NIGHTCLUB OF THE FIFTYS
The other day, while reading the San Francisco Chronicle at McDonalds in Foster City, California, I read about how Enrico Banducci made a success of "The Hungry I" nightclub in San Francisco, California. He had many well known entertainers, but at that time they were just starting out.
The Kingston Treo was one of the acts that was starting out, but the Limelighters, who were starting out too, we like better. They were more of an older group that seemed to use their voice and muical instruments to put their original songs over to the public liking. The Kingston Treo did songs that seemed to be of a more old-western type; whereas, the Limelighters seemed to sing songs that had a Western and European flow. No matter what kind of songs you hear today, none compare to what they were singing. Liqure was served, but it seemed no one , really, came just to drink, but to listen to the entertainers--they were just good.
Bill Crosby and Shelly Berman always had a full house. It seemed that you started to laugh once they got started and you just couldn't stop. The interesting thing about these entertainers is that they very seldom used four letter words, and when they did, they seemed to be embarrassed. The weirdest entertainer was Jonathan Winters, and to prove my point, he was arrested and put under psychological observation: he climed an old-time rigger in San Francisco and started to yell weired things at people.
"The HungryI" that I can remember, had a three-sided stage, which you sat around it in canvas chairs and that an arm, of the chair, had a place for a drink. The acts were interduced by a person with a deep voice, which would wake anyone within a hundred feet of the stage. Everyone, it seemed, smoked, which filled the room most of the time, but we didn't care, we came to hear and see the entertainers.
After the entertainers were through, we would go to a pizza restaurant in the area and sit and drink coffee and eat pizza. This would be around 2:00 a.m., after all the drinks are collected and none could be bought. About 2:30 a.m. opera singers from the San Francisco Opera would show up for pizza-- then our second part of night would start. Singing would start up between the opera stars, that is, each singer would try to out do the other in different opera songs. This would go on until about 4:30 a.m., or until the owner would throw us out because he had to close.
It was like going to the opera to hear songs sung beautifully by opera singers; they would sing modern songs and old opera tunes, or anything that we would suggest--if they knew the song. This was all free--it was a way to cool their nerves, according to the singers, so we were told.
This was the way we would spend a Saturday night in the fiftys, and it was a fun way to relax after a hard week at college.
