Harlem and The Bronx (the making of Charlie Tee) (#3)

In this post I'll tell you about a very valuable lesson that I learned thanks to my Mother, and how that lesson was reinforced thanks to my Father.

Growing up in the Bronx meant a great deal to me, and since both of my parents were fairly prominent people in New York City Government, that life had even more meaning. I was always proud of the work that they did, and I took their work very seriously... in short my parents worked the butts off.
Because of them a band that I played with got invited to do a gig at a very prominent night spot in the Bronx, the Advocate. By day it was swanky very upscale restaurant serving mainly judges and attoneys and an occasional New York Yankee ( Yankee Stadium was just 3 blocks away). Lunch there started at $19 dollars, dinner would cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of $36 dollars and up. After dinner starting around 9:30 pm the place would transform into a serious nightclub. I'm talking Buddy Rich would hang out there, Lionel Hampton, and there was one Duke Ellington present on a couple of occasions, to name a few. The room had a wonderful stage, very big and roomy. In its nightclub formation the Advocate would hold about 200 people and still be comfortable.
So imagine my surprise when my Mom came home from work one evening and announced that her son was going to be playing a gig there, and for money. I had been to the Advocate a few times with my parents for dinner when we really were celebrating something special. It was suit and tie and starched shirt, not a hair out of place, and brother you'd better mind your manners in that joint.
Anyway, after picking myself up off the floor and calling my bandmates, who were equally excited, we spent lots of time getting ready for this.
The day to play came, we showed up to the club, but there was a big problem, my friend Eddie Rodriguez who was our guitarist didn't own a suit, and the clothes that he did have weren't very adequate to play at a place like this.
Now understand that unless you're some big named star, you just don't come as you are, you get together with family or friends and borrow things, especially since we were getting paid $2000.00 dollars ( yes, that's two thousand !!). Eddie instead chose to throw a temper tantrum, with the manager, and me like an idiot trying to defend my buddy almost lost us the gig.
Needless to say my Mother went ballistic, it wasn't just the fact that Eddie did what he did, but that I had the nerve to be just as foolish.
For a Black woman in those days [even in New York] it was pretty difficult to get big named stars a job there let alone some knucklehead teenagers ( and I wasn't even a teenager officially).
After that fiasco my Mother went out and bought Eddie a decent suit and some casual clothes for lighter gigs. I couldn't believe it but they still paid us the money, and my Mom never took a penny of it...that was loyalty and trust beyond belief.
The lesson that I learned from that was knowing how to be prepared to do this music as a life work, in all aspects. My Dad reinforced that by making certain that before we walked out the door we looked the part of where we were going to play. My Mother never did ask for any money back, even from Eddie's parents.
Eddie went on to be the original lead guitarist in Earth Wind and Fire, Eddie del Barrio. When my Mother died in 1997, Eddie sent me a wonderful letter, thanking God for my Mother's belief in him and her kindness because it set his life in motion on the right path and he parlayed that into a career.
I just cannot say enough about the most gratifying experience of being the son of Carmen and James. My Mom and Dad were absolutely the greatest people on the Earth to me.