Yeah,
but Frank Bull was in love with you. I thought you knew he was gone." I
said, "No." She said, "He came to see you the last time, and that was
it." A great tragedy that was, because of the fact that, I mean, like I
just thought he walked out when I started singing just because I knew he
didn't-- No. He liked my singing, but he did not prefer to sit and
listen to it. He wanted boogies. I didn't know when I came back and
called that he was gone. Now what can we go to?
- ISOARDI
- Let me ask you, when you came back from Northwestern, you'd been away
for a little bit, what was Los Angeles like when you come back? We're
talking now-- what?--about 1941, '42? What was Los Angeles like then?
- BROOKS
- We're talking about, yeah, something like that. Every time I came back
Los Angeles was different--had a new building going up, had a new thing
going here and there. I mean, I didn't know the city. I was gone into
the very first-- I didn't call it a foreign country because we don't now
that it's a state. I was going into Honolulu. I was there for eight
years. And every time I came back to the mainland there was another
building going up. I was in Honolulu for eight years--I mean working,
absolutely living, absolutely having a beautiful, gorgeous time on a
beautiful island. It was gorgeous. I wasn't so crazy about the chameleon
lizards, but I guess they weren't any bigger than my thumb, from the tip
of my thumb to the end of my second joint. But I had the most gorgeous
Christmas tree, and there was about four of them on the-- What do you
call it? The thing or the root of the Christmas tree? And my guy at the
time said, "Well, what are you doing?" He said, "I see them every day
over there in the tree." I had everything on that tree that was
possible, you know. And there was no way in the world when I was living
in Honolulu-- And then I was living up in Kawela, in Mahala, way up in
the hills. I would go from here like I'm going up that hill, and by the
time I got to the-- If I was going from here, it was raining. By the
time I got to the middle of the hill it had stopped raining. And when I
left the middle of the hill it was dry as a potato chip.
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] That's different.
- BROOKS
- Quite.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, very much so.
- BROOKS
- I did quite a bit of looking around to see if I was on the right street.
- ISOARDI
- So L.A. changed dramatically, then? Every time you came back it had a
new look to you?
- BROOKS
- Here on the mainland. Yeah, on the mainland. It was another high-rise
that went up, another high-rise that went up here, another high-rise
that went up there. I couldn't fathom the point of everything that was
going up. The city was absolutely growing that much. Because then I
turned around and I said, "If they put another building on Oahu," which
is the island where I stayed--this is Waikiki--"you're going to sink the
island." We had a mall over there where Sears Roebuck was taller than
eight to ten stories high, and other buildings that were there, I mean,
fifteen buildings that were there and all sorts of things. I said,
"You're going to put another building on this island?" I lived there
eight years. But, I mean, it came to the point where they were building,
building, building, building.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, it's pretty overbuilt.
- BROOKS
- You go down Wilshire Boulevard, it's no different than Oahu now. You're
right here in the United States. I mean, of course, naturally Oahu and
the islands of Hawaii-- What is it? The fiftieth state? I mean, they are
part of the United States.
- ISOARDI
- Was your family still living here [in Boyle Heights]?
- BROOKS
- Where?
- ISOARDI
- Here in this house?
- BROOKS
- Not in this house. This house has always been my grandfather's house. He
rented it out. I can take you over one day to the next street where I
was actually born.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, on Malabar [Street].
- BROOKS
- On Malabar. That's where I lived. That's where I really lived. This is
the house that my grandfather built when I was in high school. The house
in the back is my sister's and her husband [Charles B. Carter]'s. She
and her husband built that, because from here to all the way back is
almost a block, so they had plenty of room to build. But yes, I was born
and raised in this neighborhood. There's no way in the world-- I mean, I
went everywhere, but I was born and raised in this neighborhood. No
problem.
1.5. TAPE NUMBER: III, SIDE ONE MAY 2, 1994
- ISOARDI
- Okay, Hadda, before we get into your career, I wonder if we could
backtrack just a bit and have you tell us a little about Willie Covan,
whose name hasn't come up yet--who he was, what you know about his
background.
- BROOKS
- Well, Willie Covan was a very marvelous dancer. I mean, he did tap, but
he did beautiful show steps. I mean, it was a beautiful movement. It
wasn't a stand up, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap from one end of the stage to
the other. He flowed just like a picture. That's what everybody liked
about him. He came from Chicago, he and his wife [Florence Covan]. And
they were first known as the Four Dancing Covans. I think it was his
brother and his brother's wife and he and his wife, the Four Dancing
Covans. And when they came out to Los Angeles they opened up a dance
studio.
- ISOARDI
- Do you know when that was when they came out?
- BROOKS
- No, I don't know the exact time that it was when they came out. But when
I found out that they were advertising for a pianist for the studio,
then I applied. But, I mean, he hadn't been out here that long, because
I hadn't ever heard of him before I went to work for him. But then he
was a beautiful dancer. Everybody in the dancing profession wanted to
take lessons from him.
- ISOARDI
- So he came out here with kind of a reputation?
- BROOKS
- He came out here with a reputation, and he furthered his reputation by
doing a lot of things, even coaching Fred Astaire. And he coached little
Shirley Temple and quite a few others out at MGM [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer].
They called him all the time. And then, when they had their big dance
convention, everybody who was a teacher, everybody who danced, Ernest
Belcher, all the dancers came out from all over the country to take--
They had different things where each director and each dance teacher
would have their day to teach a routine. And then would come Willie
Covan's time. And everybody was there with eyes glued right to his feet.
And they'd get up, and he'd teach them the steps and whatnot. It was a
marvelous thing to see how much admired he was, you know. I admired him
because I played for him, and I would play almost everything that was
written for him to dance to. It wasn't just a stop rhythm where you had
to hit every tap. His taps had a special thing that they would say. You
could hear it. You didn't have to break your ears to find out where he
was, because every step was a picture. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful
to me.
- ISOARDI
- When you knew him, was he mainly a teacher? Was he still performing
professionally?
- BROOKS
- No, he wasn't performing professionally. He had come out here and opened
up a dance studio on the east side, we called it, on Jefferson Boulevard
across the street from Jefferson High School. There was like stores,
seemingly four or five stores, and he opened up all of those stores, and
in each one of those rooms in that store, even in the back room, he had
hired two or three other teachers to teach beginners. He took mostly
professionals himself. His wife took some. Most of the people his wife
took were apt. They had learned. They would learn pretty fast. Little
children, of course, naturally she had a couple of teachers to take the
little children. And their little legs would get tired. Then she would
know when to stop with them. I would know when to play for them. I would
know when they were tired. I would know when they would skip a step,
because I jumped with them to keep them from becoming overly excited by
even absolutely coming to the fact or coming to the knowledge that they
had skipped a step. I had skipped with them so that it wasn't an
embarrassing thing. They trusted me. The little kids trusted me when I
played for them, to know where they were. I mean, if there was eight
steps in each routine, and by the time the kid got to the sixth step
he'd skip the seventh and go to the eighth and finish up the routine,
and I'd finish with him. It was the cutest thing. The little legs were
so cute. Darryl Hickman, who had become a movie star and I think is now
a director, and Dwayne Hickman, they were absolutely beautiful pupils
with Covan.
- ISOARDI
- The Hickmans who went on to star on TV and--
- BROOKS
- They were starring on TV. I mean, Dobie Gillis was Dwayne's thing. And
Grapes of Wrath, I mean, Darryl Hickman did that, going into movies, and
he did quite a few other things. I'm not sure where they are now, but I
think that Darryl might be a director. But I don't hear very much of
him, either he or Dobie.
- ISOARDI
- So they were down there as kids?
- BROOKS
- They were down there as kids.
- ISOARDI
- So if you wanted to study dance, the place to go was Willie Covan's
studio.
- BROOKS
- Covan's studio for dancing. And, I mean, they were hard steps, but he
made them look like you walked through like it was just a beautiful
picture. It was very exciting, and it was very beautiful. I mean, I just
knew what he was going to do. He even gave me a routine, which, I mean,
I could call on now if I could get my legs to move. [laughs]
- ISOARDI
- Too bad we don't have video. [laughs]
- BROOKS
- Yeah, I'm sorry. [laughs] But I'm really glad that you don't have video.
[laughs] But, I mean, his control and his work was just really downright
beautiful.
- ISOARDI
- How long was he there?
- BROOKS
- How long was Willie there?
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, at the studio teaching.
- BROOKS
- I was with him-- Let me see. I could say almost six or seven or eight
years. And after I left him, when I had started into show business and I
left him, Willie was still there for a while, quite a bit, quite a bit
longer.
- ISOARDI
- Did he ever perform himself? Was he ever in any films or anything like
that?
- BROOKS
- He did with Lena Horne-- Not Stormy Weather. One of her first-- Cabin in
the Sky with Rochester and--
- ISOARDI
- Eddie Anderson?
- BROOKS
- Eddie Anderson, yeah, with Lena Horne, and I think it was Ethel Waters.
- ISOARDI
- He danced in that?
- BROOKS
- He danced in that, because they had a big cabaret scene. And of course,
naturally Lena sang and Willie danced. It was Lena Horne and Ethel
Waters, quite a few sepia entertainers at the time, you know, who did
the first picture with Lena Horne called Cabin in the Sky.
- ISOARDI
- Did he choreograph much for people?
- BROOKS
- Oh, he did a lot of choreographing. Yes, he did a lot of choreographing.
Some of the biggest people in show business he choreographed for. We had
to wait on little Shirley Temple for about an hour because she wouldn't
get up. She was sleepy, you know. [laughs] Yeah, it was okay. It was
Shirley Temple but okay. And then we did a thing that Willie Covan
choreographed for Fred Astaire. Fred Astaire would go off into a picture
of what he thought he wanted to do, and Covan would give him the
movements to make it look a lot better. You know, it's just not one of
those running up and down the seat things, and pushing over the chair
and coming down, acrobatic, no. He did a lot of that, you know. He did
like running upside the wall dancing on ceiling. But, I mean, Covan did
a lot for pushing him completely into a melodic movement.
- ISOARDI
- Really?
- BROOKS
- I don't know whether he admitted it or not, but, I mean, I was there. I
played for them. But he was one of the biggest dancers who was already
established on the screen that Covan worked with. And he seemed to
appreciate it, and he seemed to like it, and he seemed to put it to
work, and it came out beautifully, and they filmed. They did it.
- ISOARDI
- What was the pay like?
- BROOKS
- The pay for me?
- ISOARDI
- Yeah.
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, when I was working for Willie the biggest thing I got was
about twelve dollars a week, and I thought that was like a hundred
dollars for a day, you know, because I had never worked in my life.
- ISOARDI
- That's right. This is your first gig.
- BROOKS
- Yeah. I never worked in my life. My father [John M. Hopgood] almost--
Well, here again, he pulled one of those "I'll disinherit you" things,
you know, because here he thought that I was really going to become a
tainted woman by working for a dance director or working for a dance
teacher or even working down on Jefferson across the street from
Jefferson High School. And twelve dollars a week he couldn't understand.
But, I mean, my mother [Goldie Wright Hopgood] talked to him, and she
told him, "What did you educate her for as far as that's concerned,
playing the piano? What did you educate her for? You paid for her
lessons. Now, if this is the way she's going to use it in order to climb
another ladder, you've got to start somewhere. What do you want her to
do? Sit down and do nothing with all of this education in music and the
piano?" And I don't think he came to realize that that's the way it was,
but then he had two women against him, so he never had-- He didn't
fight. [laughs] My dad was a pushover. He only had a lot of strictness
towards me. My sister [Kathryn Hopgood Carter] could get away with
murder. But they watched me very closely. I was his favorite, I would
say. But then he really didn't want me to get too far out of line and
not know exactly what I was doing, which he didn't know at all, you
know, as far as what I was doing, except, as my mother told him, "She's
using the education you gave her." That was just about the way he took
it, too. He couldn't do any different.
- ISOARDI
- Did you see much of the nightlife on Central Avenue then?
- BROOKS
- Not then. I did very, very little, because Willie Covan and his wife
used to take me. After I got married to [Earl] "Shug" [Morrison], they
used to take me while Shug was out on the road playing basketball with
the Harlem Globetrotters. They used to take me to a couple of clubs to
listen to other people. I went there to listen to Charles Brown. And I
went into the Club Alabam and saw the different people who were there,
quite a few people.
- ISOARDI
- So you saw some of the shows there at the Alabam?
- BROOKS
- Quite a few of the shows at the Alabam. I mean, show business was then
beginning to sort of look me in the eye. I mean, I loved it. I loved to
see people entertain. And I was not thinking so much of my getting on
that stage. It was one of those things that I guess maybe deep down I
was hoping that I could make it. But when I left Willie Covan, this man
[Jules Bihari] got me into boogies, and that started show business.
- ISOARDI
- The first time you thought about that maybe was when you were going into
the Club Alabam and seeing the shows?
- BROOKS
- Yes. Yes. I mean, I saw the people on the stage, and I saw them dressed
beautifully, and I saw them performing greatly, even though they weren't
doing anything as far as the piano was concerned. Some of them were
comedians. I still love comedians. I mean, I can get a good laugh out of
somebody who's actually funny. And I saw this man and girl dancing
beautifully, this girl who was singing "Every Little Doggy Has His Day,"
and I said, "Well, maybe I'll have mine." I can't think of her name at
the moment. [Mabel Scott] But there were a lot of people there.
- ISOARDI
- Anyone stick out in your mind whom you saw perform at the Alabam?
- BROOKS
- Not really, not at that particular time. I was just entranced with
everybody who was up on the stage and putting out a lot of energy and
what you would call aggressiveness, if you want to call it that, and
doing things that a lot of people, they wouldn't even walk in the door
without feeling very intimidated, you know. But, I mean, I've never been
intimidated. The idea is this, that these people I appreciated because,
I would say right now, they had the nerve to go up there and do this.
They had the nerve to show their talent. They had the nerve to want to
please and the nerve to get applause and to go on and to do it every
night. I liked it. I hadn't a clue. I didn't have a clue I was going to
do anything like that.
- ISOARDI
- Had you ever been to a place like that before?
- BROOKS
- No. No, I'd never been to a place like that before. But, you see,
Central Avenue at the time that I was going down there, and Forty-second
Street, was a brilliant street of talent, color, clubs. You could go to
almost four or five different clubs and see a different artist and
absolutely have lots of fun enjoying them. And Forty-second Street was a
big street. If you were on Forty-second Street it was like you were on
Broadway in New York here in Los Angeles. I have heard a lot of people
say that--I didn't know that at the time--the entertainers that came
here, they couldn't get into the hotels downtown because of their color.
But then the Forty-second Street Dunbar Hotel was erected right there on
the corner of Forty-second Street, and then they could come into Central
Avenue and go into a hotel.
- ISOARDI
- So it was all right there.
- BROOKS
- Right there, be accepted.
- ISOARDI
- Do you remember any other clubs in particular?
- BROOKS
- Well, there was the Downbeat [Club], and there was the-- Not at the
moment. There were about four or five other clubs that, I mean, I could
recall. I thought I had them in my mind, but maybe I can come back to
it.
- ISOARDI
- Well, this must have been a whole different kind of world for you, then.
- BROOKS
- It was. I just came out of college.
- ISOARDI
- You never went down there when you were in high school or anything like
that?
- BROOKS
- No, no, not in high school. Not even in college. [laughs] I never went
down there. When I went out with my boyfriend, we went out to-- Well, I
mean, like we went up on Brooklyn [Avenue] to Canter Brothers and got a
pastrami sandwich, and I thought that was great. [laughs] On Central
Avenue? I joined a club in high school, all girls, and we called
ourselves the Kohinoors. Kohinoor, that's the biggest diamond in the
world. So we called ourselves the Kohinoors. One afternoon, one Sunday
afternoon at the Dunbar, we had a tea dance in the afternoon from two to
six [o'clock], something like that. And then there was a place that was
a home. No one lived there permanently, but they did use that home for
affairs. We had a couple of little affairs there, a tea dance. I met Joe
Louis there before he ever became Joe Louis.
- ISOARDI
- No kidding?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, at this little dance. Of course, as quiet as it's kept and not
quiet as it's kept, I mean, Joe Louis always wanted to be around a lot
of girls. But he came to the dance very, very baby-faced, you know. I
think he was about to have his first fight out here--I mean, whether it
was his first, fifth, or sixth--but, I mean, he was just coming into
being known as Joe Louis.
