An Evening with A Legend

It was December of 1995 that I, for the fourth time, was visiting the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum in Los Angeles, California. I always love to visit the museum while in Los Angeles on business to see what new displays are on exhibit. This particular visit changed my life forever and also brought me face to face with a true legend of both the jazz era and the silver screen.

As I said, I was visiting the museum for the fourth time since it had opened and as always was in awe of the new and the old exhibits. As I prepared to leave after my usual two-hour stay, I stopped by the visitors� center located at the entrance of the museum and picked up a flier, which outlined upcoming events.

I almost fell over when I saw the legend himself, a man who�s accomplishments I had only become aware of two years ago. The man who had taken it upon himself to bring a Saturday matinee hero to the Black children of America during the 1930�s, �The Bronze Buckaroo� himself would be in concert at the Wells Fargo Theatre, which is located on the museum grounds, on March 9, 1996.

Excitement overtook me as I ripped the wallet from the hip pocket of my Wranglers and purchased four tickets for the March concert. I could hardly breathe as I thought about this �vintage cowboy� who at eighty four years old had just released a new compact disc entitled �Herb Jeffries, The Bronze Buckaroo Rides Again�, was going to actually be performing at the Fargo and I was going to be there!

Yes, Herb Jeffries, that sultry bariotoned voice Casanova who has entertained audiences all around the world while performing with such musical innovators as Earl �Fatha� Hines and Duke Ellington.

Known in jazz circles as �The Singer�s Singer�, but not as well known, except by myself and a few others, for the singing cowboy role he played so long ago in movies like �Harlem on the Prairie�, �Harlem Rides the Range�, �Two Gun Man from Harlem, and �The Bronze Buckaroo�.

I thought of how great it would be to cross paths with the man, to possibly be able to shake his hand and get an autograph, were thoughts that played through my mind as I boarded my plane back to Georgia.

A Black singing cowboy! �Wow�!!, you may say. Yes, indeed! Herb Jeffries, �The Bronze Buckaroo� is the one and only singing cowboy of color and now that the interests has resurfaced in his movies and career, people are wanting to know how all of this came about.

How and why did this man who was well known and respected on the jazz scene take time to go and make western movies during the nineteen thirties? The story is told best by the man himself and when he is asked about how it all came about, he will simply reply with this story:

� I was born into a theatre family, and the smell of greasepaint is in my memory like the smell of home cooking. I grew up in Detroit and did a good bit of singing there in my teens and was still at a tender young age when I hit the windy city of Chicago while the 1933 World�s Fair was going on.

Before long, I got the attention of �Fatha� (Earl) Hines, started out singing at l9 with his outfit, and then he took, me on the road. When we got off that tour, the great Duke Ellington took me on as vocalist with his orchestra, and that began the relationship that would remain the cornerstone of my career.�

In those days we played to all Black audiences around the Middle West and down South, sometimes in a theatre and sometimes in a tobacco shed. One day, I think it was up in Quincy, some of the boys and I were taking a cigarette break out back, and I saw this little group of white boys running away from a little black child. He was sobbing away so I went over to see what those boys had done to him. He said they were all good pals but they had started playing cowboys, and since no one had ever seen a Black cowboy in any of the Saturday matinees, they just didn�t see any way he could fit in with their cowboy bunch.

That got my hackles up! I remembered reading somewhere that Boot Hill Cemetery in Dodge City, Kansas, the most famous of the trail herd shipping points, was started when a band of cowboys buried their partner who had been gunned down in town.

The way I heard it, the dear departed was a Black cowboy companion they held in high esteem. Growing up I heard talk of how many of our young men went up the trails with herds of cattle and made top hands on the big cow-ranches out West. I gave the little lad a talk about that and he wiped his tears and went to smiling and scampered off after his comrades. I hope he convinced them he belonged in the posse as much as they did, but I figured he would surely have a hard time of it since there was no evidence around to back him up.�

� That little episode stuck in my mind, in my �craw� you might say. A few years later when I was in Los Angeles I started feeling around for some openings that would allow someone to make B western movies with all-black casts, movies that could be distributed to the hundreds of movie theatres around the country that catered to all-black audiences. I could see in my mind those little children raising their faces to movie screens at Saturday matinees with the same joy and hero worship white kids experienced watching Hoppy, Gene and Roy.

As luck and fate would have it, I had a chance meeting with Jed Buell who had kingpinned �Terror In a Tiny Town,� that striking novelty of a western movie with little people playing all the roles. That was the opening I was looking for.�

And that is how it all began nearly fifty years ago and now I was going to have the distinct pleasure to see this legend in concert, up close and personal.....I could hardly wait! I am a cowboy, not a Black cowboy or white cowboy, just a cowboy. I am an African American who has had the cowboy spirit all my life and I have tried to live it in every way possible since I was eight years old.

