CLYDE McPHATTER
New York's Apollo Theater on West 125th Street in New York, the most enduring of the many Harlem nightclubs of the last century, was the ideal place for an R&B, blues, jazz or gospel act to launch a career in the 1950s. Its Amateur Night competitions were a huge draw; the great Ella Fitzgerald took first place at the long-running Wednesday evening event in 1934, the year the club opened. Countless up-and-coming acts who got their "big break" in the still-going venue's first couple of decades include Sarah Vaughan, Roy Hamilton, King Curtis, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Joe Tex, Dionne Warwick (with The Gospelairs) and many, many others. When 17-year-old Clyde McPhatter appeared ... MORE ››