- ISOARDI
- Now, what building was this? Who ran it?
- BROOKS
- I don't know.
- ISOARDI
- It was near Central?
- BROOKS
- Yes. It was on Adams [Boulevard], I think. It was just like a beautiful
home that was turned into an entertaining place.
- ISOARDI
- I see.
- BROOKS
- We had a lot of tea dances there, and the kids would come out. All of
our high school kids would come out. There was so much that they'd
charge. And, I mean, of course, that's how we put the money in our
little--
- ISOARDI
- Your club treasury?
- BROOKS
- Yeah. [laughs] They would never make me president, because, I mean, I
don't think I was serious enough, but they made me sergeant at arms.
[laughs] I shot them up and, I mean, they wouldn't even pay any
attention to me then. [laughs] It was funny. No, no, no, "Brooksy"
wasn't going to be president, not even vice president. And I've got news
for you, for a secretary, I mean, like, no. Treasurer, no. Sergeant at
arms? "Yeah, let's make her sergeant at arms." [laughs] "If anybody can
shut you up, she can." [laughs]
- ISOARDI
- You were the one with attitude.
- BROOKS
- I was the one with the attitude. [laughs] It didn't work so many times,
but, I mean, we really didn't get too much out of order, so I never did
call for the point of order. Not too many times. But that was my
official appointment. And nobody voted for it. They just said, "She's
going to be sergeant of arms." That's all. [laughs]
- ISOARDI
- So when did your professional life begin? When did you leave Willie?
- BROOKS
- Well, my professional life began when I left, not too much before I left
Willie, but because of the fact that I was trying. I was doing the Poet
and Peasant-- that's a classical [piece by Franz von Suppé]--and Willie
wanted to get every kind of rhythm that he could get out of the Poet and
Peasant. We went into the rumba, we went into the waltz, we went into
the rhythm, we went into country, went into "now we want to do boogie."
And I was trying to get some boogie out of that Poet and Peasant. And I
was, I was getting it. This man was standing behind me. I don't know how
he got down to the Southern California Music Company, because that's
where I was.
- ISOARDI
- This was Willie's place?
- BROOKS
- No, in the Southern California Music Company.
- ISOARDI
- Where was that?
- BROOKS
- On Eighth [Street] and Broadway.
- ISOARDI
- And you were practicing there?
- BROOKS
- I was in one of their rooms trying to get a boogie out of the Poet and
Peasant, in one of their little studio rooms, but I had the door open.
And he scared me, because he asked me could I play a boogie. And I said,
"Well, I don't know." He said, "Well, I'll give you a week to work one
up." And I asked him who he was, and he told me who he was. And he said,
"I have $800. If something comes of it, we'll be in business. If nothing
comes of it, I will have lost $800."
- ISOARDI
- Who was this person?
- BROOKS
- Jules Bihari.
- ISOARDI
- Jules Bihari. What did you think when he walked in and told you that?
- BROOKS
- I didn't think anything. He said he wanted a boogie, and he asked me if
I could work up one, and I told him I would try, and I did.
- ISOARDI
- But he didn't say anything about recording? He just said he wanted a
boogie.
- BROOKS
- No, he said he was going to record it.
- ISOARDI
- If you could work it up.
- BROOKS
- If I could work up the boogie he would record it. If anything came of it
we were in business. If nothing came of it, I mean, to a certain extent,
if the records didn't sell, then he'd lost $800.
- ISOARDI
- What did you think, this guy coming in, stranger walking in on you
practicing, and telling you this?
- BROOKS
- I didn't think anything at the particular time. I had a lot of
confidence in myself. I mean, it must have been something like-- I never
did think that I was going to be discovered. That didn't cross my mind.
I just told him that I would work up a boogie, and within a week's time
I'd come back and record it for him.
- ISOARDI
- Now, who was this guy?
- BROOKS
- Who was he?
- ISOARDI
- Did you know him? Did he tell you anything?
- BROOKS
- No, I didn't know him. He used to repair jukeboxes up and down Central.
He had a lot of jukeboxes, and he had a restaurant, a very small
restaurant, in San Pedro.
- ISOARDI
- Do you know what it was called?
- BROOKS
- I don't know the name of the restaurant. It was a restaurant. If you
wanted to eat whatever they had in there, you didn't say, "I'm going
down to George Jones." I mean, you'd just walk off the street. A lot of
the business was just from walking off the street. When I recorded the
boogie--
- ISOARDI
- So you came back to him a week later and said, "I've got it"?
- BROOKS
- Yeah.
- ISOARDI
- And then he said--
- BROOKS
- "I'm going to record it." My sister took it up to Sherman and Clay, up
to San Francisco, which had nothing but classical music in their whole
repertoire, what you would call their whole thing of music shelves and
whatnot. They had no boogie whatsoever.
- ISOARDI
- This is sheet music?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- Records?
- BROOKS
- Records. I don't even remember whether they had records or not, but they
could have. They had records of the singers, I mean classical singers,
big, big, big, big, big classical singers. They didn't have any jazz on
their shelves at all. My sister was going to San Francisco, and she took
a box of twenty-five of my records. The first record that I put out, I
can't remember the name of it. It was "Swinging the Boogie." Sherman and
Clay took it. They bought the whole box from my sister. They bought the
whole box. They played it. And then the distributors got in touch with
Jules and told him that Sherman and Clay had bought a whole box of this
new entertainer or artist's records of boogie, and Jules told them what
my name was, and then we went up to San Francisco and talked to them a
while, and they became the distributors up there. They distributed it
all over the country, mostly in the South.
- ISOARDI
- No kidding. So right off the bat, then, you not only had a local
success, your first record was going nationwide.
- BROOKS
- Uh-huh. And Jules kept his $800. [laughs]
- ISOARDI
- And then some.
- BROOKS
- But then, after that, he had created this music company, this recording
company for me. He created it.
- ISOARDI
- Was that Modern Records?
- BROOKS
- Modern Records, yes.
- ISOARDI
- How soon did that happen?
- BROOKS
- Right away.
- ISOARDI
- He set it up right away? As soon as he saw this record he was going to
make a go?
- BROOKS
- Right away. Right away.
- ISOARDI
- Now, when he first took you into the studio to record, where did you--?
Did he have his own studio set- up?
- BROOKS
- No, no, no.
- ISOARDI
- He rented some studio time?
- BROOKS
- Some studio, I think it was on Orange Drive. He did a lot of recording
there. I can't think of the name of the studio. [Radio Recorders]
- ISOARDI
- So did you guys have a kind of deal or any kind of contract?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- What understanding did you have when you went into record?
- BROOKS
- We didn't have any understanding. I mean, he recorded me and put me on
the market, and I trusted him. I mean, to tell you the truth, there
wasn't too much of what you might call royalties. He was giving me so
much money a week, and I guess that's what he called royalties.
- ISOARDI
- So for that first recording, from then on you were getting a certain
amount of money every week from what presumably would be royalties from
the sales of that record?
- BROOKS
- I suppose that's what he meant them to be. Not being of the business
mind, I didn't know what royalties were.
- ISOARDI
- Well, you probably didn't know, then, how many records were being sold,
did you?
- BROOKS
- I didn't. I didn't.
- ISOARDI
- You just knew it was popular.
- BROOKS
- Until I had become very popular. And I only knew that because of the
records that were being sold and the popularity of them in the southern
part of the country. They were big, and I was becoming bigger and
bigger. My name was becoming spread pretty wide.
- ISOARDI
- Where did "Hadda Brooks" come from?
- BROOKS
- Well, Brooks is my stage name, and Hadda is what Jules called me all the
time. I think he wanted to call me Hatta, H-A-T-T-A, and I put d's with
it. I mean, I thought he was saying Hadda, you know. And, I mean, it was
Hadda, but he was not pronouncing the d's. And Brooks was a stage name.
- ISOARDI
- Where did that come from?
- BROOKS
- I just thought, "How are you going to use Hopgood," which is my maiden
name, "on a marquee?" It wasn't that I was ashamed of it. It was that I
didn't think Hopgood was going to sound right on the marquee. It might
have been tricky.
- ISOARDI
- How did you come up with the name Brooks?
- BROOKS
- Just out of the blue.
- ISOARDI
- Really?
- BROOKS
- Yeah. I mean, I just thought about one of those songs, you know, "It Had
to be You," and I just said, "Hadda be Brooks." [laughs] That's the only
way I could come up with it. And it stuck. It stuck.
- ISOARDI
- So what happens, then, on the first flush of this success? Almost
instantaneously, a week or two, you're a success?
- BROOKS
- I would say within a month or two. I mean, the records were just going
like fire, you know. I wouldn't go South. That's where they were selling
greatly, and I wouldn't go South.
- ISOARDI
- Was Jules then sort of acting as your manager as well?
- BROOKS
- Well, what he knew about management, which wasn't too much. I mean, he
just knew to a certain extent that he had some parts of a winner. And at
this particular time, when I got started and my ball was rolling, then
he was really accumulating a couple of other artists. I mean, Jules
loved the blues. He loved the blues so greatly. I mean, it was just one
of those things where if you did the blues for him, I just think he'd
just go off in a corner and cry. But he knew I couldn't do the blues. I
hadn't even sung yet. I didn't even know that there was any possibility
of my putting out a tune on record that I'm vocalizing on, you know. My
boogies were getting to be very popular, as I said. And I was backstage
at the Million Dollar Theatre, which is down on Third [Street] and
Broadway. I was backstage as they would call a groupie. I mean, I didn't
think of that name, because the name hadn't come out then. But there
were about three or four girls and a couple of fellows backstage
visiting Lionel Hampton. I was backstage and looking very, very, very,
very beautiful. I had a gorgeous suit. So when Lionel Hampton went out
on the stage, I was standing in the wings. I was standing in the wings
listening to him, because, as I said, I admired the people who wanted to
get out there and do things, you know. And show business now had become
part of me, because my records were going very well. I was becoming very
well known on boogie. And the next thing I knew, Lionel Hampton came to
the front of the stage and got to the microphone and was introducing me.
He didn't tell me. He didn't tell me. I didn't stand back and have him
pull me on like somebody who really didn't want to go on, you know what
I mean? I walked out and went to the piano on the stage and sat with the
band, and I played a boogie. And in the next two weeks I was booked to
work at the Million Dollar Theatre with Charlie Barnet. And that really,
absolutely started the whole thing.
- ISOARDI
- Jeez, from Lionel Hampton and Charlie Barnet. You couldn't get much
bigger then.
- BROOKS
- Yeah, from Lionel Hampton and Charlie Barnet. But I didn't know Hampton
was going to introduce me. I was just there. You know, I'm looking
around the stage and around the curtain, and he did. He just introduced
me.
- ISOARDI
- Well, how much experience had you had on stage before?
- BROOKS
- None.
- ISOARDI
- This was your first appearance?
- BROOKS
- None. That's right.
- ISOARDI
- What a beginning!
- BROOKS
- I hadn't been on there. But I had performed in high school. I performed
in college. I hadn't performed in a theater. I hadn't performed on
stage.
- ISOARDI
- Since your record came out, no--
- BROOKS
- No performance. I hadn't even hit a club. I should have been scared to
death, you know. I should have been scared to death, but I really took
it behind to do like I had seen a lot of people that I knew do in show
business, you know, at the Club Alabam and the Downbeat and other clubs
on Central Avenue. I mean, I just took the nerve and went out.
- ISOARDI
- Wow. What a beginning.
- BROOKS
- And I played in the band. The band just fell right in behind me.
- ISOARDI
- Well, it was a great band he had.
- BROOKS
- Oh, yeah. But they had never heard me play, and they didn't know who in
the heck I was. Maybe they did, I don't know. But they had never heard
me play. See, Lionel Hampton wasn't a boogie king. I just came out and
busted into a boogie. [laughs]
- ISOARDI
- Now, how long had your records been out before this happened?
- BROOKS
- Oh, they had been out almost six months. Let's see. I started in '46,
and this was like-- Wait a minute now. Not six months. Not six months. I
mean, 1946 is when I started, and 1948 is when I hit the stage, when
Lionel Hampton called on me.
- ISOARDI
- About a year, a year and a half?
- BROOKS
- About a year and a half later.
- ISOARDI
- And you hadn't really performed then? You were just recording?
- BROOKS
- Not performed. I was just recording. I was recording three boogies every
month practically.
- ISOARDI
- Jeez. But there must have been some demand for you to perform.
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, I guess they were waiting for me to become fully
established. And this particular thing, as I can say, thanks to Lionel
Hampton, he established me. He established me. And when I went to work
with Charlie Barnet, during rehearsal Charlie Barnet asked me, "Well,
what are you going to do for an encore when you're going to do your
three boogies?" I said, "I guess I'll come out and do another boogie."
And he said, "Well, why don't you sing?" I said, "I can't." And he said,
"Well, fake it."
- ISOARDI
- Now, you hadn't sung before that?
- BROOKS
- No, only at school. He said, "Fake it." And I was on the stage. I mean,
we had already done an early show, the first show in the morning.
- ISOARDI
- Where was this at? Million Dollar Theatre?
- BROOKS
- At the Million Dollar down on Third and Broadway. And I went back
between shows to the studio where Jules was on First [Street] and San
Pedro, and there was a trio recording in there. Two of them were part of
the trio of [Nat] King Cole, but I think they had broken up. I'm not
sure. But then they were recording a tune that I liked very much, and I
learned it. And when I came back that next show, which was the second
show of the day, after I played three boogies and the audience applauded
and brought me back on the stage, I started singing, and that was it.
- ISOARDI
- What was the song?
- BROOKS
- "You Won't Let Me Go." The audience was absolutely-- They went wild.
They'd never heard me sing, and they didn't think I was going to sing.
They were waiting for another boogie.
- ISOARDI
- And you had never sung before.
- BROOKS
- No, not professionally. Not with the Charlie Barnet band behind me and
getting paid for it too? No. I'd never sung before. And I did. I did.
And I never played another boogie since. It's not professionally great
to do a whole show of boogie, not that great anymore. Like I just kept
on learning songs, and I kept on singing. And maybe I had, oh, I don't
know how many bars of boogie just to continue on to have you think that
I was still into the boogie vein, to let you know I was still doing it.
1.6. TAPE NUMBER: III, SIDE TWO MAY 2, 1994
- ISOARDI
- Quite a beginning.
- BROOKS
- Well, it was quite surprising to me when the audience responded as they
did when I first sang. I mean, like, wow. I mean, I was very much taken
aback, and so was Charlie Barnet.
- ISOARDI
- Beause he had never heard you, right?
- BROOKS
- He had never heard me sing.
- ISOARDI
- He just thought you ought to.
- BROOKS
- He just thought I should do something else for an encore instead of
another boogie.
- ISOARDI
- Boy, did he call it right.
- BROOKS
- Did he call it right.
- ISOARDI
- What did you think about this? All of a sudden you thought there may be
something in this?
- BROOKS
- Oh, I knew I liked to sing. I knew that possibly I could, but-- I had a
style. I brought on my own style. I sang the song like I wanted to sing
it. I sang the song like I thought I should interpret it. And that's the
way it came out. It was very well liked. But, I mean, there was no
reason why I thought that I was going to have a career singing. I
couldn't picture that. But then, after I sang and the audience then
completely--what would you call it?--I would say went berserk-- [laughs]
You never saw the standing ovation and applause in the theater.
- ISOARDI
- That must have been a thrill.
- BROOKS
- It was. It was. And Charlie Barnet just kept smiling and smiling.
[laughs] He was very funny. He was so funny. He kept smiling and smiling
and smiling and whatnot. And I said, "Well, now, wait. I can't follow
that with another song, because I don't know another song." So I just
came out and took three or four bows and just walked off. [laughs] I
didn't know any other song at that particular time. He said, "Sing a
song," and I did. That's all there was to that.
- ISOARDI
- What was it like with those bands behind you, Lionel Hampton, Charlie
Barnet?
- BROOKS
- Oh, it was beautiful. It was beautiful. You know, I didn't have any
music. I didn't have time to have somebody give me--what do you call
it?--an arrangement for the horns and for the violins or for the
trumpets and everything else. To tell you the truth, the only time I've
had arrangements is when I went to Australia. I never had any music.