I love horses and I am an experienced horse trainer who knows how to communicate with a horse, �get into his head� so to speak and bond with him in a way that affords me the ability to get him to do my bidding. I love the west and everything associated with it. Yes, I wear the hats and boots and have all the gear necessary to be a cowboy, but that doesn�t make me one. I can rope and ride and can do all the work that the down home cowboys do, I�ve done it in one form or another all of my life and that makes me what I am.�. a cowboy through and through!

Herb Jeffries said it best during an April 1996 interview with Player Magazine�s Les Wills. During the interview, Herb states the following: �The cowboy never discriminated. He just wanted to know if you could ride and do the work. He didn�t give a damn what color you were.� We could use more of the cowboy code today!

Well, enough about me, let�s get back to the story of how I met Herb Jeffries. During the months that led up to the concert, I was asked to do some work out of town by my company. This work took me to Carrie, North Carolina and even though I was to be there for three weeks, I made it clear to them that nothing would stop me from my date with destiny on March 9, 1996.

I had gone to Carrie unprepared and during my stay there, it snowed! Needless to say, it was very cold and shortly thereafter I caught the flu. It was tough making it through the week and even tougher to not succumb to the thoughts of not going back to California to see Herb in concert. I left North Carolina and returned to Atlanta on Friday of that week. I was sick, tired and wondering if I would have the strength to get up the next morning and make it to the airport.

I tossed and turned all night and finally decided that by the grace of God I would make it if it was meant to be. It was meant to be, and the next morning, with my custom made �Grizzly� raised felt nap cowboy hat, the one with my name inside written in gold letters, my black Wrangler jeans, my black and white custom made cowboy boots with my last name enlayed on the sides and my collarless white shirt in tow, I headed to Hartsfield,Atlanta Airport.

I also had my custom made belt buckle with my brand and logo engrossed on it with me, and with a one hundred plus fever, I boarded the Delta Air flight to California. The flight was long and I was miserable! I was breaking out in cold sweats, sneezing and feeling very dizzy, but I was on my way and that was all that mattered.

Four and a half hours, a rental car and a hotel room later, I was laying across the bed trying to rest and at least feel a little better. I carefully checked my gear to make sure that all was well with it and to ensure and that I would look my best if I got the chance to get an autograph from my new idol. The bed rest didn�t help and I began to feel worse, but with four hours until concert time I knew that I had the chance to feel better if I could just get to sleep. Well, feeling better never happened and finally I decided to just get dressed and take it easy until the time arrived for me to leave for the concert.

I left my hotel at 7:35, the museum was ten minutes away from where I was staying and as I passed Forest Lawn Cemetary, I remembered that another legend had passed away just hours earlier.....Mr. George Burns.

I then thought about how nice it was to be alive, how wonderful it was that Herb was still alive and kicking and how special this night really was. With those thoughts in mind I turned down the street that takes one to the museum, drove past the old train museum on my right and then finally to the street that holds the zoo and my destination for the evening.

As I parked in the lot I watched the people as they left their vehicles and walked towards the museum. Some were in formal attire and some were dressed western. I felt that old feeling come over me, that feeling of being afraid of being laughed at or stared at because I was a Black man in a cowboy hat and with cowboy boots on �cause everyone knows there weren�t any Black cowboys, right? Wrong!!!, a voice inside said to me, and then I remembered that all my life I had been this way, a cowboy at heart and in spirit.

I am an engineer and that is how I make my living, but I am a cowboy more than anything else and I can�t hide that any longer. I felt my car and put my custom made cowboy hat on and walked proudly to the museum, up the cobblestone breezeway and into the museum courtyard. The Wells Fargo Theatre lay there in the background as I once again, for the fifth time, came face to face with GeneAutry, �The Singing Cowboy� and his great horse, �Champion�, immortalized there in the center of the courtyard in a life sized bronze sculpture.

I walked around the great bronze statue and up to the box office of the theatre. Two people were already there, a man and his wife. We introduced ourselves and started talking about what was to come that evening. After a while others started to line up behind us at the theatre and we all anxiously awaited the opening of the doors to the Wells Fargo Theatre.

The doors finally opened at eight ten, ten minutes after the show was to start, but that was okay by me. I accepted a program from the lady in the lobby and then entered the concert hall. I was told that I could sit anywhere that I wished to sit so naturally I made a �bee-line� to the front row and the center seat. This seat put me directly in front of the stage and perfectly aligned me with the stool that held the microphone which had been placed on top of it for.

