Benny Lament replies.
“You were heckled and booed.”
“At first, yeah. The crowd wanted the Drifters. But we won them over.”
“A news article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette following your performance called you electric. Explosive. They also accused you of inciting the crowd.”
“That wasn’t our intention,” Benny Lament says.
Barry Gray reads a quote from the article. “With a voice that belied her size, Esther Mine of the group Minefield worked the crowd into a frenzy that spilled out into the streets and resulted in several arrests for looting and disorderly conduct last Tuesday evening. Esther Mine and Benny Lament, Minefield’s manager, were arrested for inciting a riot upon leaving the stage but released after paying a fine and agreeing to leave the city.”
“The whole thing was bizarre. The crowd was dancing and clapping. Esther and I were doing our thing—arguing and singing—and the audience was with us. We ended with ‘The Bomb Johnson,’ and the crowd was quiet when she told them the story behind the song.”
Barry Gray adds an anecdote. “Elvis Presley was banned from the Mosque as well.”
“I think they just banned his hips,” Benny says, and Barry laughs, but he presses Benny for more details.
“Why were you arrested?”
“By the time the song was over, the crowd was on their feet. It was like we’d lit a fuse. People were screaming and shouting. Some were crying,” Benny says.
“A white crowd?”
“Mostly. If I remember right, we had a Negro crowd on the mezzanine.”
“Segregated in Pittsburgh?”
“Not officially. But it’s like Esther says . . . sometimes the lines are just understood.”
“So you shared the story about Bo Johnson, sang his song, and a riot broke out?” Barry summarizes.
“I actually think our arrest was what made it all turn ugly. It was like the very thing Esther was singing about—the story she’d just finished telling—was playing out in front of thousands of people.”
16
BENNY AND THE LAMENTS
The Syria Mosque in the heart of Pittsburgh was a brown brick edifice guarded by an enormous sphinx on each side of the entrance and had a rich history of hosting every kind of musical act from Louis Armstrong to Rachmaninov. It was an aging powerhouse with seating for over three thousand people, and we were told it was sold out for both shows that night, one at eight and one at ten thirty. Portions of the weeklong musical variety show would be broadcast live on channel three as well and covered in live segments by the three networks—NBC, CBS, and ABC. I doubted we’d get a mention—Ray Charles was the draw—but it rattled me, nonetheless.
The Mosque had a reputation that brought the big names, and Minefield wasn’t a big name. We weren’t even a little name, but when we arrived at the Mosque on Tuesday morning, per Jerry Wexler’s instructions, we were escorted to a dressing room not much bigger than a janitor’s closet. THE DRIFTERS was written on a slate board next to the door. I made sure the attendant knew who we were, but they didn’t fix it. I rubbed the words off with my handkerchief but didn’t have a piece of chalk to replace them.
We tried to rehearse in the cramped dressing room, but the close quarters made us all even more irritable than we already were, and we waited in the stage wings for two hours, watching as the sound crew bustled and rearranged and moved around us, continually telling us it would be our turn soon.
At five o’clock the press started setting up for their remote broadcasts, and we still hadn’t had a sound check. If I didn’t do something, we weren’t going to get one. Ray Charles would arrive, and Minefield would have to make do.
Money had retreated to his own corner, Lee Otis was twirling his sticks like he wanted to take flight, and Alvin had lost his smile. Esther was scowling, her jaw tight, her posture rigid, and I hadn’t had more than a few hours’ sleep in what felt like days. The lack of sleep hurt my voice more than anything else, and it wasn’t doing the band any good either. I’d had enough.
We needed to rehearse on that stage, even if we didn’t have sound, or we were going to fall flat, and I couldn’t let that happen. The Steinway was in place for Ray, the lid opened toward the audience.
Ignoring the stagehands and the sound engineers, I sat down at the piano and without waiting for the others, pounded out the opening measures of Beethoven’s Fifth to