- ISOARDI
- Really? So the bands, they just set some riffs behind you?
- BROOKS
- They just sat behind me and went with it.
- ISOARDI
- Wonderful.
- BROOKS
- They just went with it.
- ISOARDI
- Great bands.
- BROOKS
- After we had rehearsals, then Charlie Barnet and the whole show, we went
to Washington, D.C., then we went to Baltimore, then we went to the
Apollo Theatre in New York.
- ISOARDI
- Charlie Barnet took you?
- BROOKS
- Oh, we all traveled. We traveled that circuit, because I was part of the
show, and that's where we were going, from L.A. to Washington.
- ISOARDI
- So L.A. was the beginning of the show. This was going to be your first
tour?
- BROOKS
- My first tour.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, he wanted to see what else he could get out of you, then.
- BROOKS
- I guess.
- ISOARDI
- He wanted to see if you could sing and--
- BROOKS
- I guess. And then I learned a couple of other tunes. When I got to New
York I learned Johnson's "You Made Me Leave My Happy Home." I mean, I
sang that.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, a great song.
- BROOKS
- Yeah. Then I had to keep on adding to the repertoire, you know.
- ISOARDI
- After that first night, he must have said, "You've got to learn a lot of
songs fast." [laughs]
- BROOKS
- In fact, I guess he said, "I think she'll do it." I don't know. "I think
she'll do it."
- ISOARDI
- Did he have a singer then with his band?
- BROOKS
- No. He had a-- I'm not quite sure. It wasn't a woman. I think it was a
fellow who sang maybe a couple of tunes, you know. It wasn't a woman,
no.
- ISOARDI
- Well, before you took off across-- This was your first trip, then,
outside of L.A.?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, leaving home.
- ISOARDI
- Okay. You've been cranking out boogies, records selling like hot cakes,
doing boogies three a month now for a year or so.
- BROOKS
- Yeah, for about a year or so.
- ISOARDI
- And Modern Records is taking off then, it's getting established.
- BROOKS
- Oh, Modern Records is established now. In other words, I mean, like
their little brother [Joseph Bihari] said they had to take us out of the
restaurant business and put us on the map as a record company. There was
no problem with that. They had become known, Modern Records of
Hollywood.
- ISOARDI
- Did they have their own facilities then? Did they set up their own
studios?
- BROOKS
- On San Pedro [Street]. The very first studio they had they pressed
records in was down there on First [Street] and San Pedro.
- ISOARDI
- So they'd record and press everything there?
- BROOKS
- No, they didn't record there. They pressed there.
- ISOARDI
- So they'd rent studio space?
- BROOKS
- They'd rent studio space, yes, because I always had a bass and drummer
and guitar with me whenever I would either do a boogie or even sing a
song. And then they went out on Normandie [Avenue]. Jules took a studio
and a big pressing plant out on Normandie, way out on Normandie,
somewhere near the-- I really don't know how far Normandie goes out.
It's pretty far out. But they still used studios and pressed out there.
He had a big pressing plant out there at this particular time, yes.
- ISOARDI
- Growing. How was your family reacting to all this?
- BROOKS
- Well, it was all right by then. It was all right by then, because I
think my mother just took my father and sat him down and talked to him,
because I was traveling and going away from home, which I had never
been. She just took him and sat him down and talked to him. Because he
came back to the point where he had accepted it, you know.
- ISOARDI
- Was he pleased by your success?
- BROOKS
- I think he was.
- ISOARDI
- He must have been proud at a certain point, once he found out you
weren't stripping on Central. [laughs]
- BROOKS
- Yeah, yeah, or down there prostituting or something like that and
getting in trouble with all sorts of fellows down there.
- ISOARDI
- Once he found you were legit, he must have been pretty proud.
- BROOKS
- Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. I think he said "my daughter Hadda"
quite a few times to himself plus to others, you know. But it was a
very, very, very funny thing while I was in high school and college,
they used to stand on the porch waiting for my boyfriend to bring me
home at twelve o'clock, and five minutes after I was in trouble. I'd
drive up with my boyfriend, and there they are standing on the porch
like, "Where did you think I'd gone, to Chicago?" You know what I mean?
But it was that closely they followed. They kept touch. They kept a hand
on me, you know, until I started traveling and got away.
- ISOARDI
- That must have been exciting for you. But, you'd been away before then,
right? You'd gone to college back at Northwestern.
- BROOKS
- Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, it wasn't in show biz. I mean, that was all
right. That was okay. But show business was one theater to another, one
theater to another, and one band to the other. I mean, I did the same
thing with Artie Shaw at the Million Dollar Theatre: on back to
Washington, D.C., on back to Baltimore, and then to the Apollo Theatre.
And Count Basie and a few others. But, you know, I didn't play and start
with them here in Los Angeles. When I was back East they joined up with
me or I joined up with them. We hit Washington, Baltimore, and the
Apollo.
- ISOARDI
- What was it like, all that traveling with the bands? I mean, there
couldn't have been many women around.
- BROOKS
- I was on a plane. I didn't know who they were.
- ISOARDI
- So you never--
- BROOKS
- I didn't travel with them, not in a bus, no. Oh, no. If I went to
Baltimore I had a couple of friends take me from Washington to
Baltimore.
- ISOARDI
- You'd travel on your own.
- BROOKS
- Uh-huh. And when I left Baltimore, I took the plane and went to New
York. And when I came back from New York to Los Angeles I took the plane
and came home. I don't know where the band went. There was closeness
while we were working together, because they worked beautifully with me.
But after the show was over with, they went their way and I went my way.
We didn't even socialize. I mean, Charlie invited me to his house one
time for a party after our show closed here at the Million Dollar
Theatre, but that's as close as we got. And Washington, D.C., there was
a beautiful mansion that this lady used to run. She had bedrooms all
over the place. They were beautifully furnished. King Cole stayed there,
Count Basie stayed there, Charlie Barnet stayed there, Artie Shaw stayed
there. I mean, they were just gorgeous. I mean, she used to fix dinners
for us and just put it out on the table, and you helped yourself--$1.50
and all you could eat. And I mean, she could cook. I mean, everything
was on that table. And she'd sell whiskey, and then she'd sell beer,
whatever you wanted, at fifty cents a drink, you know. I first started
drinking at her house. [laughs]
- ISOARDI
- Did you mind all that traveling?
- BROOKS
- No, not at the time. Not at the time.
- ISOARDI
- It was still kind of exciting?
- BROOKS
- Yes, not at the time. Right now I don't want to go across the street in
a plane. [laughs] Then I used to take a plane if I wanted to go across
the street. "Well, how are you going to get across it?" "Well, I bought
a ticket. I get on the plane. I'm going across the street now." At that
particular time I was-- Well, that's the only way you could travel. And
I paid a lot of money for-- At that particular time, too, they were
charging you for your luggage and how heavy it weighed. When I came back
from Australia, I mean, my plane fare plus-- Well, my plane fare was
paid by the organization that brought me to Australia.
- ISOARDI
- When was that?
- BROOKS
- In '58, '59, '60. But then my gowns were so heavy, the ball gowns were
so heavy with beads, that I paid $351 just to have them shipped home.
But they were very heavy, and they had to charge me. But over here,
going over there, they paid to bring them over there. It was deducted
from my income tax.
- ISOARDI
- Well, by the time you were traveling, then, with the bands, you went out
with Barnet, and you were playing with Basie. I mean, you were at the
top, all the great bands, all the great shows. Was the money pretty
good, then?
- BROOKS
- The money was very good. Basie was seemingly a hard nut to crack because
of the fact that when he was on a show--and I can't think of the
fellow's name, because I was on the show myself--he had a show where we
judged records, other artists' records, which I didn't like.
- ISOARDI
- Judged them? You commented on whether you like them or not?
- BROOKS
- Well, you'd always give them from zero to ten, from zero to ninety-nine,
and all that sort of stuff. And I will think of that man's name.
- ISOARDI
- Is this a radio program?
- BROOKS
- It's a radio program. But when I was on the show, this man knew that I
was kind of absolutely leaning towards the artists, and I wouldn't judge
them unfairly. So he would say, "Just tell me what you think regardless
of how it sounds. If you don't like it, tell me you don't like it," you
know. But I tried to be more than just fair. But Count Basie was on the
show.
- ISOARDI
- With you?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, this was another time.
- BROOKS
- This was another time. No, not all at one time, just each one was
individual.
- ISOARDI
- Now, had you played with him?
- BROOKS
- I played with him. I did a couple of-- Yeah, but not before. Not before
this.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, okay. So you hadn't met him.
- BROOKS
- I hadn't met him. So when he judged one of my boogies, he said, "Double
zero," which means I was no good. That's how he judged my record, double
zero.
- ISOARDI
- Were you listening to this program?
- BROOKS
- Uh-uh.
- ISOARDI
- You heard about this.
- BROOKS
- They told me. And then the next two weeks was coming into Christmas, and
they said they would like for me to appear at the theater on Central
Avenue, the Lincoln Theatre, to do a Christmas milk fund for needy kids
or something like that and whatnot. And Count Basie was on there. I
walked right up--
- ISOARDI
- Oh, he didn't know who you were.
- BROOKS
- Uh-uh. I walked up to him and told him, I said, "Hi. You gave me a
double zero last week, didn't you?"
- ISOARDI
- What did he say?
- BROOKS
- I told him my name was Hadda Brooks. His mouth just fell open. He didn't
say anything. I embarrassed him in front of about five or ten people.
- ISOARDI
- That must have felt good, though.
- BROOKS
- It did, because then, I've got news for you, he had to play the same
boogie, the same boogie he gave me double zero on, his whole band played
it for me while I was doing my show. [laughs] He played it.
- ISOARDI
- Justice.
- BROOKS
- So, I mean, I said, "Okay." The audience liked it. I was very, very well
received. And Count Basie, I guess, was very much embarrassed.
- ISOARDI
- Did he say anything to you after that?
- BROOKS
- Uh-uh. Not a word. Not a word.
- ISOARDI
- But then afterwards you traveled-- You played with him.
- BROOKS
- I didn't travel with him. I mean, he came out here to record for Modern
Records, to do something with Modern Records, and Modern Records said,
"Well, we've got two songs we want you to play for Hadda Brooks." And
they recorded it. Oh, they were beautiful. He did a good job on it.
[laughs] He did a good job on it. And I really did not have an
arrangement then, either. And I sang it--
- ISOARDI
- You never needed one.
- BROOKS
- No, I sang two with him. I sang it through once with him, and the whole
thing just fell in. Beautiful.
- ISOARDI
- Well, that's all they needed.
- BROOKS
- Well, they had nothing but the best of musicians.
- ISOARDI
- Even when they were first recording in the thirties with Decca
[Records], I don't think they ever wrote anything down. What a band.
- BROOKS
- You don't need anything if you've got good musicians and they know where
they're going and what they are doing. And he played it.
- ISOARDI
- Do you remember when that was?
- BROOKS
- You mean what year?
- ISOARDI
- Yeah.
- BROOKS
- [laughs] No. It was before I went to Australia, though. It was before I
had gone to quite a few of the European cities. I was in England and
France and Germany, everywhere. And then I was going back to-- I was not
going back to Australia, but I was going to Australia my first time
over. It was a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful country. Loved it. No, I
mean, I hadn't traveled extensively that much. I was just going around
here in this country, you know, from New York to Chicago to Detroit,
back to Los Angeles, and then over-- I didn't go to St. Louis, I didn't
go South. I really didn't.
- ISOARDI
- You didn't want to go South?
- BROOKS
- I wouldn't dare. I mean, my temperament wasn't suited for it. I wasn't
temperamentally suited for the South. Even though my records-- That's
where I got a lot of recognition.
- ISOARDI
- Right now, as you were getting bigger and bigger, did you still have
that kind of informal arrangement with Modern Records?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- Was there some point along here where you signed a contract?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- It was pretty much informal the whole way?
- BROOKS
- I never did sign a contract. I never did sign a contract. And I go out
with his two sisters [Rosalind Bihari and Maxine Bihari Kessler], and
his youngest brother [Joseph Bihari] comes in to see me whenever I'm in
town and he's in town. I mean, they still are good friends. And Jules
passed, you know, and his other brother [Saul Bihari] passed, and his
oldest sister [Florette Bihari] passed.
- ISOARDI
- But Joe is still alive?
- BROOKS
- Joe's still around, and Roz and Maxine are still around. Those are the
ones who had a lot to do-- Maxine didn't. She worked for an insurance
company. But Roz is the one who was the head secretary for Jules in
Modern Records. And Joe had a lot to do after I left. He fell right into
the company. Joe's a pretty good, brilliant man. At the moment he's
doing some architectural work, too, right now. But they have sold all of
their--what you would call it, assets, is that what you want to call
them?--their masters and whatnot to an English company [Virgin Records].
- ISOARDI
- When did they do that?
- BROOKS
- Oh, they did it some time before Jules passed, I think. He passed about,
I think it's three years ago, practically.
- ISOARDI
- And about that time--
- BROOKS
- And about that time they are now putting out a CD on me.
- ISOARDI
- This English company?
- BROOKS
- The English company.
- ISOARDI
- For which you get nothing.
- BROOKS
- Oh, yes, I get something. Oh, I'm signed with all the-- That English
company is putting out my boogies. All those boogies belong to me, and I
have already been signed to publisher's rights.
- ISOARDI
- But you didn't have publisher's rights when you were first doing these
boogies?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- How did you get them?
- BROOKS
- Oh, my manager got them. My manager got them. No, no, no. He found out.
I signed a contract with them about four or five weeks ago, and they've
got a good little what you would call royalties because of the records
that have been sold that they haven't paid me for.
- ISOARDI
- Is this the previous Modern Records? Or the ones the English company is
issuing now?
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, both of them, I think. I mean, these people at Modern
Records had put out my boogies. I mean, there have to be some royalties
coming from them. But now they're coming in. And the company that bought
them, the royalties are still coming in--the publishing rights, you
know. And, I mean, the song in the picture with Jack Nicholson [The
Crossing Guard] that I wrote that I did for Jules Bihari on Modern
Records a long time ago, I haven't gotten anything for it. Right now I'm
getting it, because it's my own composition, and the publisher's rights
are coming to me.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, great. But you had to go back and reclaim those rights?
- BROOKS
- I didn't. My manager did.
- ISOARDI
- Is this Alan?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, Alan. Alan [L.] Eichler, yeah. He did it. I mean, I wouldn't know
what to do. All of this time? I mean, I've been in show business for
forty-eight years. I didn't know what in the world it was.
- ISOARDI
- So you went for--what?--maybe twenty, thirty years, then, without--?
- BROOKS
- Without anything.
- ISOARDI
- Without any kind of agreement, nothing.
- BROOKS
- Nothing.
- ISOARDI
- Just every once in a while Modern Records would send you a check.
- BROOKS
- No, they never sent me a check. They never sent me a check.
- ISOARDI
- You mean, after your boogies were out of the jukeboxes, you wouldn't get
any checks then?
- BROOKS
- No. No.
- ISOARDI
- The checks would stop?
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, yeah, the check would stop-- After I started traveling I
didn't-- I mean, I left Modern Records and cut my association off with
them. I didn't get anything. I remember one time that I was on my way
back to New York, and I went to the airport. Jules and his sister were
with me. And I did owe something. Oh, yeah, they were charging me for my
heavy luggage, and I didn't have the money. And Jules got angry with me.
We still had plenty of time. Jules came all the way back to where his
office was and wrote out a check for $3,000, and that's the last I heard
of it. I think that's exactly what he did owe me, to a certain extent,
in royalties. And that was it.
- ISOARDI
- When was that?
- BROOKS
- Oh, I don't know.
- ISOARDI
- In the fifties?
- BROOKS
- Late forties, late forties. Because I was with Modern Records, but I
wasn't with Modern Records when I had my own television show [The Hadda
Brooks Show], you know.
- ISOARDI
- So you were with them for probably about four to five years, then?