The microphone that the �Bronze Buckaroo� would be singing into in just a few short minutes while entertaining us all with his �super human� vocals. The theatre filled up quickly and I was ready for my date with destiny and then Mike Mann, the leader of the country western group �The Night Riders� took the stage. He and his son addressed the audience regarding cameras and video taping equipment being prohibited and then gave a little history on the man himself and the history of the Black cowboy and his contribution to the American West. And then the moment came when he introduced the man we had all come to see.....�Ladies & Gentlemen, Herb Jeffries!�

The stage curtain parted and out from behind it stepped Herb Jeffries. Herb hugged Mike Mann and then went to his stool and picked up his microphone. The sound of applause was thunderous and I personally was in awe of the man that stood on stage before me. My flu symptoms started to be a thing of the past and I settled back in my seat realizing that this was a night that no matter what happened next would change my life forever.

As Herb Jeffries talked to us and prepared us for what was about to happen on this magical night, I was astounded that this vintage man looked as if he was "fortyish" rather than "eightyish"! And then with all of the fanfare and pre-concert jokes that were meant to warm the crowd up were over, Herb started singing! I don�t have the words to describe what this man sounds like when he sings, but a finer voice you will never hear.

Herb sang his signature song, �Happy Cowboy� first and I was singing along with him and grinning from ear to ear at the same time. He also sang �900 Miles�, the train as it is sometimes called and one of my all time favorites, �Cow-Cow Boogy� which really, really jams!

Then a voice beside me yelled, �Hey Herb, this cowboy wants a picture and an autograph later.� Herb replied to the voice, �Well, yeah, that cowboy can have anything he wants.� The voice in the seat beside me belonged to Mr. Johnny Holliday, Mr. Jeffries manager at that time. I was now happy and content with the fact that I would have an opportunity at the end of the show to get my autograph from Herb Jeffries, the Bronze Buckaroo!

Herb prepared to sing another song after all the comments between Johnny, Herb and myself, but before he did, he looked at me and said....�Cowboy, I am dedicating this next song to you because I believe that you are this kind of cowboy.� And then he broke into another one of my favorites, �Down Home Cowboy.� Well !!! My night was complete. Herb Jeffries had dedicated a song to me!!! But little did I know what was about to happen to me as the night and the concert progressed.

Four hours later the concert finally came to an end with Herb finishing with the Gene Autry signature song, �I�m Back in the Saddle Again!� Herb thanked us and gave several bows and finally disappeared behind the curtain. Herb then appeared out of a side stage door and sat down on the front of the stage and started signing autographs.

The line grew so quickly, that I ended up at the rear, but it didn�t matter though because my dream had been realized. As I waited at the back of the line, Johnny Holliday, Herb�s manager, grabbed me and led me to the front of the line and told me to sit beside Herb on the stage as he signed autographs.

Just before I passed out from being in the same space with this legend, Herb looked over and hugged me and shouted�.�Hey man, you just sit right here because I want to visit with you, cowboy!� Needless to say I was �walking tall� now and people standing in line had to be wondering �who is that guy sitting up there with Herb Jeffries?�

It was fun, exciting and a dream come true for me to be sitting with this living legend. This man has done so much in his career and now I was getting to know him on a personal level. An hour went by and the line was still long for autographs, but Johnny kept telling Herb to wrap it up because he had an interview to do in the green room.

I was thinking to myself at that time that �the night has been fun, so I will say goodbye to Herb and thank him for the autograph and the pictures.� I said goodbye to Johnny and thanked him for ushering me to the front of the line and for allowing me to sit with Herb while he signed autographs.

I then went to say goodbye to Herb, but he told me to hang around a little longer with him so that we could talk, so I did. He asked me if I would mind going to the green room with him while he did his interview and of course I said I would love to go. So off we went...Herb, Johnny and myself and one other gentleman from the audience. I simply couldn�t believe it, I couldn�t believe that this was happening to me!!!

As we walked the long corridor to the green room I just couldn�t help but be in awe of what was happening to me. We entered the green room and Herb sat down to do his interview and I just stood among the people their and watched it all. I watched all the many friends, fans, and family as they mingled with one another and talked about the concert.

Herb finished the interview in about forty-five minutes and then started talking with me and asking where I was from. I found him very interesting and very well educated. Herb Jeffries is a walking history book and everytime I have talked to him I learn something new. After the crowd in the green room died down a bit I asked Herb if he would take a picture with me. I still cherish that moment with all my heart because within that brief moment, the moment that it takes to snap a picture, time stood still and my life took on a new direction and a new meaning.

I am grateful that our paths crossed and I am grateful for the times that Herb and I talk even today because of the teachings and experiences that he shares with me. I hope that he and I get to sit and talk again soon so that I can let him know just how much I love his work and everything he stands for in my life. I will forever cherish that moment on March 9, 1996, the night that a �wannabe� like me got to meet and befriend a Living Legend, Herb Jeffries, �The Bronze Buckaroo�.