(upbeat music) - The Uptown was the number one place for African Americans to go to have a good time, cheap, to see all the acts in the country.

You'd get the whole Motown Review there all in one show.

- The Isley Brothers, Donnie Albert, the singer, and The Chantels, Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon, The Cadillacs.

People couldn't wait to go there.

- Hello everybody, how y'all?

Now with the goods, we got a great show for you.

One that we certainly know that you're gonna enjoy.

- [Cassandra Wooten] Georgie Woods, he was just so handsome.

He was a legend in Philadelphia.

- On our show today, we have with us Martha XXX and the Vandellas, the Motown Review, Diana Ross and the Supremes, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and Little Stevie Woods.

They're all on one show, so enjoy.

- Just being on a Georgie Woods rock and roll show, you felt important.

- I'll never forget it.

I can see me at the uptown and my name was in the marquee, and I said, "Wow," I said, "That's Barbara Mason, right?"

That's me.

- When you walk in the door that smell of that nice fresh popcorn being popping.

I'm telling you, that was the greatest thing since peanut butter.

- We did not make a lot of money, but it was the most joyous time in our life because we loved what we did and we loved where we did it.

(upbeat music) - The Uptown started in the '20s as a movie theater, and even in, like, working class neighborhoods you're getting pretty ornate theaters.

It is what the movie experience is in the '20s, '30s, and '40s in the United States.

It was the chief form of entertainment and it was really an affordable luxury.

- The feel of North Broad Street in the late '20s was a feeling of action and a feeling of change.

Personal entertainment exploded with the creation of the motion picture industry, and in particular, talkies.

Theater was designed by the firm of Magaziner Eberhard & Harris, and the leading principal in that architectural firm was Lewis Magaziner.

The style of the Uptown Theater is a combination on the outside.

It's been described as an Aztec revival with the brickwork.

On the inside, it is all art deco.

This image of the foyer with a fantastic art deco lighting fixture, as well as the mural over the doors is indicative of what they would find once they got through those doors into the main auditorium.

- If you wanted to go up to the balcony, there were two sets of stairs.

You come in the front door and you go up this way.

This is an awesome theater.

- Red draperies, soft cush seating.

It was just beautiful.

Thick carpet on the floors, beautiful marbling, antique ceilings.

Bathrooms were beautiful.

- Because even the lesser spots in the theater got first-end treatment.

There were retiring rooms for the ladies, retiring rooms for the men.

Between the retiring room for the ladies was a cosmetic room so that they could fix their makeup before they headed back out into the theater.

The Broad Street Subway had just opened the year before, and so while the Uptown was under construction, they actually had a station stop that went directly into the theater building.

- You could take the subway and get off right in the theater.

So, I mean, that was the sweet thing about it.

- For the first time in history, beautiful, extraordinarily ornate interiors were being created for the general masses, not just for very wealthy or aristocratic folks.

- The Stiefel's first got into the entertainment business with movie houses.

That would've been in the first decade of the 20th century.

We also had theaters that produced live entertainment, and in Philadelphia they included the Pearl, the Carman, the Roxy, Nixon Grand, the Fays, and of course, later the Uptown.

It was a 2,000-seat venue and it enabled them to showcase a number of the stars whose careers they had been fostering for the prior decades.

Pearl Bailey was discovered by one of the Stiefel's, Sam.

She was a school girl in Philadelphia, and he permitted her to practice her act after the shows at The Pearl.

And many years later, she came to perform at the Uptown.

- The Chitlin' Circuit existed because of segregation, as simple as that.

It was a string of theaters and clubs originally in the south where black artists played in front of black audiences.

- This series of venues included five major theaters, of which we own three.

We had the Uptown in Philadelphia, the Royal in Baltimore, and the Howard in Washington.

The Apollo in New York is the best known.

There was also the Regal in Chicago, - The Uptown, it was always a famous place to go to because they had vaudeville acts there, like Pearl Bailey and the Nicholas Brothers and the Mills brothers.

- I went to the Uptown as a kid to see Pearl Bailey, but Pearl Bailey husband was Louie Bellson, and I didn't know Louie Bellson was her husband.

He was the first drummer ever to have two bass drums on the stage.

I was just amazed at that, because nobody had ever done that before.

- One of the things that's often overlooked are the terrific gospel singers we had, such as Clara Ward and her singers, and the theater would often pair her with a religious film.