- BROOKS
- A good four or five years. A good four or five years. It could be five
or six but nothing active. I mean, I was recording and going back and
whatnot. And they were recording other people, B.B. King and all of the
other people, you know, quite a few other people. But when I was going
around the country, like Chicago, Detroit, New York, and other places in
this particular country, and then when I left and went to Europe, that's
when the association cut off with Jules, because I wasn't recording with
them anymore. I started recording for Toots Camarata. It was Okeh
Records, Columbia [Records].
- ISOARDI
- Now, when did this happen? When did you go to Europe for the first time?
- BROOKS
- When did I go?
- ISOARDI
- Was that late forties, early fifties?
- BROOKS
- That was late forties, because I went to England.
- ISOARDI
- How was that set up?
- BROOKS
- Well, somebody saw me in Florida, and they wanted me over in England. I
had not a manager, but this guy was a lawyer, Duchowny. He was a very
good friend of Jules. Duchowny was sort of halfway on what you would
call the funny side booking me. And then he had a booker in New York
that they would get in touch with. And they kept me going around in
there, you know. I mean, it just wasn't a manager at all. And then, when
they sent me to Florida, this guy saw me, and right away he got in touch
with this guy from New York, and they took me over to England from
Florida, and from then on I didn't use him anymore. It kept going and
going and going. I didn't need them. I mean, I don't say I didn't need
them. They weren't in the European theater of any kind, you know. They
didn't know what they were doing. All they could do is take me to
Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Boston, you know.
- ISOARDI
- So going to England led to more things in Europe.
- BROOKS
- To more things in the European countries. And then, when I came back,
then I had my own television show.
- ISOARDI
- How long were you over there?
- BROOKS
- How long was I over there in that part of the country? I was over there
for about three months. They kept renewing my visa. And then, when I
went to Australia they kept renewing my visa. I was over in Australia
for about three years, Melbourne and Sydney. But in Australia they do--
What do you call it? They farm you out. Like if you had a club in
Sydney, and I was in Melbourne, and you wanted me for two weeks, I mean,
then you would pay me the same salary that they were paying me, however
it worked. But I never lost anything.
- ISOARDI
- What was Europe like? That was your first trip outside the United
States.
- BROOKS
- Yeah. It was fine. I loved it. I couldn't get my cigarettes, though.
Very funny cigarettes. [laughs] Pale tobacco. And I was smoking.
- ISOARDI
- Like everything else in England. [laughs] Everything is pale.
- BROOKS
- Oh, pale, pale tobacco. And when I was over in Australia, the very first
time that my cigarettes came over--I was smoking Pall Malls--one of the
kids on the show, the guy who introduced the show, he brought me a
little carton of Pall Malls. I said, "Oh, my God, I'm in heaven." But
they tasted just like the English cigarettes. But just because it said
Pall Malls I enjoyed them. Whatever.
- ISOARDI
- Did you do any recording in Europe?
- BROOKS
- No.
- ISOARDI
- You just performed?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, I just performed onstage. In Australia I entertained eight hundred
people every night, and that was about a hundred people over the fire
law. Every night.
- ISOARDI
- It wasn't a club? This was an auditorium?
- BROOKS
- It was a big club. Big club. Eight hundred people every night.
- ISOARDI
- How many nights a week did you work?
- BROOKS
- Six. Off on Sunday. I did one show, though, every night, that's all,
just one show. At eleven thirty everybody had to quit drinking. At that
particular time--
- ISOARDI
- Oh, right, the licensing laws.
- BROOKS
- Yeah, they didn't have a license. And, boy, when the show was going on,
you could see the guys take the little old plastic bags out and put them
in the trunk of the car. They said, "Okay, we're on now." And they
didn't sell anything but mixers; you brought your own drinks. But, I
mean, you could hear a pin drop. Eight hundred people. You could hear a
pin drop. Nobody opened their mouth. Nobody uttered a sound except when
I got through, applause. I loved it. I loved it, because over here in
the United States you couldn't keep ten people quiet, let alone eight
hundred.
- ISOARDI
- Was that a shock?
- BROOKS
- A shock? I thought, "Well, what am I going to do?" It was a split thing.
Up here was the stage where I performed, and down here there was as many
people as there were up there. I mean, I had to come from the dressing
room, which was way outside, the length of it, to come all the way down
over here and go up this gorgeous staircase and get onto the level. It
was a beautiful club. And that's where-- My gowns, I had ball gowns. I
had them made and everything. Everything. TV show every night, In
Melbourne Tonight, IMT.
- ISOARDI
- You were on TV every night?
- BROOKS
- Every night.
- ISOARDI
- Your own show?
- BROOKS
- No, no, no, no, not my own show. It was called IMT, In Melbourne
Tonight.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, it was the name of the program?
- BROOKS
- It was the name of the show, yes, the name of the show of the TV. Then,
when I got through with the TV, I went on at eleven thirty that night--
- ISOARDI
- Oh, at the club.
- BROOKS
- --at the club.
- ISOARDI
- How much time did they give you on television? Did you sing a song or
two?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, one song with a thirty-piece band. And that's where the
arrangements came in. They made arrangements for every song I sang. They
did a lot of production, quite a bit of production.
- ISOARDI
- So when you went to Europe for the first time, what was your show like
then? Did you pick up all the musicians over there? Were you traveling
by yourself?
- BROOKS
- Yeah.
- ISOARDI
- And they provided the backup, what you needed?
- BROOKS
- They provided the backup, yeah.
- ISOARDI
- And what was your show like then? Were you combining singing with
boogies?
- BROOKS
- No, no, no. I don't hit a boogie.
- ISOARDI
- Not at all?
- BROOKS
- I don't hit a boogie. My arms are tired. It's not so much arthritic. I
mean, you can see my hand. I mean, they're arthritic. I can go so far on
a boogie and then, I mean, my arms get tired and I don't do a good one.
If I'm in a club it doesn't matter out here. It doesn't matter. Because,
I mean, what these people are educated to, they don't know. They don't
know. So I don't feel bad if I make a mistake. I don't feel bad at all.
But over there I didn't do any boogies. They hired me for singing.
- ISOARDI
- Now you're just singing.
- BROOKS
- That's all I did was sing, yeah.
- ISOARDI
- What a change. I mean, you never thought of singing at all.
- BROOKS
- I mean, I figured that if I want to let them know I can still play a
boogie, I'll just hit off one and go twenty-five or twenty-four bars or
thirty bars and cut out, you know, just for the heck of it. No big
thing. And it's not programmed. It's not scheduled on my program to do a
boogie, you know. I just sing what I want to sing. I just finished at
the Vine Street Bar and Grill, and I didn't do a boogie for three weeks.
It's not that I don't like boogies; I'm just not able to put them down
like I know that I should or put them down like I could at the time I
was doing them. The perfection is not there. And that's because of
arthritis, you know. Outside of that, it doesn't tell me that I'm
growing anywise older except it just makes you know you can't do what
you used to do. It doesn't bother me.
- ISOARDI
- You've got something else to do. You can sing.
- BROOKS
- [laughs] Why not?
- ISOARDI
- Really. Well, I was going to ask you when I was first thinking about
interviewing you about who your singing influences were, etc., but it
sounds like you may not have had that many influences because you never
thought of yourself as a singer. You just got up on stage and you did
it.
- BROOKS
- That's right. I used to listen a lot to Billie Holiday before I thought
about getting into show business. I didn't have a clue. I loved Billie
Holiday. A lot of people still say I sound like Billie Holiday. A lot of
people come in and ask me can I do some tunes, two or three tunes that
they'd like to hear, by Billie Holiday. I do them. I do them, because, I
mean, she was-- Well, she was a dear friend of mine, and I liked her. I
liked her vocalizing very much.
- ISOARDI
- Can you point to a couple of things that you really liked about her, her
style?
- BROOKS
- Oh, you mean her style?
- ISOARDI
- Well, her singing.
- BROOKS
- Well, her style is altogether different. Nobody can sing like Billie.
It's like nobody can go behind Ella Fitzgerald. I mean, the distinctive
style of the people that I know are the things that set them apart from
other singers. I mean, you know when you hear Billie.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, one note.
- BROOKS
- That's it. And I liked her singing. I used to listen to it quite a bit.
- ISOARDI
- Were there some recordings of hers that were your favorites?
- BROOKS
- Well, there's mostly all of them. [laughs] "Trav'lin Don't Explain." I
didn't like "Trav'lin Light"; I didn't like it too much. But mostly a
lot of the Billie Holiday songs were my favorites. I mean, there was
nobody else who could do them. Nobody else sang like her. She had a
style. I was quite a bit upset when she could no longer perform because
of why she could no longer perform. But I followed her singing and that
was all. I've seen her. I used to go backstage. She followed me in Santa
Monica. They were about ready for her to come on. I had gone to see her,
and I went back to the dressing room. And I knew she was out of it. I
mean, she had had quite a bit to drink. I got her together, and I
brought her right to the stage and sat her on the steps. Nobody thought
she was going to do it. And when they introduced her I helped her up,
and she got onstage, and she never missed a beat. She never missed a
beat.
- ISOARDI
- How did you meet her?
- BROOKS
- [laughs] She came into the ladies room where I was one night.
- ISOARDI
- Where you were performing?
- BROOKS
- No. It was in the hotel where a lot of the entertainers and the ball
club boys used to stay. We were all in the hotel. She was waiting for
her guy to come pick her up, because she was going to do a nightclub act
somewhere. I was in the ladies room, and she came in, and she just stood
there waiting for me to finish whatever I was doing. [laughs] I looked
at her; I knew who she was. And, I mean, I never was one to do
exclamations over-- So I didn't go into a fit when I saw her, you know.
I was just very, very-- I wondered, "Now, what do you want? You know I'm
in here, so why can't you wait outside?" [laughs] But, you know, she had
a small little cigarette, what they would call a roach, a small
cigarette, and she offered me part of it. And I said, "No." I wasn't
even smoking at that time. I said, "No, thank you." And she just stood
there, and she just kept on smoking. She told me she was waiting for her
guy to come and pick her up to take her to this gig. It was the first
time I ever heard the word "gig." So, okay. I finished, and she just--
When I got ready to go by her and get out, I said, "Well, it's yours
now." I mean, she just hugged me, and I just walked out. And, of course,
maybe I felt maybe a little bit thrilled because of somebody that
absolutely might have pushed maybe a teeny bit of love in her stature on
me, you know. She didn't know who I was, because I wasn't anybody at
that particular time. I hadn't even met Jules Bihari. I hadn't even
recorded.
- ISOARDI
- So this was out here in L.A.?
- BROOKS
- Yeah. It used to be the Clark Hotel down on Eighteenth [Street] and
Central. That's where all the show people hung out. So, I mean, like,
"Oh, okay. Billie Holiday." But that's how I met her. And I still loved
her until she passed. But like I couldn't figure how people like her
with all this beautiful talent could waste it so much, you know. So I
said, "Different strokes for different folks," and that's the way it
was. That's her.
1.7. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE ONEMAY 4, 1994
- ISOARDI
- Okay, Hadda, let's resume. I guess you're in Europe, or you're coming
back from Europe, in the late forties, early fifties. Where did your
career go from there?
- BROOKS
- Well, my first time coming back from my European tour, it was very, very
exciting, because-- I've got news for you. I was in England and quite a
few parts of the European countries. And then, when I came back, I went
into a club in the [San Fernando] Valley on-- What's the name of that
street? I really can't think of it. It's in the Valley, Studio City.
Ventura.
- ISOARDI
- Ventura Boulevard.
- BROOKS
- Ventura, yeah. It was called Jimmy O'Brien's. I was there. They had
brought me in to sort of bring them out of the red. And after I was
there for about three or four weeks, I mean, they came out of the red.
- ISOARDI
- So you were packing the house.
- BROOKS
- I was packing the house.
- ISOARDI
- What kind of a club was it?
- BROOKS
- It was very, very small. I don't say it was small. I'm saying it wasn't
large. It was quite a nice-sized club plus a very, very beautifully
extensive bar. And when I got there the people came in, came in, came
in, and came in. There was only one thing that-- It didn't spoil my
arrangement with that club. I mean, the two guys who owned the club
there were so gracious, they were so beautiful. I mean, one would say,
the oldest one would say to me, "Hadda, can you lend me two bucks, and
would you lend me the car?" My car. They didn't have a car. The other
one was just one who wanted to say, "Well, I love you, and we're going
to go home and make love." You know what I mean. If you want the truth,
then that's the truth. Okay. But the guy who asked me for the two
dollars--
- ISOARDI
- What were their names, by the way?
- BROOKS
- Wait a minute now. Jimmy O'Brien, and I'll give you the other guy's name
in just a few moments, because I can't think of his name. He's the one
who would say, "Can you lend me two bucks, and can I borrow the car?"
But Jimmy O'Brien would be the guy who I would say was the honcho or
whatever you want to say. He would stay there behind the bar and sell
the drinks. Now, the surprise of Jimmy O'Brien's, which I didn't know
and which I didn't come into contact with until I had another engagement
somewhere--which we will come upon certainly at another time, or
soon--was that the bartender, the actual bartender behind Jimmy
O'Brien's was-- What's the name of these guys who had the Laugh In?
- ISOARDI
- Rowan and Martin? The TV show?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, Rowan and Martin. Okay, Rowan died. Martin was the guy who was
behind the bar.
- ISOARDI
- Really? Very young, then.
- BROOKS
- Martin. I can't remember his name.
- ISOARDI
- Was it Dick Martin? Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.
- BROOKS
- Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. Okay. Dick Martin was behind the bar at this
Jimmy O'Brien's club.
- ISOARDI
- Was he a comedian there?
- BROOKS
- No, he was a bartender.
- ISOARDI
- He was a young kid tending a bar?
- BROOKS
- He came to me. This gentleman called. He was giving his wife a beautiful
birthday present. Money was no object. No, money was no object. And he
called me out to his home. He wanted to talk to me, and he wanted to see
this or see that and the other. And when I went out to talk to him, he
said to me, "I'm going to do everything that I can for my wife's
birthday, and I want you to be there. I want you to do two twenty-minute
shows." I said, "Okay." He said, "They're going to be $5,000 apiece,
each show." I said, "Fine." And then he asked me, "What is this you have
about Bobby Short?" I said, "I don't have anything about Bobby Short." I
said, "There is nothing in my repertoire or me as my life is concerned
that I have anything about Bobby Short." He said, "Well, I heard that
you all didn't get along." I said, "Well, that's true. I said, "Bobby
Short--" A club called Spago now, which used to be called Jimmy Dolan's,
up on the heights of Sunset Boulevard--
- ISOARDI
- Yes, the restaurant, Spago restaurant.
- BROOKS
- That's right. But it was Jimmy Dolan's nightclub. Jimmy Dolan told Bobby
Short, he said, "I'm going to have Hadda Brooks here, and she's coming
in in two weeks." And Bobby Short said, "I won't be here. I won't play
on the same bill with her." And perhaps he might have thought that Mr.
Dolan might have said, "Well, I'm sorry, then I'll get rid of Hadda."
But Mr. Dolan said, "If you won't play with Miss Brooks, then you have
to go." And at the particular time, when Mr.-- His name is-- When he
knew that I was coming in, he left.
- ISOARDI
- Do you know why?
- BROOKS
- No. No. I cannot assume. I can't assume, but then I can assume as to
why. He's a man, and I was a woman. I don't know exactly if that was it
or whatnot. And, I mean, Mr. Bobby Short, when Mr. Dolan, Jimmy Dolan,
told him that I was coming in, he said, "I won't play with her." And Mr.
Jimmy Dolan said, "I'm sorry, but you are going to have to go, because
she's coming in."
- ISOARDI
- Did you know him before this?
- BROOKS
- Yes.
- ISOARDI
- Had you ever met Bobby Short? You knew him?
- BROOKS
- I definitely knew him.
- ISOARDI
- Were you getting along okay? Or was there--?
- BROOKS
- We had nothing. We had no problems.
- ISOARDI
- So it must have been that he saw you as a threat, then, I guess,
musically?
