{"id":29302,"date":"2011-02-02T11:23:28","date_gmt":"2011-02-02T18:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/blog\/?p=29302"},"modified":"2011-02-02T11:23:28","modified_gmt":"2011-02-02T18:23:28","slug":"allee-willis-kitsch-o-the-day-%e2%80%93-vintage-harlem-nightclub-shaker-and-my-weekend-at-vitellos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/allee-willis-kitsch-o-the-day-%e2%80%93-vintage-harlem-nightclub-shaker-and-my-weekend-at-vitellos\/","title":{"rendered":"Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day \u2013 Vintage Harlem Nightclub Shaker and My Weekend at Vitello’s"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not an avid club-goer. It used to be that I wanted to hear every detail of a record under headphones and didn’t want anyone standing up in front of me or humming along next to me when I went to hear someone sing. But now that MP3s and YouTube have become ubiquitous\u00a0with fidelity crushed down to the size of an ant I don’t care as much about such things. So this weekend I hit one club for two acts. My only regret is that I didn’t bring my vintage noisemaker shakers along to rattle in front of my talented friends who were up on stage.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

It would have been most appropriate to bring my Ubangi Club clapper Saturday night when I went to see Alan Paul<\/a>, member of Manhattan Transfer<\/a>, all members of which I’ve known for a trillion years and co-wrote “SHAKER SONG” for.<\/p>\n

Here’s the other side of the Ubangi Club SHAKER:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

There are a zillion versions of “SHAKER SONG” on YouTube but, sadly, none by the Transfer, the group that made it famous. Here’s a version by Jazzanova Band that features a fancy little cha-cha by the lead singer:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

But back to the Transfer’s Alan Paul and the excellent SHAKING he did Saturday night upstairs at Vitellos, a restaurant infamous for the Robert Blake shooting extravaganza and now equally as known for the nightclub that sits upstairs above the plates of still-on-the-menu Fusilli Minestra alla Robert Blake and the\u00a0kitschy murals of Italy that coat the walls below.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Here I am at Vitello’s with Alan and \u00a0Bob Garrett, who I’ve known since 1974 when I worked at Reno Sweeney’s, a cabaret in Manhattan where the Transfer often appeared, and who Alan has known since he originated the part of Teen Angel in Grease on Broadway, a role Bob took over after Alan left.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Tim Hauser and Cheryl Bentyne of Manhattan Transfer were also at the show.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

I think I’d only seen Tim once since my Borscht Belt Birthday party<\/a> in 1985 to celebrate my being named one of the most subversive people living in the United States<\/a> by Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist party. Here we are at the party with Barry Mann<\/a> and Cynthia Weil<\/a>, two of the most prolific songwriters in history.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

All four of us have used many SHAKERS in our songs. Here’s another one from my collection:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

And the flipside:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Sunday night I was back at Vitello’s to see my friend, Maxine Lapiduss<\/a>‘s hysterical comedy act,\u00a0“Mackie’s Back In Town”<\/a>.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

I co-wrote a song for the show, “Scared About Life Without Oprah”,\u00a0with Max, Mark Waldrop,and Michael Orland<\/a>, who also led Max’s band. Here we are at the moment of conception:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

And here I am with Oprah, though not at Max’s show, but my show, The Color Purple<\/a>, which Oprah produced.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Here are are Michael and I Sunday night at Max’s show:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

As Max is a bongo freak, our Oprah song contains many SHAKERS. I won’t let this one leave Willis Wonderland \u00a0but I believe it’s on our demo:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

And the flipside:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Also at Max’s gig was my good friend, Tim Bagley<\/a>.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

I actually liked this photo of me and Tim better but can we discuss THE AMOUNT OF LIPSTICK ON MY TEETH?? I don’t remember sucking the tube but something of that magnitude obviously happened:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Also present were perennial Match Game panelists and comedy greats,\u00a0Mitzi McCall<\/a> and\u00a0Charlie Brill<\/a>.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

As you can see, the lipstick is still on my teeth but has disintegrated into a more tasteful stripe. This is the good thing about being me. Even when something as hideously embarrassing as walking around with a tube of lipstick smeared on your front teeth happens people think it’s intentional. At least it matches my glasses well.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, by the time I said goodnight to Max along with Prudence Fenton<\/a>, the lipstick had left the building and my teeth returned to their normal sparkly (yellowish) white selves.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Max is doing her show twice more in March. For tickets go here<\/a>. And check the mirror before you take any photos. And please bring your SHAKER!!<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not an avid club-goer. It used to be that I wanted to hear every detail of a record under headphones and didn’t want anyone standing up in front of me or humming along next to me when I went to hear someone sing. But now that MP3s and … read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[171,131,23,35,87,193,13,389,249,911,75],"tags":[2542,2543,2540,2547,2539,2515,2538,2007,2546,2536,2537,2541,2535],"class_list":["post-29302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afro","category-creativity","category-discography","category-hollywood","category-kitsch","category-kitsch-o-the-day","category-music","category-musical-instruments","category-people","category-place","category-songwriting","tag-alan-paul","tag-bob-garrett","tag-cheryl-bentyne","tag-jazzanova-band","tag-manhattan-transfer","tag-maxine-lapiduss","tag-michael-orland","tag-prudence-fenton","tag-shaker-song","tag-sterlings-upstairs","tag-tim-bagley","tag-tim-hauser","tag-vitellos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}