So I remember seeing, I think it was 1956, "10 Commandments", and I can tell you Charlton Heston as Moses and Clara Ward on the same bill made for quite a powerful duo.

- Some of that kind of really important acts were the comedians, and they would perform early and they, you know, they killed with their audiences.

- I remember seeing many comedians, Red Fox, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, and Pigmeat Markham.

Pigmeat Markham's act was satirized courtroom decorum, and he had a signature line, "Here come da judge."

- His honor, Judge Pigmeat Markum.

- Here come da Judge.

- And those of you who may remember the popular series "Laugh-In" on tv, he was given a cameo role, and every now and again would appear.

- That's it, dope.

(audience laughter) - I got to see Moms Mabley, Pigmeat Markham, and Red Fox at the Uptown.

Oh my God, Moms Mabley, she was something else.

Yes, she was.

(rambling piano music) - I think the first thing important to understand about Georgie Woods is he's really a man of his moment.

And by that I mean he is part of the Great Migration.

He's born in Georgia to a segregated world, follows the railroad first to New York and then the Philadelphia like tens of thousands of millions of others of his generation.

- He was working on a couple of the local radio stations, WHAT and WDAS, and he was hired in 1957 to start producing shows at the Uptown.

- Georgie was the game black-wise in Philadelphia, and you had Jocko Henderson, Kay Williams, Daddy Kay they called him, Lord Fauntleroy.

They had all these different guys.

They all meant something.

But Georgie was the one that everybody loved.

- The history that Georgie Woods has for me and my life goes way back to my childhood.

He was on early in the morning, so while we were preparing to go to school, we would be listening to some sounds that he played on the radio.

- I used to call him on the air in the morning just to say, "Thank you, George.

I heard you playing my record last night.

I was listening to the radio and I just listen to WDAS all day, all night."

- Georgie Woods, like everyone else, is looking for a side hustle.

And the Uptown was sort of hit and win, and one of his side hustles - Whatever went on in New York, we had it here at the Uptown.

(exciting music) That's our theme song, "Joy Ride".

Now, you folks at home, I want you to picture yourself 30 years ago, and I'm on stage here and I'd like to just tell you and show you what we did.

- Georgie Woods would come on with his little movements and sing "Oh, Mary, don't you weep".

He couldn't sing or dance.

It was so funny.

So we laughed a lot.

"Doc" Bagby was the first musical director at that time.

The Georgie Woods theme song was "Doc" Bagby's "Joy Ride".

The "Joy Ride" song would come on and you knew the show would start then.

- I remember that song.

It was wonderful.

(humming to music) That's the note.

(laughing) (slow piano music) - [Alfred Pollitt] Sam Reed was the house director of the Uptown Theater.

He ran the band, he hired the musicians.

His wife was Sarah Dash from Patty LaBelle and the Bluebelles, and LaBelle also.

- Actually, when our job was to check their cards, make sure they were union musicians and all that kind of stuff, which was a very hard job at that time, because a lot of the men from from the south, you know, the bands like James Brown's band and Bobby "Blue" Bland's Band, they weren't thinking about no union.

So I would have to go to the manager of the the group and said, "Well, you have to pay a certain amount of money for each one of the musicians to perform on stage because this is a union hall."

And that was my job in the beginning.

- If somebody comes in like, say, James Brown, they don't have music.

So the musicians could play the music and the audience wouldn't go off on 'em because it didn't sound like the record.

They get, came close to the record.

(drums playing) Earl Young is the father of disco drumming and house music drumming.

He was the house drummer for the Uptown Theater.

Sam Reed hired him, gave him his first job there.

- Jackie Wilson, he came through.

He only had a drummer that would travel with him.

He didn't have a band.

He just had his drummer and that was his traveling partner.

- His drummer didn't show up, and I had to play for Jackie Wilson.

He was doing "Lonely Tear Drops".

♪ Lonely tear drops ♪ I played it.

He came back with me and he thanked me very much, and says, he said, "Oh, you did a good job."

Gave me a little bonus for it.

- [Sam Reed] I got a 12 piece band together.

The show went real well.

And that's how I got started as Sam Reed's Band at the Uptown Theater.

- If it wasn't for Sam Reed, I don't think I would be where I'm at today.

Working at the Uptown, I got to meet everybody.

- Legends of mid-century American Jazz played there, Count Basie played there, Art Blakey played there.