- BROOKS
- I'm going to say this lightly, that he saw me as a threat. Lightly. The
idea was that it wasn't-- We weren't that big. We hadn't made a name for
ourselves. Bobby Short is a big name in New York. I'm a big name
practically all over the country, but I've got news for you, if it was
right now I could understand it, but then, I couldn't understand it. No
way. And, I mean, there's no possible way that I can even talk any
further about it because of the fact that this could be assumed as
something like-- When I was there, I was coming into Jimmy Dolan's, it
was a thing that I might hurt, and it wasn't possible. It could have
been. And maybe he thought it was after all. And then, when I went to
Europe and I was in Paris and I went into this club in Paris-- I was
with the Harlem Globetrotters, we went into this club, and here was
Bobby Troup. He was playing there.
- ISOARDI
- Bobby Troup?
- BROOKS
- Bobby Troup. That's the same guy that I am talking about who was at
Jimmy Dolan's. He was the guy who didn't want to appear with me.
- ISOARDI
- Not Bobby Short?
- BROOKS
- No, I'm talking about Bobby Short. Please excuse me. This is Bobby
Short. Bobby Troup was my friend. Bobby Troup played for me at Jimmy
Dolan's. I mean, I've got news for you, he played for me. I mean, he was
a very beautiful, very beautiful person and a gorgeous musician. But I'm
now talking about Bobby Short.
- ISOARDI
- Right. So did you talk to him in Paris?
- BROOKS
- Yes, I did.
- ISOARDI
- Did you ask him about this incident?
- BROOKS
- No, I didn't ask him about it.
- ISOARDI
- He didn't say anything?
- BROOKS
- He didn't say anything at all. I didn't ask him about it, and he didn't
say anything about it.
- ISOARDI
- Funny.
- BROOKS
- I went up. He introduced me out of sheer, I guess, European courtesy. He
introduced me, and I went up, and I sang a tune. And he thought I was
going to take his job. This was in Paris. I didn't want his job. I
didn't want anybody's job. I wanted to work. As they said, "And now,
ladies and gentlemen, Miss Hadda Brooks," okay, I would go on and I'd do
it. But Bobby Short turned me off in Los Angeles. Bobby Short didn't
have a chance to turn me off in Paris because I wasn't there to do an
entertaining engagement. I was there appearing with the Harlem
Globetrotters when we were in Paris. And the next day the Harlem
Globetrotters were going to play, the halftime show, and I was on, I
didn't have anything to do with Bobby Short. I was there, and I did my
halftime. I went out, I sang the song, and, I mean, like, forget it. If
I hadn't gone there the night before I wouldn't have known Bobby Short
was in town. I can't think of the name of the club, but I will. [Mars
Bar]
- ISOARDI
- So you reestablished a relationship with the Harlem Globetrotters? You
were traveling around with them and performing at halftime during their
games?
- BROOKS
- Abe Saperstein wanted to do something for me, and Abe Saperstein wanted
to do something for my husband, who was a Harlem Globetrotter. His name
was Earl "Shug" Morrison, and he was a Harlem Globetrotter. Abe wanted
me because of his death and because of a couple of others who had died
then. He wanted me as a living wife or woman who was seemingly
associated with the men of the Harlem Globetrotters. He wanted me on the
half. He wanted me to do something on the half. Now that I had gone into
show business, Abe Saperstein wanted to absolutely exploit.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, you were a pretty big name then.
- BROOKS
- I was getting into a pretty big name. I was getting into a pretty big
name. I mean, can you imagine? I'm singing "I Can't Give You Anything
But Love" four times this way, that way, back way, and forth way into
Spain, the bullring. I mean, I've got news for you. That's where
Saperstein's boys appeared because of the fact that that was the biggest
thing that would hold them, where they had the great big sections of the
whole bullring. I've got news for you and blah, blah, blah. After they
would have the bullring thing that afternoon, then Abe Saperstein and
the boys would come out and do a show. They'd square off the field. And
then after they did the first half of the show, then we would do the
half. We'd go out there in the middle of the bullring--
- ISOARDI
- And then performed.
- BROOKS
- I'd sing, and the other girls would dance, and the guys would play the
accordion and everything else and would do a show. It was a musical
show.
- ISOARDI
- How long did you do this with the Globetrotters?
- BROOKS
- I did this-- It was about five months, three months, four months. Three
months, something like that.
- ISOARDI
- What was Saperstein like? Did you get along with him?
- BROOKS
- Oh, God. I got anything I wanted from him. Everything. I mean, he was a
very, very wonderful person. He knew, at that particular time that my
husband was dead, I didn't-- I was married. I was married, but, I mean,
the guy who I was married to who was a Harlem Globetrotter was dead. He
looked out after me because of the fact that he thought maybe I might go
into sorrow or something like that, which I didn't. Maybe one time I
did, and he became very, very upset. But he was the most generous person
in the world. Very generous. There was no way in the world he would say
no. There was no way in the world that he'd ever push you out, and he
tried to help you do just exactly what he thought was perhaps-- I'm
singing "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" to that side, to that side,
to that side, that four times in a row. [sings a line from the song] He
said, "Because those people in the back and those people on the side,
they can't hear you. So sing it. So sing it."
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] So you sang at the one part of the stadium, then you walked
over to the other side and sang it to the other side?
- BROOKS
- I'd just stand right there and turn around--to the back, to the side-- I
was dressed like a beautiful princess, like a queen. I mean, whenever I
bought a gown I would say, "This is it. This is mine." "Put it on my
bill," he'd say. "No problem. No problem."
- ISOARDI
- So when you were back in L.A., then, when you came back from Europe for
the first time, you were playing mostly clubs, then, in Hollywood and in
the Valley?
- BROOKS
- Right, right.
- ISOARDI
- And when did your television opportunity come up?
- BROOKS
- Well, when I was in the Valley, I-- Seemingly at one time, like nine
thirty, and I was going somewhere at eleven thirty, and they wanted me
to do a fifteen-minute show with a microphone in front of my face,
nothing else. They wanted me to do that. So I did fifteen minutes. Okay.
They thanked me very much. And then I went where I was going, and I came
back, and then all of a sudden there was another part of me they wanted,
and it was fifteen minutes with just the microphone, the mike in front
of my face, and nothing else. I hated it. I hated it. Because, I mean,
who am I singing to? A wall? I've got news for you, that's what they
wanted. However, maybe two or three months later they were calling me
into the studio and saying, "Well, we're going to do a television show
on you." I was very, very-- As my manager said, I was blasé. But, I
mean, I wasn't blasé; I was just trying to figure what it is they were
trying to do. And they are trying to say to me, "We're doing a TV show."
So I said okay. So they brought me in, they gave me my format. I helped
them with my format. The TV show came about on a Sunday evening, from
nine o'clock to nine thirty. And as I have understood, a lot of people
who wanted to see me used to rush home from whatever they were doing at
nine thirty-- I mean, like, I didn't believe them, but, I mean, I guess
they did. However, it was a successful show.
- ISOARDI
- What channel was this?
- BROOKS
- KCOP [channel 13]. And then what did KCOP turn to? What's the new
station now? Or what was the station before KCOP? They had changed
stations.
- ISOARDI
- When was this? Nineteen fifty or something?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, 1951, '52, or something like that.
- ISOARDI
- So the first time they brought you in, and then they just had you
singing right in front of the mike. That was just a--?
- BROOKS
- No, no, this was something like 1949, '50. They just had me singing to
fill in an evening of some fifteen minutes. "Okay, we're going to put a
songstress on who will sing for fifteen minutes." It was no special
show. This fifteen minutes, this was like a passé thing of, "Okay, Hadda
Brooks is going to sing." There was no big thing. I mean, that's why I
didn't like it. That's why I didn't-- So then, now, the next time they
put me on, "What in the world?" And my manager at the time said, "Oh,
come on, do it." And I said, "Well, okay." And the next time they called
me was when I was actually being considered for doing a TV show.
- ISOARDI
- Now, this was your show. Was it called The Hadda Brooks Show?
- BROOKS
- Yes, it was.
- ISOARDI
- What was it like? What was the format?
- BROOKS
- Just me. I would say, "I'm very happy to join you in your living room."
And then when I didn't say, "I'm happy to join you in your living room,"
when I'd end up the next show I would say, "I'm glad you came to my
house." I mean, one of those things were either way.
- ISOARDI
- But did you have guests, then, appearing with you?
- BROOKS
- Uh-uh.
- ISOARDI
- It was just you for half an hour singing? Marvelous.
- BROOKS
- Yes, sir.
- ISOARDI
- Did you enjoy it?
- BROOKS
- Oh, yes. When they started announcing The Hadda Brooks Show , my baby
grand piano was there, and the top was completely high--the opening of
the top, you know--and on this side, to the right side of the piano,
there was an ashtray, a great big ashtray. I was smoking at the time,
which I'm not now. But I was smoking at the time. I was smoking the Pall
Mall, and the cigarette was pushing out loads of swirling smoke. And
then, when the director would point to me, I would start singing "To
Spend Your One Night with You." I would go through maybe sixteen bars of
that, and then he'd pull back from the ashtray, and he'd pull back from
me, and then I would invite you to my home. Or I would say, "I'm glad
that you invited me to your home." And I would sing the tunes that I had
prepared. It was loads of fun, loads of fun.
- ISOARDI
- Did you talk at all? Or did you just sing for the whole program?
- BROOKS
- No, it wasn't-- I don't remember talking or giving any conversation.
- ISOARDI
- So it was almost kind of like a club appearance.
- BROOKS
- It was just like one of those clubs where you listen to the songs, and
that was what you were there for. And I did all those songs I wanted to
sing, and I finished them. And by the time I finished them, that was the
end of the program. Then I would say good-night, "Thanks for being in my
living room." I would thank you either way. It was lots of fun.
- ISOARDI
- Did you pick your own songs?
- BROOKS
- Yes, I did.
- ISOARDI
- So you decided what you would sing on the program?
- BROOKS
- Yes, I did.
- ISOARDI
- Marvelous. Did it pay well?
- BROOKS
- Well, I've got news for you, at the particular time, if you got ten
cents you were happy about the whole doggone thing. You know what I
mean. You didn't get $150,000. I mean, if I had gotten $150,000 I would
have thought something was wrong with the whole doggone show, if you
know what I mean. The point of it was, to a certain extent, that [Nat]
King Cole came on after me, and Leo Carrillo and-- I can't think of this
comedian's name because of the fact that he almost looks like-- What's
his name? You know the guy. He's so well known. You can't even help me,
can you?
- ISOARDI
- No! [laughs] I need some clues.
- BROOKS
- I mean, this person, he had on a funny hat, and he had the cane, and
he--
- ISOARDI
- Oh, Charlie Chaplin?
- BROOKS
- He did a bit and did look like Charlie Chaplin, this guy who was on at
the same time that I was on. [Buster Keaton] And without fear of
contradiction, my producer told me that I had outrated both of them,
which he thought was absolute-- I mean, he was just absolutely out of
his mind to say, "I've got news for you. She outrated both of them." I
thought it was very good. And then, now, here comes King Cole. He was
going into a television show. And I had had a sponsor. I had the Hershey
company [Hershey Foods Corporation]. And King Cole didn't have a
sponsor, but, now, he had Peggy Lee, Nellie Lutcher, and he had-- I
don't think he had Nellie Lutcher. But, I mean, he had Ella Fitzgerald.
He had a lot of white singers.
- ISOARDI
- On his program?
- BROOKS
- On his show. And after they would absolutely do whatever they were going
to do, they would run up and give him a kiss. Well, they didn't like it.
They didn't like it. The network and the program did not like it. I
mean, like Peggy came on, and whoever else he had came in. And he did
not last as long as I did. I'm by myself. And they thought that if they
had King Cole with everybody who was anybody-- Female singers, they
would sing the song on this show, and then they would come up and give
him a kiss. Well, I mean, they cut his show right now. They cut his show
right now. I never thought, to a certain extent, that King Cole was cut
because of the association and the closeness with the women that he had.
I never went through that. I never thought that. I only just thought
that they cut the show. He wasn't on the same program or the same
station, like CBS. I mean, I was on CBS or NBC--I don't know which
channel it was. I just thought that they had cut him because of that
fact, not because that he was doing a hell of a lot better than me.
Because I didn't have anybody on my show. I was doing my show by myself.
But I have known King Cole, and I did know King Cole, and he was the
most beautiful, gracious man I have ever met--before I ever became Hadda
Brooks. I wasn't Hadda Brooks. I never had a clue as to what I was going
to do with whatever might have come my way. And King Cole came by one
afternoon into a hall, a big hall, like a Masonic hall or whatever you
want to call it. The chorus girls were rehearsing, and King Cole just
came in. And I walked in. I was there. I was playing because of the
rehearsal. And after we took a break and I walked down to the piano, to
another piano, I asked King, "What do you think about this tune?" I
played it, and he listened to it and whatnot. "Oh, go on, play it. Let's
hear it." He listened. He was about the sweetest thing. He listened. And
he told me, he said, "Just don't take me at my word when I say clean it
up. Take me at my word: present it." And I did. And it was a tune that
gave me a big hit on my early record.
- ISOARDI
- What was the name of it?
- BROOKS
- "You Won't Let Me Go."
- ISOARDI
- Nice story.
- BROOKS
- But I've got news for you. He didn't say, "It's no good." He didn't say,
"It's all right." He did say, "Well, I don't know whether I--" He didn't
give me his opinion. He said, "Clean it up to a certain extent." I
really didn't know what he meant by clean it up. I thought he'd meant
just by getting the chords together, and I did. And that was it. But he
was there to pick up his wife, who was in the chorus line, and that's
all. He was sitting down there, and I just ran up there and played the
tune for him, and he said, "I like it."
- ISOARDI
- Well, that must have made you felt pretty good about it.
- BROOKS
- It did. I recorded it. It was a big hit for me. It was a big hit for me.
It was no problem. I loved him. I loved him because he gave a lot of
people who were going into [show business] a good chance of trying to be
somewhere. I mean, they were going to stand off in a corner and beg
somebody to give them a chance to be heard. King Cole absolutely pushed
a lot of people into where they are right now. I loved him for that. I
mean, he did not hold himself in high esteem to the extent that "I can't
help you. I will help you if you want to be helped, but I'm not going to
help if you want to walk around here and act like a stupid bum. I won't
do that. But if you want to be helped, I am going to help you." I walked
out on the stage at the Moulin Rouge on Sunset Boulevard. We were having
a big show. I think it was a milk function, a Jewish milk function. King
Cole had my right-hand side, and Danny Thomas had my left-hand side, and
they walked me out on the stage. How wrong could I go?
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] Indeed.
- BROOKS
- How wrong could I go? They walked me out on the stage. King Cole said,
"Sing it pretty." Danny Thomas said, "Break a leg." They took me down to
the piano, and I sang, and the audience busted their heads wide open.
King Cole came down, got ahold of my hand, Danny Thomas took ahold of my
hand and took me back up on the stage, and all three of us took a bow.
What can you do?
- ISOARDI
- Nice experience.
- BROOKS
- The point of it is, they may not have gone to the extent where I was the
greatest singer in the world. The point of it is is where I might have
become one if they would give me a push, and that's what they did.
That's what they did. A lot of others did that too, and that's to the
point as to where I am right now--not the greatest singer but a
recognized singer. Whatever.
1.8. TAPE NUMBER: IV, SIDE TWO MAY 4, 1994
- ISOARDI
- How long did your television show last?
- BROOKS
- Twenty-six weeks.
- ISOARDI
- Every Sunday night for twenty-six weeks?
- BROOKS
- From nine o'clock to nine thirty every Sunday night. And it was a
gorgeous thing. It was beautiful. The thing that was beautiful about it
was I'd only been appearing in clubs, and here I was doing my own
television show. And here the guys said, "When the red light goes on,
that's you, and when the red light goes on here, that's you too, but
you've got to move from one red light to another. I'm not going to
point." I thought it was gorgeous. And everybody who came to talk to me
said, "Everybody I know is trying to run home at nine o'clock to get to
see your television show from nine o'clock to nine thirty. Everybody is
going home to see it!" I said, "Oh." And then, when Don Feddison said to
me that--
- ISOARDI
- Now, who was he?
- BROOKS
- He was the producer. He said that Leo Carrillo-- And I can't remember
this guy's name. Oh, he is such a great person, though. Well, I mean,
I've got news for you. I came to the point where I became number one,
number one-- What do you call it? Number one point in the whole roster
of the whole television thing [ratings]. Like "Amly Bloobly" is second,
and "Boobalee Teeleeai" is third, but Hadda Brooks is first.
