Their names were Billy Stewart and Van McCoy, and this weekend they’re remembered at a free event called “D.C.’s Unsung Native Sons.” It’s part of a larger remembrance project organized by filmmakers Beverly Lindsay-Johnson and Michelle Jones, who began their work when Jones — whose aunt served as the first president of Billy Stewart’s fan club — shared with Lindsay-Johnson her admiration of the two native Washingtonians and her desire to help preserve their legacies.

A panel of those who knew or studied Stewart and McCoy are expected to shed light on their music and lives at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington Saturday afternoon.

One panelist — who will also sing — is Stewart’s first cousin, Calvin C. Ruffin, Jr. Eleven years younger than Stewart, he was dazzled by the singer’s chops. He used to watch him and his other cousins sing and fight over girls.

“He was my idol,” says Ruffin. “Always has been — even though he was my first cousin.”

A soulman, Stewart first achieved acclaim in the 1950s and reached the charts in the 1960s with his unique, upbeat take on George Gershwin’s “Summertime” and his own suave “Sitting in the Park.”

Stewart came from musicians on both parents’ sides, and he performed in family gospel and secular groups as a kid. These days, Ruffin looks back glowingly on his late cousin’s talents. But he acknowledges that Stewart had personal problems, too.

Discovered by Bo Diddley and signed to Chess Records, Stewart released a song in 1962 called “Fat Boy” that referred to his own large size. When others mocked him for his weight, it was a different matter.

“When I was with Billy he had an entourage, before we had even heard of the term ‘entourage,’” says Ruffin. “If someone called him ‘fat boy,’ he pulled out a gun on them. I was with him at that time. The only reason I know that is the gun’s barrel is about as big as I was. Real long. He would always get an attitude if someone called him that. He had a real complex when it came to his weight, as he was real heavy.”

While Stewart wrestled privately with his health, his fans seemed aware only of his multifaceted vocals. He harmonized with Marvin Gaye as fellow substitute members of The Rainbows, and developed a distinctive variation on jazz scatting, where he repeated words in a powerful yet sweet, church-developed manner.

“If someone called [Billy Stewart] ‘fat boy,’ he pulled out a gun on them.” — Billy Stewart’s cousin Calvin C. Ruffin, Jr.

“Billy did jazz, Billy did blues, he did lots of things that fit his style of music,” Ruffin says. “The thing that excited him most was when he did George Gershwin.” He adds that many people, including record-label executives, failed to understand Stewart’s desire to fit jazz, blues and R&B into his sound.

In January 1970, several months before his 33rd birthday, Stewart and members of his band were killed when their Ford Thunderbird collided with a substructure support of a bridge, then plunged into a river in North Carolina.

Ruffin says that two months before the crash, Stewart told him that, because of his struggles with his weight and with the record industry, he knew he hadn’t treated people as kindly as he once had.

“It was almost like Billy was confessing to me — all the people that he stepped on, all the people that he hurt, and that he was going to change and come back a different person,” Ruffin says. “He was going to help me out and some of my female cousins. He wanted to make amends.”

* * *

Van McCoy is best known for his huge 1975 disco hit “The Hustle,” with its distinctive flute melody. He also wrote and produced R&B songs for many artists throughout the 1960s. Like Stewart, McCoy learned to play the piano when he was young, sang in the church, and later emoted street-corner doo-wop in a high school vocal group. His ensemble was called The Starlighters.

McCoy later enrolled at Howard University, but after two years, music beckoned and he moved to Philadelphia where he started his own record label.

The D.C. native’s songwriting skills caught the ears of songwriter/producer greats Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who hired him as a staff writer and arranger. McCoy was soon writing songs for Jackie Wilson, Gladys Knight and The Pips and Barbara Lewis. For the latter, he penned the hit “Baby I’m Yours,” later featured on the Bridges of Madison County soundtrack.

McCoy also worked with D.C. R&B artists such as Peaches and Herb and The Choice 4 before he scored his biggest hit with “The Hustle,” which he co-wrote in New York City after checking out the disco scene there.

Four years after “The Hustle” made it big, McCoy died suddenly of a heart attack at age 39.