Miles Davis played there.

♪ Hey, hey ♪ There were a list of established acts already playing at the Uptown and at the Apollo, again, before Motown.

There's black music and black music that crosses over, but Berry Gordy really perfects that.

He's thinking about how he can create an art form that will appeal to the largest group of people.

- Everybody liked Motown.

Motown was the up-and-coming guy, the underdog, whatever you wanna call him, and he's black, black-owned.

That was all new.

And so, you know, people played those records.

White kids started listening to the black music instead of white music because it was more to it.

The harmonies with black groups is far superior to white.

It's not even a contest.

- When Pat Boone did, ♪ Ain't that a shame ♪ and then when you hear Fats Domino, ♪ Ain't that a shame ♪ you could hear the rhythm, man.

I'm a dancer, so I could hear a rhythm beat, and black soul music is a part of my life, you see.

I could hear the real deal and the phony deal.

(Motown music) They played a song, "When the Lovelight Comes Shining Through His Eyes".

That was the first song The Supremes ever really had.

And I busted it locally in Philly.

- We used to come to Philadelphia a lot.

♪ When the lovelight starts shining ♪ ♪ Through his eyes ♪ First hit was, "Where Did Our Love Go" but we had recorded, like, six or seven songs prior to that.

And this is all while we were in high school.

So we were kind of like the local teens who were doing really good, you know?

In fact, I recall one of my teachers, Mr. Boone, saying, "Ms. Wilson, I know you are out there singing with that little group called The Primettes.

And if you want to get outta high school, you better pass my English class."

♪ Ooh ♪ - [Radio DJ] Hi, this is Viani Wilson, and you're listening to "The Geator with the Heater" and "The Boss with the Hot Sauce".

Ah!

- These kids, they didn't make any money with this.

They would come here, and Motown taught them how to dress, how to talk, how to be interviewed.

Berry Gordy came from making cars, assembly line worker.

He did the same thing with his record company.

It was brilliant what he did.

Brilliant.

(Stevie Wonder "Superstitious") - We've got the Motown Review in here, which was a great draw.

It introduced Little Stevie Wonder.

I can see him now going over to the edge of the stage here, giving me almost a heart attack because I thought he was gonna fall off the stage and I'd rush out to grab him.

Yeah, and then he'd come up here and play the drums, and back then he played the harmonica.

And he was the one who I think one of the most exciting acts that I've introduced here at this theater was Stevie Wonder.

- Martha and the Vandellas was one of my favorite groups at the Uptown.

The Supremes were okay, but Martha and the Vandellas, and the Marvelettes, nobody could touch them.

Not even Diana Ross, in my opinion.

(giggling) - [Georgie Woods] Every show we ran for at least 10 days.

We would do three shows during the week and five on the weekends and holidays, sometimes six.

- On Sundays, they would be in there from two o'clock until 12, one o'clock, however long the shows were that night, in the very same seats all day long.

(chuckles) - Stage shows was a big thing back then, you know, and the slate of artists that appeared at the Uptown was amazing to me.

- Like the Isley Brothers.

I recall the first time they came to this theater and they were all up the balcony.

They were jumping all over the place, jumping out in the audience, dancing up, up, up up with ropes up in the ceiling.

It was just amazing.

It was fantastic.

♪ You know you make me want to shout ♪ - Isley Brothers would come in and they would fly through the air, and the audience would just be pumped up and ready to go.

♪ Make me want to shout ♪ - Every time they sang, "Shout" the audience threw their hands up, jumped up and down.

It was just crazy in there.

- It was like they was never going to end it, but I mean, we were down there screaming and hollering.

It had to be over half an hour, 45 minutes.

- And it felt like the whole building was jumping up and down.

It was a completely filled audience.

- Ron Isley, you know, he'd get loose, you know, opening his shirt and throwing a tie, and it was just wonderful.

Yes, they were the greatest.

♪ Now, wait a minute ♪ - [Jerry Blavat] Hey, when's the next show, man?

- [Georgie Woods] Uh, June 8th, James Brown.

- [Jerry Blavat] You putting me on.

Really?

- [Georgie Woods] I don't have to lie about nothing like James Brown.

That's my man.

- [Jerry Blavat] Who else?

Well, with him, you don't need anybody else.

- [Georgie Woods] Well, just James, you know.

James, the man, you know.

And uh, he's the one.

He's the one.