- ISOARDI
- Right. Not bad.
- BROOKS
- I beat out Leo Carrillo and-- I can't think of the other guy's name. I
will.
- ISOARDI
- So what did your family think about this?
- BROOKS
- My family didn't possibly know just exactly-- I mean, I really didn't
know. My mother [Goldie Wright Hopgood] was more obsessed, and my mother
was more-- Well, she was more interested. She knew just exactly what I
was going through. My father [John M. Hopgood] didn't know, and my
grandfather [Samuel A. Hopgood], I've got news for you, listened to Bob
[Robert] Schuller. I don't know. When we told him, or when they told us,
or when he told us he was listening to Bob Schuller, he might have been
listening to me. But he had his own private room. My mother and my
sister [Kathryn Hopgood Carter] and my sister's two children [Darryl and
Kent Carter], they were listening to me. And whoever they had asked to
listen to, maybe they were listening, but I don't know. I don't know who
was listening, but I've got news for you, it stayed and carried on for
twenty-six weeks, and everybody was listening to it. This I can say.
This I can say.
- ISOARDI
- Marvelous. So why did it stop at twenty-six weeks?
- BROOKS
- Well, because that was a program. That was a show.
- ISOARDI
- So it was scheduled to last that long?
- BROOKS
- It was scheduled to last that long. So, I mean, King Cole was off and I
was off. King Cole was off before I was off. King Cole didn't do
eighteen weeks, because they got angry with him kissing white girls.
They got angry at him kissing Peggy Lee and all those other girls. I
mean, I didn't have anybody, no men on my show, I didn't have any women
on my show, and whatnot. I mean, I had a show that was going to be
continued on and on and on because of the program, the ingredients of
what it was. And King Cole, after what's-her-name got through singing, I
mean, she'd come up and kiss him, and blah-blah would come up and kiss
him, and they didn't like that. This is just exactly what I'm trying to
say. I can sing a song right now, and if you have a great big video, I
can get through with the tape right now. There is no need for you to
come up and kiss me. What are you kissing me for? Because I sang a tune?
The best thing you can say is, "Thank you. I'm happy that you sang the
tune. Thank you very much." What else? Kissing me is not going to make
it a great big hit. If I sing one of the tunes that I have on my new
album, the only thing I can do is just say thank you. But, you see, King
Cole-- I don't know why he did it or why he went through it, but he must
have. Every time Peggy Lee and Dinah Shore and everybody else, if it was
a white broad and they'd get through singing, they'd come up and kiss
him.
- ISOARDI
- Maybe they were doing it deliberately. Maybe they wanted to make a
political point.
- BROOKS
- No. It's not a political point. It's not a political point. The point is
that you're King Cole, black. I'm Peggy Lee, so I come up and kiss you
for having me on your show. I don't mind kissing you, you don't mind
kissing me, but the whole freaking public from here to Georgia, from
Georgia to Florida, from Florida to wherever these southern companies
are carrying on-- You are a black man, and you've got a white woman
coming up and kissing you. Your program is not going to be on the TV
long. It's not going to be on the TV long. You've got the greatest
actors and singers on your show. That's great, yeah. We want to see
Peggy Lee, we want to see Nellie Lutcher, we want to see everybody, but
we're not going to see them come up and kiss you.
- ISOARDI
- So that's how he lost-- Was that his first show?
- BROOKS
- Oh, yeah. His only show. That's right. And the only thing that I can say
is the first thing he did wrong was to have any contact with his white
entertainers. That's the first thing he did wrong. And nobody told him
any different.
- ISOARDI
- So what did you do, Hadda, after your show ended? You still had regular
club dates as well as doing your TV show, I guess, right?
- BROOKS
- Absolutely.
- ISOARDI
- I guess for the TV show you don't have much rehearsal, then, do you? You
just go into the studio and you--
- BROOKS
- I had no rehearsal, no.
- ISOARDI
- You just show up at the studio Sunday and you do the show live?
- BROOKS
- I had no rehearsal. I absolutely figured this--and I might be
wrong--that anybody who comes as far as instrumentals, like bass, drums,
and guitar and whatnot, if they are going to come to play with me, I'm
expecting them to know what the hell they're going to do. I have no
charts. I'm not going to give any charts. I'm not going to tell you
what's written down there to play. If you can't go from your heart to
play for me like I'm going from my heart to play for you, then you will
be the person I'll fire. I want everything that's normal and human to go
along with anything that I do. There's no way in the world you're going
to have something written. And if it doesn't go written, then you have
to do again, and all of a sudden, "Oh, I forgot that word and I forgot
that chord. Gee." Forget it. No way. There's no way. There's no way.
You've got to be one of those things. Let's do it from the heart. Let's
do it from where you're coming from. In other words, I mean, I'm not
going to make it with you. No way.
1.9. TAPE NUMBER: V, SIDE ONE MAY 9, 1994
- ISOARDI
- Okay, Hadda. I think last time we got through your TV program. I guess
we talked mostly about The Hadda Brooks Show. I don't know if you've got
anything else that you want to add to that, but we can go on from there.
If anything comes to you, you can certainly bring it up. One thing I did
want to ask you about that we haven't touched upon yet--I don't know if
you had anything to do with them or not--but were you a member during
this time of your professional career in the late forties, early
fifties, of the musician union [American Federation of Musicians], then
Local 767? Did you have anything to do with--?
- BROOKS
- I was fast becoming a nonmember.
- ISOARDI
- When did you join, though, initially?
- BROOKS
- Oh, I joined the union initially in 1946. I had to.
- ISOARDI
- So as soon as you started?
- BROOKS
- As soon as I started recording, you know. But then, I'm not going to say
that the union was very, very, very bad for me, but then, I am going to
say that the union was very, very bad for me. The idea was that, of
course, naturally, like most union members, they owe so much money, and
then the union calls them on the carpet. And you have to go into the
office, into a room, and sit in front of all your peers. And they
seemingly talked to you--to my feeling--they talked to you like you had
absolutely cheated the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] out of their
money, and I didn't like it. I didn't like any of those people who were
members of the union and whatnot who were telling me that I owed this,
and I'd better pay this, and whatnot. And I went into the president's
office, and I told him, I said, "They tell me I owe you $300. I have
$200, and I have a job coming up, and my boss will give you the other
$100 after my first week." And the union president said, "No, we will
not accept the $200. You can't work." And, of course, naturally, I
didn't like that. I went to the person that I was working for, and I
said, "They won't allow me to work unless I give them the $300." So
without fear or without any hesitation she gave me the other $100 to put
with my $200. And the president told me, "I don't care how you get it.
Just get it or you can't work."
- ISOARDI
- Do you remember who that was then?
- BROOKS
- Oh, I don't know. I'll tell you about him. He was Italian. Bob Manners
was one of the people who was there. He's the one who told me, "I don't
care how you get it." Bob Manners was the treasurer.
- ISOARDI
- Is this Local 47?
- BROOKS
- Yes, that's right. It was Local 47.
- ISOARDI
- It wasn't the one on Central [Avenue]. This was Local 47?
- BROOKS
- No, no. Here, right here in Los Angeles, out in Hollywood. Oh, I had
some trouble, too, with the union in Chicago. Not because I owed them
any money, but, I mean, like-- But getting back to saying Bob Manners
wouldn't accept my $200, I went to the president, and he wouldn't accept
my $200. And then, when I went to the person that I was supposed to work
for, they gave me the $100 that would make up the $300. They took it,
and then I could go to work. Then is when I decided, "I'm sorry." I
mean, "My education was my father [John M. Hopgood]'s doing, and you
will not tell me when and where I can work and how much I owe you. And
if you tell me how much I owe you and I don't pay you and you're not
going to allow me to work, then I think this is Gestapo methods, and I
think this is absolutely-- You're demanding that I do what you say to
do." So then I turned around and I never went back after that particular
incident. I never went back. In fact, they had me up on the board when
my father was lying in state. I mean in state. Well, I mean, he died. I
went to the job. I sat there, I put in my time. I did not work because,
I mean, my emotions were coming for me to work. But I sat there and put
in my time to let them know that I had good intentions, because they had
told the union that I came there and I didn't work, and I told the
union, I said, "Yes, I didn't work. I didn't work because my father
died." But I did think that I was showing good faith when I went down
there. And I sat right at the bar. Everybody could see me. I never
touched a note and I never sang, because in grief-- And I said, "If you
want to check it out, check it out." I told them the funeral home, and I
told them blah, blah, blah. They checked it out. They excused me. They
found out it was true, that I wasn't trying to fluff off a job. I mean,
why would I fluff off a job? Anyway, the union did not come on too well
with me, and, I mean, I just wanted to let them know that I would not
allow them to tell me what and when and where to do-- I went back to
Chicago. The head of the union was in Chicago. He told me I couldn't
work because [of what] they had with Dorothy Donegan. I said, "What's
Dorothy Donegan got to do with me working?" "Well, you can't get paid."
I was supposed to do a radio interview, and they were supposed to play
my records. And I said, "Okay, why don't you talk to the deejay and find
out if he's going to pay me, because I'm not going to accept any pay."
Well, now it can be told. I mean, the deejay wanted me badly. He wanted
me enough, because, I mean, my records were hot. My records were going.
I was coming up on a lot of popularity. He interviewed me. And he didn't
give me the money, he gave my managers at that particular time the
money. He paid me. But the union didn't know it, or if they did they
never said anything about it. But, I mean, I went through all of that
with the union.
- ISOARDI
- When was all of this happening?
- BROOKS
- [James C.] Petrillo. That was '47, '48, '49, when I first came out.
Petrillo was his name. Petrillo was the--
- ISOARDI
- Petrillo was the head of the national union?
- BROOKS
- He was the head of the national union. He wasn't going to allow me to do
an interview and get paid. And I told him, I said, "Okay, you don't have
to." I said, "I'll do it for nothing." Which, of course, naturally, my
managers weren't going to let me, and the deejay wasn't going to let me
do that. So, I mean, at night, when I was working at a club--I can't
remember the name of the club in Chicago--the deejay came in and put the
money in my manager's hand. But then, I mean, that turned me off. And
they told me, they said, "We've got Dorothy Donegan." "So you've got
Dorothy Donegan. Okay. She plays the piano. I play and sing. There is a
great difference. And I can't see why you want to tell me you've got
Dorothy Donegan. You might have Billie Holiday. But Billie Holiday
doesn't belong to the union, though, because she sings." So, I mean, I
went through that. And after that I turned around and told the union, "I
will not--" A man used to come in every week on Friday or Saturday at
the Captain's Table and collect two dollars and some cents from my dues
every week. And I said, "If he comes in again I'll get up and walk off."
I never saw him again. But the union was one of those things. It was
like Gestapo. "You're either going to do what I'm going to say or you're
not going to work. You're either going to do what I'm going to say or,
I'm telling you, you're not in the musicians union." I said, "I'm not in
the musicians union anymore. You forget it."
- ISOARDI
- So the few experiences you had with the union were not good ones.
- BROOKS
- No, they weren't very good at all.
- ISOARDI
- I guess you probably weren't involved at all when the two unions merged?
- BROOKS
- I didn't even know about them. When I got through with this union here I
went to Europe, and I've got news for you, there's no way in the world
they could come clear across the seas.
- ISOARDI
- And that was the last dealing you had with Local 47?
- BROOKS
- That's right.
- ISOARDI
- And to this day you're not a member, then?
- BROOKS
- No way. I wouldn't go back. If you wanted to give me a membership, no, I
wouldn't go back. I don't stand-- I mean, when they had me on the board,
and they had me like in court-- As musicians, all of them, I couldn't
stand what you would call downing another musician. We're all in the
business to make money, but I could not tell another musician, "You're
wrong." Okay, so you owe something. Pay. But if you don't pay, I can't
threaten you. If you don't pay, you're out of the union? No way. I
couldn't do that. So I got out, and I haven't regretted it at all. None
whatsoever. They don't bother me. They won't bother me. [laughs] I don't
know whether they know better--I don't think I'm going to be that bold--
but, I mean, I don't think they're that strong anymore.
- ISOARDI
- Let me ask you what happened in your career, then, after your TV show.
Is that when you started traveling quite a bit?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, I went to Europe.
- ISOARDI
- So you went to Europe for quite a few years.
- BROOKS
- I went to Europe, yes, because Los Angeles was a very, very hard place
to play. Los Angeles was not a hard place to play, it was an impossible
place to play.
- ISOARDI
- Why so?
- BROOKS
- Well, because, I've got news for you, Los Angeles is not a show town.
Los Angeles didn't know who the heck I was. Los Angeles only found out
about me after I came back from Europe. All of my records, as I said
before, were selling in the South. All of my records were selling up
north. In Los Angeles, yes, they were selling, but not enough to make me
an outstanding name. And then, when I did a club here, I could see maybe
fifteen to twenty-five people. They didn't know who they were coming to
[see]. They were just regulars coming into the club, and they were
there, and they heard me. I was very unhappy about Los Angeles. I still
am. It's not a show town.
- ISOARDI
- So how did the chance to go to Europe come up, then? Did this come
pretty soon after your TV show?
- BROOKS
- After my TV show, yes. There was a man in England. I was working in a
club in the [San Fernando] Valley. It was a gay club. He came in, and he
asked me did I want to go to Florida, on Lincoln Boulevard, where all
the big clubs were. And he said, "You're going to be on the show with
Chuey Reyes." Chuey Reyes would do one show. Chuey Reyes was a socialite
band. When Chuey Reyes got through doing his show, then I would do my
show. He was over there on a big stage, and I was over here intimately.
And I said, "Well, it's all right with me. I can get out of this town."
So I went to Florida. I worked there. And then I went back to Florida
another time, and I worked there with-- I can't think of the guy's name.
[sings] "Once in love with Amy--" Ray Bolger. I worked on the stage with
Ray Bolger in Florida. And then I left Florida, and then I went to
another town in Georgia. I went to Georgia. And I thought, "Jesus
Christmas, what am I doing in Georgia?" And almost everybody in the town
knew that I was absolutely frightened. They gave me parties to try to
get my mind off of what I was thinking and this and that and the other.
After I left Florida, I did one week in Georgia. Then I came back to the
"United States." And then, when I came back to the "United States," I
went to Toronto. And in Toronto I was called from Los Angeles; they
wanted me to come to Australia. And then I continued my European trips
from over in Australia.
- ISOARDI
- You just kept traveling, then?
- BROOKS
- Well, most of the time I was in Australia. I did England, and I did
Paris, but most of the time I was in Australia until I actually started
traveling with the Harlem Globetrotters. Then I went everywhere. I mean,
eighty-three thousand miles in three months with the Harlem
Globetrotters.
- ISOARDI
- Gee, that's hard traveling.
- BROOKS
- It's hard traveling. It wasn't hard traveling because we had great big
planes, and we had buses from one little short town to the other. So,
like, we'd stand up in the middle of Spain, on the border of Spain, and
get that thing with that goat gut and put it full of wine, and we'd hold
it up to our [mimicks drinking] and drink it, you know. And by the time
we got to the place where we were going-- We played in the bullring in
Spain. Let's see, it was Barcelona, the isle of Majorca, and the
biggest, the other town in Spain.
- ISOARDI
- Madrid?
- BROOKS
- Madrid. Thank you. Madrid. One of my costars on the show-- It was hot.
It was in the summer, and we had our off-the-shoulder cotton dresses,
and we went down in the middle of town to shop. But after we left the
town they called the cops, because we were--to use a better word than
saying anything else--embarrassing the city, because it was a religious
city, and we weren't supposed to bare our shoulders. So when we were
coming back we got a taxi going back to our hotel. The hotel had a
six-foot fence around it, or a concrete fence around it, and you weren't
supposed to come out there undressed like that. So we got halfway past
the shopping center, and there was a whistle, a shrill whistle, like a
cop's whistle. And the taxi driver stopped on a dime. Of course, we
didn't know what he was talking about, but he talked to the driver, and
afterwards the driver told us, he said we were an insult to the town
because of the fact that we did not cover our shoulders, and this was a
religious town, the isle of Majorca, and [he had to] get us back to the
hotel as fast as he could. And we told them, we told the police, that we
were part of the Harlem Globetrotters show and whatnot, and he sort of
cooled down then, but he said, "Get them back as fast as you can before
somebody else stops you and won't understand."