Mark Puryear of the Smithsonian Folklore Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, who will be moderating Saturday’s panel, describes McCoy as “very focused.” He “directed and mastered his craft,” arranging strings, horns, an orchestra and a rhythm section. Production-wise, Puryear says, “there was nothing he couldn’t do.”

“Billy Stewart and Van McCoy: D.C.’s Unsung Native Sons” takes place June 25 from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.

They waited outside the band’s hotel overnight and befriended guitarist Johnny Marr the next day. That connection led Darmrong to follow the band on several tours over the next year and a half, taking pictures behind the scenes and onstage. Those photographs are the subject of a new book from Rizzoli Press, The Smiths, as well as a gallery exhibition that begins Friday at Studio 1469 in Columbia Heights and includes a talk and book signing on Saturday.

The Smiths — Marr, singer Morrissey, bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce — broke up in 1987. Darmrong, who is now based in Maryland, talked with Bandwidth about photographing The Smiths at their peak while they toured in support of their 1986 classic, The Queen Is Dead.

Bandwidth: You were just 17 when you decided to follow The Smiths.

Nalinee Darmrong: I was a wee pup, yes.

What was it about the band that made you want to follow them around?

It wasn’t it was The Smiths that I was following. Everything kind of happened organically — my friend Tony got me into The Smiths’ music, then he got me my first ticket to my first show. And it wasn’t until I saw the live show that I was thinking to myself, “Woah, this is a really different band and I really like the energy.” I really had no preconceived notions of taking pictures of them or anything. So I went to the D.C. show, and I met Johnny, and he put us on the guest list for New York, which was two shows. My other friend had gotten me a ticket for Philadelphia, which was right after D.C., so it seems kind of kismet that I was supposed to go to all of these shows.

So right after New York they traveled to California, and that’s when I started taking pictures, I believe. But my love for The Smiths grew, I guess — I wasn’t that familiar with them until I kept seeing shows and kept learning about their music and their fans, and them. And just fell in love with them, just like everybody else did.

So you were more of a D.C. punk at that time?

Yes! I grew up in the D.C./Dischord punk rock scene, and was around D.C. a lot — the land of protest, and one thing that struck me about the first Smiths show I saw was the same energy. And I find it interesting that the Smiths are compared to a punk rock band now … and the time I wouldn’t have thought so, but then when I think if D.C. punk culture and the DIY culture of promoting yourself and [doing things] as you wish and not selling out … and just being there for the people, political messages, et cetera. So, I don’t see that characterization as being that far off.

So you weren’t taking photos until several shows into following them, right?

It was D.C., Philly, two New York shows — because that was just a whirlwind in itself, kind of an extended long weekend. And then Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and I think Mike Joyce — they all said, “If you want to come to California that would be amazing.” Johnny said, “I’m getting married … and we’re doing a civil ceremony, so if you guys could make it, that would be amazing,” and we were just so flattered that they felt so comfortable with us, and that they were just great people. We tried our best to make it [to the wedding ceremony] but we missed it — but we made all the rest of the shows.

What made you pick up a camera, though? Were you an employee of the band? When you started shooting, you got a photo pass, obviously — how did that work out?

So, I was not a photographer. The Smiths was the first band I shot extensively … I brought my camera and they already had gotten to know me a little bit, so they said, “Sure, just take your candid pictures,” and I guess they gave me a little bit of restriction at the beginning … I would get single photo passes for each show, but after California — I think it was about four or five shows — then Scotland was two months later, and they were like, “Let’s save some paper and money,” and they just gave me a photo pass. That’s when I got all the access to shoot wherever I wanted. … But yeah, I was definitely a novice.

Darmrong: “This is from outside the Clickimin Centre in the Shetland Islands. … If you look at the picture, they’re all quite young, they’re maybe a little tired from the ferry, and their style is understated but still super cool. … Everybody is smiling. And that’s another thing people have been saying about the book: Morrissey — since then — there haven’t been a lot of pictures of him smiling, and I guess I was fortunate to be there at a time where he smiled all the time.”

So you went to follow them on a tour of Scotland.