Papasan, Mamasan.

(James Brown music) - James Brown was a mainstay at the Uptown Theater.

He used to use everybody's coats in his band to do his act of "Please, Please Don't Go".

♪ Please ♪ He would, "Please, please don't go."

They would put the coat around him and they would console him off the stage, and before he would hit the wings, he would go, "Oh baby, no."

And sling the coat off, right?

(James singing and crowd screaming) They hid the coat because the cleaning bill was too much for them.

So he developed the cape.

- [Georgie Woods] Well, he was the hardest working person I've ever seen in the show business.

He's a godfather and he had a way of entertaining, he had dance, and the thing that Michael does now, The Moonwalk, James Brown did that on here on the stage years ago.

- And if he was the hardest working man in show business, the hardest working woman was Tina Turner.

But she was absolutely a sensational raw power.

- The black male acts that were really developing, they really come out of doo-wop in some ways, off the Philly doo-wop scene.

- Every street corner had a singing group.

We used to challenge, you know, we was kids like, ♪ Do do do do wop ♪ ♪ Do do do wop ♪ So we sang doo-wop.

So I said, "Well look, I'm gonna put me a group together."

So I got four of my other guys and wrote a song and put a record out.

The group was called The Exceptions, and the record we put out is "Down By the Ocean".

There was a group called The Volcanoes.

They needed a drummer.

So I combined my drums and my singing and we joined together as a group.

- Earl was the drummer.

We had the late Norman Harris.

Ronnie Baker helped us, the recording still, Larry Washington, who played the percussions.

Maybe two months later this song was constantly being played and as people were walking down the street, you could hear just singing part of it.

So when we did the Uptown, it was like we were part of Motown or something.

The song was so dynamic.

It was a great feeling, a feeling of accomplishment.

Those were good days that'll be with me until God calls me home.

- The Volcanos was a group that was managed by Jimmy Bishop.

He was a DJ and he was put on shows at the Uptown, and this was his group.

- You're gonna come up and see Jimmy Bishop and you're gonna give him a demo.

If he likes it, he's going to go into the studio, record it, like, "Yes, I'm ready."

♪ I don't even ♪ ♪ Know how to love you ♪ - I had written this song called "Are You Ready".

Jimmy Bishop said, "We need to change that to first person."

And he said, "Why don't we call it, "Yes, I'm ready"".

♪ Yes, I'm ready to learn ♪ I did not know that the song was going to become what it is today.

♪ Fall in love with you ♪ I went to the Uptown when I was 18 years old.

Even now, I can't tell you how it felt 'cause it was just so sudden and it was like magical.

♪ I'm glad I fell in love ♪ ♪ With you ♪ - Barbara Mason was the major star, but you had Honey and the Bees.

♪ One day ♪ - Jimmy Bishop at the time had Barbara Mason.

He did not want a single female, but he was interested in a group, and he liked us and we became his group.

And eventually he named us Honey and the Bees, Nadine Felder being Honey, Jean Davis, myself, and Gwendolyn Oliver comprised Honey and the Bees.

Early on, when we got a chance to play the Uptown, that's when it felt like we struck another level.

We got an encore the first time that we performed there.

That, for me, was like, "Oh my God, we're ready.

We can do this."

- There were several famous kind of white acts that played the Uptown.

Georgie Woods would play the Magnificent Men on his show, and so that they would show up at the Uptown, and when they would come out on stage, they would gasp a little bit.

They just didn't expect to see a white band.

♪ I know it's just a matter of time ♪ Famously, at one point they are on the road and they backed James Brown.

They were an example of what Georgie Woods would name Blue-Eyed Soul, white acts, who had a black sound to them, or at least borrowed from black musical traditions.

- And you know, The Temptones, which Jimmy Bishop recorded, Darryl Hall.

Then they went on to become Hall and Oates, you know, with John Oates.

- On a Saturday night at the Uptown Theater, you could see the most amazing performers, and it was how they interacted with the audience, how they turned the audience on, what worked, what didn't work.

And so as a young musician, I was absorbing all this.

To this day, it's the core of who I am as a performer, and especially from a live performance point of view.

- On a stage with 10 other acts, and how do you get known?

How do you get remembered?

And they know pretty early on that audiences are gonna remember the way they look, and the way they dance.

- You could not get on stage and just sing in the microphone.

You had to dance.

If you were boring, you would get booed off the stage.