- ISOARDI
- Gee.
- BROOKS
- So we got back.
- ISOARDI
- Crazy.
- BROOKS
- Yeah. And we went swimming in the pool. We could not come out of the
yard or the pool beyond the six- foot--
- ISOARDI
- Unless you were dressed head to toe?
- BROOKS
- Right. So that was my part of going around most of Europe. I mean, like
the eighty-three thousand miles in three months included that. It
included Spain, it included Portugal, it included Paris, it included
Germany, it included England, it included San Remo [Italy], everything,
everything.
- ISOARDI
- Exciting to see that many places. Even though that was a lot of miles,
it must have been--
- BROOKS
- Yes, right, absolutely.
- ISOARDI
- Were you someone who really got out and saw what was there or--?
- BROOKS
- Well, I didn't go sightseeing at all, no. I didn't go sightseeing at
all. The only time that I went sightseeing was when we were in Rome, and
I went into the Colosseum.
- ISOARDI
- Now, why did you want to specifically see the Colosseum?
- BROOKS
- Well, I've got news for you. We saw a lot of biblical pictures of how
they used to feed the human beings to the lions. And I've got news, they
had tiers and tiers and tiers and tiers. And it was a bit dilapidated;
it had somewhat deteriorated. I wanted to see. I mean, we went, me and
the Harlem Globetrotters-- Of course, we weren't allowed to fraternize,
but we did. Abe Saperstein said no fraternizing, but we did. We went at
around eleven o'clock at night at the Colosseum.
- ISOARDI
- Was that a good time to see it?
- BROOKS
- No, just there. We were out and had a few drinks and came back. We
wanted to go see the Colosseum.
- ISOARDI
- Why not? [laughs]
- BROOKS
- Yeah, why not. Yeah. I was very impressed with the Colosseum, because
this was something that I had read about in history and whatnot, and I
was there to see it. Seemingly the other girls in the entertainment
field-- This is the only way I can clear that statement up: I was very
outgoing. The fellows wanted to take me here and there. There was no
sex. There were no off-limit things. I mean, we were just going to go
out and have fun. We went out in Düsseldorf, Germany, and, I mean, I got
up and sang "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" in one of the clubs,
and they gave me three dozen of the most beautiful yellow and red roses
I've ever seen in my life and a doll. But the boys were very happy, you
know. And the other girls, who were white--I was the only black one, if
you want to say so--on the whole entertainment circuit-- But they took
me out and whatnot. And of course, Abe was back over here in the United
States looking after his little leagues. He came back and heard about
it, but there's nothing that happened. I mean, I've got news for him, I
was too old to come up pregnant. [laughs] So he couldn't worry about it.
Goose Tatum was on, and Meadowlark Lemon was on the Harlem
Globetrotters.
- ISOARDI
- You had known them for quite some time.
- BROOKS
- I'd known them for quite some time. I'd known them for quite some time.
I mean, it was fun. After we left Spain we had more crates of champagne
on the bus. They gave it to us, crates of champagne. And then they gave
us great big, great big ham sandwiches. We could drink all the champagne
we wanted. Well, they poured some of it on us. [laughs] But Abe allowed
that, because he was there, too. Abe didn't drink, but, I mean, he did
allow that not to insult the people. He had us drink a few bottles and
eat the sandwiches that they gave to us as a luncheon. It was fun.
- ISOARDI
- I'll bet.
- BROOKS
- It was fun.
- ISOARDI
- Where was your favorite audience? Do you have a particular spot that you
enjoyed playing more than any other?
- BROOKS
- In Germany I loved it. I went to Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Berlin. Those
were the three places. I enjoyed every one of those cities. I didn't
like Paris.
- ISOARDI
- Really?
- BROOKS
- I didn't like Paris at all. I still don't. Outside of that, outside of
Paris, I had the best time, the most beautiful time, and the great,
successful time in Australia, because I was over there for five to six
years.
- ISOARDI
- That long?
- BROOKS
- Well, they kept renewing-- I used to come home, but they renewed my
visa, so I'd have to come back. But they were beautiful. I don't know
whether I mentioned it, but I used to entertain eight hundred people a
night.
- ISOARDI
- You did. You also mentioned you had a brief appearance on TV regularly.
- BROOKS
- I had every night on TV. It was called IMT, In Melbourne Tonight .
They're the people, In Melbourne Tonight , channel four, who had brought
me over there. I had an appearance every night on TV, and then I would
leave that TV and maybe have two or three hours to change or get myself
together, and I didn't go on until eleven thirty. Well, see, the TV show
would go on at eight o'clock, but then my regular show, at a place
called the Flame, something like that, I went on at eleven thirty. One
show.
- ISOARDI
- They only had to do one show a night?
- BROOKS
- One show. At this club, which seated eight hundred people, one show at
eleven thirty.
- ISOARDI
- For an hour, hour and a half, two hours?
- BROOKS
- I worked about forty-five minutes.
- ISOARDI
- That's all you had to do?
- BROOKS
- That's all I had to do was one show. And the compere, as they used to
call the emcee, he used to say, "Fasten your seat belts, here she
comes." [laughs] And I'd have to walk about-- It was a two-tiered place,
as you would say. There was a downstairs they would seat and an upstairs
they would seat. But I would go upstairs, because that was where the
band and the piano was, and I'd look over the whole room. It was a very
beautiful club, just beautiful. Jim Nowles, who owed the club, was
somewhat of a gangster. He wanted to think he was. He wanted to think he
was. I mean, we were going to pick up somebody at the airport, and
somebody was coming towards him, and he was going that way, and he
wouldn't back up. They had to back up. But we all knew that about him,
so, I mean, we never said anything as far as that was concerned. Except
one time I said, "Well, we're not going to get to the airport this way
if you're going to sit here." He said, "That's right, Miss Brooks,
but--" Then he started blowing his horn, and they backed up. It was a
very beautiful place. The women there were extremely beautiful. They
were squeaky clean. The men were very much gentlemen. Much. There was no
way in the world I could find a better gentleman than I found in
Australia. This is Melbourne and Sydney.
- ISOARDI
- Why did you come back?
- BROOKS
- I don't know.
- ISOARDI
- It sounds like you were a queen down there, Hadda.
- BROOKS
- Oh, yes. Oh, yes. That's what it was. I've got news for you, eight
hundred people every night. And I couldn't raise ten people here in Los
Angeles. And if I did raise ten people, I mean, they talked so loud you
thought they were on the show. I mean, I was very disappointed with Los
Angeles. But it happened that way. It was great. It was just beautiful.
- ISOARDI
- When was the last time you were down there?
- BROOKS
- It's been about-- Let's see, '60. Since 1960.
- ISOARDI
- That's a while!
- BROOKS
- Yeah. They wanted me to come back, but I won't go, because I don't want
to fly.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, that's a lot of flying. [laughs]
- BROOKS
- I've got news for you. Can I tell you? That's fifteen hours. But, I
mean, I figured if I could get a car we could race across the ocean.
Maybe I'd walk. [laughter] Maybe if I could get there by walking or take
a car across, I mean, it would be okay. There's no problem.
- ISOARDI
- But you don't want to fly at all now?
- BROOKS
- I'm not crazy about flying that distance. I'm not even crazy about going
to New York, that distance. I think if I have to go back to New York,
which I was about to three years ago, I would take the train and take my
time and get there. Anywhere--Chicago, Detroit, New York, whichever. I
don't think I want to fly anymore. I used to not care about it. If I
wanted to go across the street I'd take a plane. A long time ago, but
you know how young you are and you're foolish. Okay. [laughs] That
happened. That absolutely happened.
- ISOARDI
- So you really found your best audiences were outside the United States.
- BROOKS
- Yes, the best.
- ISOARDI
- It's sad in a way. That happens to just too many great performers and
great artists in this country.
- BROOKS
- It's very sad, because, you see, the saying was that in Australia-- The
attention was in Australia. They had in their mind, "If she was good
enough to bring all the way over here, then we are going to be polite
enough to listen to her." "Now, if we don't like you, we won't come
back, but if we do like it, we'll support it." But that was their whole
thing. "She came all this way, she must be good. Well, let's find out.
We're not going to talk. We're going to give her a chance to prove just
exactly why she was brought over here. And if we like her--" This is
what I'd like to say: "If you like me, come back. If you don't like me,
don't bother, because I'm not any more happy with your appearances or
your company or your audience than you are with mine. Why are you going
to be uncomfortable? And why should you make me uncomfortable? If you
don't like me, don't come back. I have nothing more to give than what
you've already seen. If you like it, beautiful. No problem."
- ISOARDI
- Sounds like they liked it.
- BROOKS
- They loved it for six years. What I didn't like was that they used to
farm you out in Australia. Now, they sent me to Sydney twice, see. But
they don't cut down on your salary; they give you the same salary. Like
the man across the street is Sydney. He's got a club. He gives the man
that I'm working for in Melbourne what the man is giving me, but I am
working for the same-- I don't know who makes any money, except they're
making money by selling liquor. And I've got news for you, those people
drink beer like they drink water. Of course, Sydney was now like San
Francisco. It was very out. Sydney used to stay open until three and
four o'clock in the morning. Melbourne closed at twelve [o'clock]. It
wasn't a licensed place. Melbourne didn't have a license for liquor. You
could buy all the sodas and the pineapple juice and orange juice and
whatever, but you couldn't buy any liquor. Before I left, now, they had
come back into their license. But I had worked five years, and when I
came on you could see all the men going out to their cars taking their
liquor in their little satchel bags and putting it in the trunk of their
cars, because they didn't have a license. There was no service and no
drinking during the show. That's another thing I liked about it, because
you could get as drunk as you wanted before the show, and, I mean, that
didn't help as far as that was concerned, but they never got out of
line. They were just beautiful people. Absolutely. And when I came back
from Australia I did a picture with Ann Dvorak and George Brent. Or did
I tell you about that?
- ISOARDI
- Yes.
- BROOKS
- Ann Dvorak and George Brent and-- It was an English production company
[Eagle Lion]. Both the directors were brothers, and they were called
Jason [Leigh and Will Jason]. I'm really not at the point where I can
name the company, which is right across me, but I can't think of it. But
I was singing the song for Ann Dvorak, who was in love with-- And then,
of course, naturally, I'm doing this song, you know-- The name of the
picture is Out of the Blue , the name of the song is "Out of the Blue,"
and I'm singing "Out of the Blue," and she would come up to me, and she
would said to me, "Would you please do it again, Hadda?" But she didn't
say "Hadda," she said "Hanna." Oh, Leigh Jason was one of the directors'
names. I said, "Mr. Jason, if she's saying 'Hanna,' why can't she take
out the two n's and make the two d's and say 'Hadda'?" So okay, she took
a voiceover. "Hadda, please play it again. Hadda, please play it again."
She was very sweet about it, very nice about it. That was one of my
first pictures.
- ISOARDI
- How did you get that job?
- BROOKS
- Oh, Tommy Dorsey heard me sing "That's My Desire," and he took the
record over to Leigh Jason, and Leigh Jason played the record, and Leigh
Jason got in touch with my manager and asked him could I do the show. I
wore my own gowns. I went to I. Magnin and got gorgeous gowns and
whatnot. It wasn't one of those things where they outfitted you. But it
was a very good picture to a certain extent.
- ISOARDI
- Did it make a difference in terms of your career?
- BROOKS
- No. Not a difference. I mean, it enhanced it that I was in a picture.
Outside of that--
- ISOARDI
- Now, this wasn't the only-- You were subsequently in some more pictures,
as well.
- BROOKS
- Oh, I had two, three more. I mean, like I just finished a picture. But I
mean, I had a picture with Humphrey Bogart.
- ISOARDI
- Which one was that?
- BROOKS
- It was called In a Lonely Place. I sang "I Hadn't Anyone Till You."
Nicholas Ray was the director, and Gloria Grahame, his wife, ex-wife,
was in the picture. And they told her that if she gave him any trouble
she'd be out of a picture, because they were in the throes of a divorce.
Frank Lovejoy and-- When I went in to talk about the auditioning, Sarah
Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald had auditioned for it they told me. And then
they took me over to the studio, and I sang "I Hadn't Anyone Till You,"
and Nicholas Ray was trying to say, "Well, can you do it this way?" And
I said something like, "I'll try." And "Can you do it this way?" after I
tried and whatnot. Humphrey Bogart got a little upset, and he said,
"Listen, let her do it as she so pleases. You can't make a Shirley
Temple out of a Judy Garland." Humphrey Bogart said that. As he said
that, then he sat, and I sang as I so pleased, as I felt the song should
be sung, you know. And they kept it in the picture. And then the next
picture I made-- Well, we're getting ahead of ourselves, because it's
just maybe a month ago I did a picture with Jack Nicholson and--
- ISOARDI
- So this hasn't come out yet, though?
- BROOKS
- It hasn't come out yet, no. It's called The Crossing Guard.
- ISOARDI
- What are you doing in that?
- BROOKS
- I sang. Oh, yeah. I can't act. I mean, I can. I guess I can if they give
me a picture. I mean, I'd hit somebody upside their head if they wanted
to give me a bottle. But no, I mean, I just sang. I sang a song that I
wrote, "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere" and they used it in the picture.
- ISOARDI
- That's the name of the song?
- BROOKS
- "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere," that's right. And--what's his name?--Sean
Penn directed.
- ISOARDI
- Really?
- BROOKS
- Yeah.
- ISOARDI
- Gee, I didn't know he was doing directing.
- BROOKS
- Oh, they said to me before-- Well, when they called me to the office of
the casting director, he told me that Sean Penn was a genius. He said
they think-- He is a genius. He can on the spur of the moment change his
mind and come out with another idea that is perfect. So, I mean, I
didn't have any trouble with him. In fact, when I was going to do my
scene, and I sang, and I was supposed to follow my record, which I knew
I couldn't-- I can never follow my record, because I don't do it the
same way twice. I've got news for you, you get off me; I'll sing like I
please. But when they had me doing the scene and the record started
playing, then I started hitting the chords on that piano,
seemingly--thank God it was in the same key as the record, the
piano--and I sang out loud to synchronize with my own record. And Sean
Penn said, "Okay, cut." And then he cut it again, and I knew I wasn't
coming through, you know. So then I really got down to business, and I
listened to the record. And I sang it out loud, and I played it out
loud, the piano. In other words, they weren't listening to the record.
It was like a bar scene. They were listening to me, but Sean Penn was
looking at how I was synchronizing with the record, and it came out
perfect. And he ran over to the piano, and I said, "Well, how was that?"
He just looked and just smiled. "Okay. Now we're going to take your
hands," you know, we're-- And I figured, now, if he's going to
photograph my hands, then it's all right.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah. Was Jack Nicholson in that scene?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, he was inside the other room, because I was singing to the whole
room. See, I'm at the bar, and then there's another, a big what you'd
call a cocktail room. It was at Nicky Blair's [Restaurant]. You know
Nicky Blair's on Sunset Boulevard? That's where it was filmed. So I was
very happy about the whole thing, because I knew that I had gone word
for word with that record. But otherwise I couldn't have done it.
- ISOARDI
- Well, that's great. I'll look forward to seeing that.
- BROOKS
- Yeah, me too, because I want to see what's happening! [laughs] I want to
see what's happening.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, really, really. So after Australia, I mean, you came back-- Were
you still traveling outside the United States and performing in the
sixties?
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, I have been invited. I have been invited to England, I
have been invited to Australia, and I have been invited to Brazil. I
guess they're waiting on me to say yes or no, because I haven't even
given either one of them a thought. I don't want to go.
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] Hard to get.
- BROOKS
- I don't want to go. No, no, no. The only thing that keeps me-- If it was
across the street I'd be over there right now.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah. Well, you could take a train down to Brazil. It would take you a
while, but-- [laughs]
- BROOKS
- Yeah, I know, but I could really walk across the water too, I guess.
- ISOARDI
- What about a cruise? Take a ship? You could take a ship down to Rio [de
Janeiro].
- BROOKS
- Oh, really?
- ISOARDI
- You wouldn't have to fly, then.
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean-- Now, that's one thing I have never been on.
- ISOARDI
- You have never taken a cruise?