At the end of the show, Georgie Woods would say, "Anybody wanna dance?

Come on up."

And oh my goodness, the people would run, not walk, to the stage.

A lot of movements that the young people were doing on the stage at the Uptown were copied by the acts and then made known nationally.

(The Jefferson theme song) George Jefferson, that dance he did, was the dance we performed on stage at the Uptown.

George Jefferson made the Philadelphia Slop famous nationally.

- And Georgie Woods would let many people come up there and dance because it was good, it was safe.

No violence or nothing like that.

Those were some of the wonderful days there.

- We have to remember that dance and music are a marriage.

One did not happen without the other.

Dance used to come back as an important part of our community.

- [Olivia Riley] The community was, as my mother would call it, a blue collar community.

- It was a nice community.

We had all kind of businesses there.

Many of them were black-owned businesses, like Donn's Doo Shoppe.

He did everybody's hair.

All the entertainers came to Donn's Doo Shoppe to get their processes done.

- My mother was the cashier at the Uptown.

Everybody knew that was my mother.

When I was in school they wanted to be my friend simply because they could get in free.

This is Ms. Evelyn Pope Turpin with Georgie Woods at the VPA Club down the street from the Uptown Theater where the entertainers would go after the show.

She worked her way up to the first African American female manager of the Uptown Theater.

- [Vivian Whitehead Gary] The community is gone.

Homes are no longer there.

The people have passed on.

But it's very important to keep in minds of the people what the Uptown was really about.

- [Bryant Simon] Civil Rights was a natural outgrowth, I think, for Georgie Woods.

- [Marilyn Kai Jewett] They had Freedom Shows where they raised money for the NACP and things like that.

- They talked about Martin Luther King and Malcolm X during that time and everyone was lordly.

And we learned what the Civil Rights movement was all about.

- On the morning, in August, 1963, before King would deliver his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, Georgie Woods is there with 21 buses that leave from the Uptown Theater and head south to DC for the march.

In 1964, when riots break out in North Philadelphia, Woods rushes over to the Uptown Theater to try and quell the anger in the community.

In 1965, he goes to Selma and marches with Dr. King.

He was involved in starting his own potato chip company and he saw that, right, as a way to make money, but also as a way to kind of recirculate money within the black community.

- He was our champion, a champion for the people, which we need now.

- [Bryant Simon] And in some ways, the Uptown is destroyed by integration.

- These acts that became big and bigger and bigger, all of a sudden said, "We can go to the Latin Casino over there in Jersey and make thousands of dollars.

Why would we want to go make here a hundred dollars?"

So that was sort of the demise of the Uptown.

- Those bands who are lower on the marquee, they don't have any places to go after places like the Uptown go out of business.

It's a kind of sad irony of a certain kind of progress.

- One of the reasons why I wanted this building where I am now is because it was across the street from the Uptown Theater.

And when I look out the window, you see the old records, you see the faces, the pictures.

It brings back great memories.

I saw James Brown's last concert here.

I saw Billy Paul and, oh, just a array of singers.

- It's so sad that most of the history is all forgotten about.

I joined an organization there with Linda Richardson to try to bring the Uptown, to redo it again.

We raised a couple million dollars, but there was so much work that had to be done.

- She passed away November 2nd, 2020.

We are committed to making sure that we're able to reopen the theater and just continue the vision and continue her legacy.

- It's important for us to maintain structures like the Uptown, like Freedom Theatre, like the anchor institutions that produce art and culture and create conviviality in neighborhoods, because people want to be able to work, play, pray, shop in their neighborhood.

♪ Oh, shake it baby ♪ - [Bryant Simon] This is a celebration of black excellence, of grace and power and beauty.

That's an important part of the story.

Georgie Woods saw himself as a person who was invested in the uplift of his community, playing black music for a black audience, but that also meant helping to create a fairer and more equal world.

♪ Woo, mercy, mercy ♪ ♪ Hey, Jimmy ♪ ♪ Let's get all the pretty girls together ♪ ♪ And go uptown ♪ ♪ OK, Georgie ♪ ♪ Ow, come on ♪ ♪ I don't care ♪ ♪ To satisfy your thoughts ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ When you kiss me ♪ ♪ When you miss me ♪ ♪ Hold my hand ♪ ♪ Make me understand ♪ ♪ I break out ♪ ♪ In a cold sweat ♪ ♪ Oh ♪