- BROOKS
- I have been on every transportation from a bus on up to a plane, and I
have never gone on a boat.
- ISOARDI
- That's what you should do. Write back and tell them, "I'll go if you put
me on a cruise ship. I'll come down." [laughs]
- BROOKS
- I guess so. Then here comes a twenty-foot wave, and that capsizes us.
[laughs] I'm not a fatalist, but, I mean, I'm thinking. That sounds like
a fatalist, though, doesn't it.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, it does. [laughs]
- BROOKS
- Yeah, yeah. Sorry. [laughs] I probably would be the only one who got on
that boat who would be swimming over twenty-foot waves, you know, and
I'd take one of my favorite doggone whales or sharks and, "Take me on
home, honey." I'd be riding his back if he was swimming. "Come on now,
we've got about five hundred more miles to go. You can take me, drop me
off by the edge, and beach yourself." [laughs] I don't think I could
make it.
- ISOARDI
- Well, when did this happen that you don't want to get on a plane or
travel much?
- BROOKS
- When did it happen?
- ISOARDI
- Yeah. Was this pretty recent? When did you stop--?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like when I went to New York just about two
years ago, two and a half years ago-- I went to Melvin's Pub two and a
half years ago, and my manager booked the flight. Four hours. I got on
the plane, and he said to me, "Well, what do you want?" I said, "You
know what I want." He said, "A double?" I said, "Yes, and keep them
coming." But, I mean, I'm not that crazy about-- If I had to go back to
New York-- Melvin's Pub wants me to come back to the club when the
picture with Jack Nicholson comes out.
- ISOARDI
- Are you going to go?
- BROOKS
- Yeah, on a train. On the train. I'm not going to fly; I'll go on the
train. In fact, if they want me back there in six days, I will take
eight days.
1.10. TAPE NUMBER: V, SIDE TWO MAY 9, 1994
- ISOARDI
- Well, Hadda, any thoughts looking back on your career?
- BROOKS
- You mean good or bad?
- ISOARDI
- Both. Do you have any general thoughts about it?
- BROOKS
- Well, general thoughts. I mean, like, as I said sometime before, with
all the education that my father [John M. Hopgood] gave me, I didn't
have a clue when I got into show business exactly-- With all the
education that I had in music, there was no thought of what I was going
to do. I didn't have a clue. I was just going to school, studying in and
getting out and whatnot. I'm very happy that I came into show business.
I'm very happy that I have been recognized, like in the [Rhythm and
Blues] Hall of Fame in the category of pioneer. That was a good height
of my career.
- ISOARDI
- You think so? You think that was a very satisfying high point for you?
- BROOKS
- It was a satisfying height in that from your peers you are recognized,
and from a lot of the people that, for as long as you know and for as
long as they know you have been in show business, they decided to induct
you into the Hall of Fame, to put you in the category of rhythm and
blues, to put you in the category of pioneer. In other words, I mean, I
have had a lot of write-ups since then saying that there were a lot of
people-- That I had come forward and pushed towards a recognition as of
today. Because of what I did, because of what they admired me for,
because of how much they wanted to go behind my action-- I have had
those answers in letters and write-ups to acknowledge those things, you
know. So I think that-- I'm trying to figure out, where else can you go?
Where else can you go? What else is there to say?
- ISOARDI
- So with your education, you're glad that your career took the turn it
did?
- BROOKS
- Oh, yes, yes. With my education, I'm glad. Because, I mean, whether my
father was happy about my exposure as to what I was going to do in show
business, I mean, I'm quite sure that he came to the point, whether he
let me know it or not, that he was very proud of just exactly what I
did, what he had showed and what he worked for to give me my education.
I'm quite sure that he came to the point in his mind, whether he let me
know it or not, that he was very satisfied with the way it turned out.
And my mother [Goldie Wright Hopgood] always was. I mean, my mother was
one person. A man doesn't trust his daughter. A woman will. A mother
will. So, I mean, like when they were standing out on the porch, it was
my father's idea--twelve o'clock--if I was there five minutes after,
they wondered where in the world you've been. Well, hell, trying to get
home. And my mother was okay. She was standing out there with my father
and grandfather [Samuel A. Hopgood] to keep them from jumping on me,
from asking me questions. So, I mean, the interest was there, the love
was there. I didn't even have a clue I was going into show business. I
was in high school coming home with my boyfriend. [laughs] I'm very
surprised they even let me go out, you know. But it was to the point
where I was going on sixteen, seventeen, and my girlfriends and I, we
were-- They had to let me go out. There was no way they could keep me
in. But they always thought-- I mean, my daddy and granddaddy, "Oh,
well, I don't know. Something might happen." And there was no way, no
way. Carole Landis, whom I came very much [in contact with] in the
picture of Out of the Blue, about three days after the picture she
committed suicide, and we all had a very, very hard time getting over
that. Because she was so much in love with Rex Harrison, and he wouldn't
recognize her or give her the time of day, and she just committed
suicide. But that was the only sad thing that happened on any other
incidents of where I was or the pictures or what I was doing in any of
the clubs, you know. Right now, I mean, there are so many people who are
coming into death. I've been to so many memorial services. I mean, I
never thought I would go to those things. It wasn't that point, and it
wasn't that disease at the time. Now it's an impossibility to even think
of a lot of people that I know and that I have known who have just gone
away, you know. And it's a waste. It's a waste. But there's nothing you
can do, I guess. I feel very sad about it, very bad about it. There's
life, and then there's something about you taking your life. You know
what you're doing. Adamantly I'm saying they know what they're doing,
but they have no reason to even think about stopping. I feel very bad
about it. Anyway, my sister [Kathryn Hopgood Carter]'s a
nurse--altogether different from me. My mother was a practi-tioner, and
my two nephews, one [Kent Carter]'s LAPD [Los Angeles Police Department]
and one [Darryl Carter]'s a [Los Angeles County] sheriff.
- ISOARDI
- Everyone pretty much stayed in the family mold except you.
- BROOKS
- Oh, yeah. I was the black sheep.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah. I mean, your nephews followed your father.
- BROOKS
- Yeah, yeah. And my grandfather had the money. [laughs] Oh, my father
used to fight and fuss with him all the time. I mean, "Don't give the
girls more than I can give them. Because you can do it better than I
can, but I don't want them-- I want them looking up to you, but not
because of what you can do for them financially." Oh, yeah. I mean, as I
said, I've always said I was the black sheep of the family. I mean, I'm
the one who got out in the world.
- ISOARDI
- Yeah, you really had an impact.
- BROOKS
- Yeah, I'm the one who got out in the world. My nephews are LAPD and
sheriff. I mean, they were right here, born right there in that big
house that their mother and father [Charles B. Carter] built for them or
built for themselves and grew up until they got married right back there
and then moved away and bought their own home. And they're still LAPD
and sheriff. They never caused their mother any problems. I didn't cause
my mother any problems, my father any problems either. I mean, they just
thought my environment was going to cause them problems. They just
thought that because I wasn't at home. I wasn't under their thumb. They
couldn't watch me. When I decided to travel and get out of town or get
out of the country, they couldn't watch me. Within their minds, that was
their worry. I was the only one who didn't stay home. I was the only
one.
- ISOARDI
- You've had a successful career, and now you're recognized in the Hall of
Fame as a pioneer, as a founder.
- BROOKS
- Yes.
- ISOARDI
- Is there a down side anywhere? Do you have any regrets about anything?
- BROOKS
- You mean about my career?
- ISOARDI
- Yeah.
- BROOKS
- No, I don't have any regrets about my career, because, I mean, like-- I
took some things in certain ways that I knew that possibly may not come,
or certain ways that-- I mean, there were a couple of things that I did
that I didn't want to do. I mean, before I got my television show [The
Hadda Brooks Show] they called me to do fifteen minutes at this radio
station. I can't think of the name of the radio station. Oh yeah, the
one that did my television show, KCOP. I sang for fifteen minutes to a
microphone--no audience, a radio--from eleven [o'clock] to eleven
fifteen. They called me once, and some friends of mine talked me into
doing it. I said, "I'm singing to a wall." Okay, I did that. And then I
think two months later they called me again. I fought, but I went on,
and I did it for fifteen minutes, and in another month or so they called
me and said, "You've got a television show." I couldn't believe it. "We
have you on a television show." Don Feddison. He was so proud when I had
upturned Leo Carrillo and Buster Keaton and put them into second rating.
They were second and I was first, the first rating. Then here comes
[Nat] King Cole. Well, they dropped him because he was kissing all the
girls. So I didn't have a variety show; I had the show by myself. I was
talking to my audience from where I was, like in my living room, whether
I was their living room or not. I mean, I was thanking them for
listening to me. I was thanking them for coming to my house, or thanking
them for inviting me. And they were saying, "Oh, we had to get home on
Sunday because we knew you were coming on." I enjoyed that. I enjoyed
having to go out there every week and let them know what songs I was
singing so they could get clearance. It was fun. They've still got my
piano up underneath the stage.
- ISOARDI
- No kidding.
- BROOKS
- Yeah.
- ISOARDI
- Do you have any tapes of your performances on that TV show?
- BROOKS
- Can't find it.
- ISOARDI
- None? They don't exist?
- BROOKS
- Can't find it. Alan [L. Eichler], my manager, has been-- Because, I
mean, it was playing Sunday here and Tuesday in San Francisco. Can't
find it. Not one.
- ISOARDI
- What do you mean it was playing?
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, they showed it.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, you mean they broadcast your--?
- BROOKS
- They broadcast my show in San Francisco on Tuesday.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, as well. And neither city has any copies anywhere?
- BROOKS
- Can't find them.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, too bad.
- BROOKS
- Alan has even gone to Don Feddison's office and his daughter's. I don't
know why, I don't know why, because I did a lot of shows.
- ISOARDI
- Maybe back then they just weren't keeping the tape?
- BROOKS
- Well, maybe at that particular-- Maybe they weren't taping it.
- ISOARDI
- Because you were being shown live.
- BROOKS
- Well, they had to tape it if they sent it to San Francisco. How were
they going to--? It wasn't remote.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, that's right.
- BROOKS
- I mean, if it was going from here to, say, Pasadena, then they had to
have a tape to send it to Pasadena for it to play. And that's just what
they were doing, sending the tape to San Francisco on Tuesday. It was
playing--
- ISOARDI
- It was shown there Tuesday night.
- BROOKS
- Yeah.
- ISOARDI
- Oh, there had to be--
- BROOKS
- KSO. There had to be a tape. They can't find it.
- ISOARDI
- You would think at least one--
- BROOKS
- I'm going to ask them for my piano. [laughs]
- ISOARDI
- That would be grand, wouldn't it?
- BROOKS
- Yes. Yes. When I was at Perino's-- When Alan first started with me he
booked me in Perino's.
- ISOARDI
- Over on Wilshire Boulevard?
- BROOKS
- Yeah. He booked me in Perino's, and then I was doing a television show
at the same channel where I had done my television show.
- ISOARDI
- KCOP?
- BROOKS
- Yeah. It was an interview, you know. And one of the crewmen was still on
that stage and knew me when--
- ISOARDI
- The same one?
- BROOKS
- One of them that knew me when I was doing my television show.
- ISOARDI
- From--what?--thirty years earlier?
- BROOKS
- I guess so.
- ISOARDI
- Amazing.
- BROOKS
- He came by, and he shook my hand. He said, "I was one of your crewmen
who did your show." And he said, "I want to show you something. We've
still got the piano you played on." I said, "Well, where is it?" He
said, "It's underneath the stage."
- ISOARDI
- So they're not even using it.
- BROOKS
- Uh-uh. They opened up the doors and showed me the piano. I said, "I'm
going out there and just beg like I'm a homeless little beer drinker."
[laughs] I'm going to ask them, "Can I have that piano?"
- ISOARDI
- Oh, they should give it to you.
- BROOKS
- Well, it's still there; it's not being used. I'm going--
- ISOARDI
- Plus, you gave them a number-one show for half a year.
- BROOKS
- That's right.
- ISOARDI
- You've earned it.
- BROOKS
- Buster Keaton was out, and Leo Carrillo was out, and Don Feddison made
it. He was so happy about me taking over the first spot. But I can't
find Don Feddison. Don Feddison's daughter is doing something with his
office. I don't know whether Don Feddison-- I don't think she told,
because Alan would have told me. She didn't say that Don Feddison was
dead, but she did say that she was handling the office of Don Feddison.
- ISOARDI
- Maybe he's incapacitated.
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, some people can't live thirty years and continue on, you
know. I don't know. I don't know.
- ISOARDI
- Well, do you have any general thoughts, Hadda? Anything else you'd like
to say or get down before we--?
- BROOKS
- Well, what I may say just could not have any impact on what this might
carry on with. I'm very happy about it, if that's what you want. I'm
very happy about--But I don't think that-- I've been asked to do an
autobiography, but, I mean, I was trying to say-- Oh, I forgot to tell
you I had a private audience with the pope.
- ISOARDI
- Private? One on one?
- BROOKS
- Pope Pius XII. Abe Saperstein arranged that when I was in Rome.
- ISOARDI
- I didn't know Abe Saperstein was that powerful.
- BROOKS
- Oh.
- ISOARDI
- [laughs] He was.
- BROOKS
- Oh, he was powerful, all right. He was very powerful. I mean, the only
country he didn't take us into was South Africa, because he knew that
that was not the place to take his boys in. The girls would go crazy,
everybody else would have a fit, and none of us may have come out alive.
I mean, he's just-- "I'm sorry, you don't see the boys. If you do you
see them on television if you've got any."
- ISOARDI
- Why did you want to meet the pope? Did you ask him if you could meet the
pope?
- BROOKS
- Yes.
- ISOARDI
- Why did you want to meet him?
- BROOKS
- Well, I mean, that was the highlight of Rome--I mean, that and the
Colosseum.
- ISOARDI
- How long did you talk with him? Did you chat with him?
- BROOKS
- I chatted with him for about thirty minutes, and he allowed me to kiss
his hand. I allowed him to bless me. He talked to me, and he wanted to
know what types of songs I sang, and he wanted to know how long I'd been
with the Harlem Globetrotters, how long I had been in show business, and
where was I going from there, and how did I like Rome, and-- Just like
somebody sitting down and having tea, but we were standing up. [laughs]
Pope Pius XII. I had pictures of him with me talking to him. I think my
sister's got them, but I don't know where she has them. But, as I said,
my life has been quite fulfilled. I like how it has turned out. I like
exactly what's happened, and then to the height of what I accomplished
with the inducting into the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame.
- ISOARDI
- Also you're so admired by so many women, because you really did it by
yourself, and you did it on your own, and you made it.
- BROOKS
- Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, I never thought of it that way, but that's true.
That's the way it goes.
- ISOARDI
- Because you were on your own from the first day of your professional
career.
- BROOKS
- From the first day of my career. I never had anybody to carry me across
the stage. I walked out, opened my mouth, and put my heart in it. I
sang. I played the piano. I hit the boogie. In fact, I went into Chicago
with about four or five men--my managers and my distributors and
whatever and whatnot--and the deejay said, "Well, where's Hadda Brooks?"
And my manager said at that particular time, "Well, there she is." He
said, "She?" He said, "Her hand is so heavy I thought it was a he. Her
left hand was so heavy that I thought it was a he." I said, "No, it's
me." There are a lot of things that can be little innuendos, you know,
that could be said and whatnot. I am now very happy that the height of
what I think is the achievement has been achieved. And I'm hoping
everybody might come to the point where they might appreciate some of
the things that I have given. Whatever.
- ISOARDI
- The rest of us are richer for it.
- BROOKS
- I hope some things can be achieved or some things can be thought of,
looked at, listened to, learned from. And if it's going to go down in
history, then let it go down in history, but, I mean, give me the
thought of something that somebody else did, even though I'm a beginner.
If they're great enough to go behind, let's go behind--not completely,
but take the most beautiful thoughts that this person can put out and
sort of combine them with your thoughts and put them out yourself. And
then maybe there's some achievement that can go on. Really. Whatever.
- ISOARDI
- Hadda, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.
- BROOKS
- You're very welcome. I hope you've got everything you want.
- ISOARDI
- I hope you've said everything you want.
- BROOKS
- [laughs] I don't know. [laughs] I don't know.