Yeah, it was a small tour, I think 10 shows. With friends … one of my biggest memories is crossing on the ferry from Inverness to the Shetland Islands — it crosses, like, three bodies of water, and everybody got sick but me, I have no idea why. So everybody felt this huge sense of accomplishment when we got there. … Everybody traveled to get to the same place by the same means, so it was just much more intimate.

What did your parents think?

So, I’ve always been a rebel. And I’ve always been pretty self-righteous, and in hindsight, 30-years-plus, I’m so grateful to them. I’m an only child, and I guess they always encouraged me to be independent, and they gave me some boundaries but they really kind of let me do whatever I wanted. So I pretty much begged to go to Scotland.

So it wasn’t the kind of thing where you were being paid by the band to shoot, so how did you afford all of this?

I paid off my credit card for three years afterward, but I worked a lot in-between. I worked a couple part-time jobs, and I stayed with friends. There’s this whole Smiths community, as people know who have seen the band, who have traveled around, and I would stay with them or hostels, B&Bs, they were a lot cheaper back then, and they were quite affordable, and I just made it work.

Darmrong: “[Morrissey] was always smiling, always humble, ready to answer everybody’s questions, he didn’t rush off, he always took the time to talk to people.”

All I can say is that I really didn’t see too much of that. … I saw girlfriends and wives there a lot, which I thought was pretty cool, because the shows felt all-inclusive rather than, like, “When band’s on tour, that’s it.” So I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah, it was definitely a different atmosphere to shows that I’ve seen since then. I’m one of the house photographers for the 9:30 Club now, so I see all different kinds of environments, and have shot many shows since this time, and yeah, it was one of the more modest environments … everybody was pretty modest and humble and chill, and it wasn’t super “rock ‘n’ roll” in that sense.

What was your average day like? How much did you interact with the band by the time you were more of a fixture in their crew of people?

I would have to travel … I would have to find a place to stay … get to the venue … they were so kind — a lot of the times I would get to go to the sound checks, just hang and take my candid shots. Because if people get the book, they’ll see that there are a lot of candid shots of the crew and the cities. There’s one pic of Mike and Andy in the pool, and another one of them just talking to fans from an overhead shot, which I liked. I liked being a fly on the wall, but I always had my camera. … Then we’d go off to eat. Sometimes I was with my friends, sometimes I was alone, but I knew I would always meet up with people later. … And then it was the show, and all the energy was on, and I did my thing. Sometimes they were busy, sometimes they would hang out, it just depended on the evening.

Specifically more to the band members, is there anything that sticks out as your favorite memory? You may have been the fly on the wall, but a lot of these photos are pretty intimate, too.

One of my fondest memories [was at one of the first two New York shows], and I was in the front, and the fans were kind of pushing me up to get on stage, and the bouncers, these big dudes, were punching — literally punching me — to get down, and I didn’t know what to do. … and I just sat there levitated above the hands of these fans, and Morrissey saw me, I guess, and he, like, pulled me out of the crowd, and I just hugged him for maybe the whole song … I was just happy that someone realized the predicament I was in. It was great because the fans cheered, like in the back, but I don’t think they had any idea of what was happening. I was just so thankful for Morrissey for that moment, alone.

A memory of Johnny: I don’t remember what show, but it was later on, I think on the last U.S. tour … I was [onstage] dancing, and Johnny was just being his anti-solo, rock-god self, and he was just talking to me about the day. He said, “How was your day, Nalinee?” I was like, “It was lovely, I had a really nice cup of tea” — that’s why I worship him now as well as I did then, because he was just so smooth.

Was he playing a song?

Yes! He was playing a song while he was talking to me — and dancing. He was like, “You’re a really good dancer, Nalinee,” and I’m like, “You’ve got some moves, too, you’re totally cutting up a rug, playing the song, talking to me about my day.”

People that know The Smiths, there are probably lots of words that come to mind, but the welcoming you onto stage and hugging you, that sort of fits that theme of sensitivity, there was a lot of openness —

Yes!

You spent a lot of time around Smiths crowds in the ’80s. What were the characteristics of a typical Smiths crowd in 1986?

One thing I would like to say is that The Smiths always like to blur the artist/fan boundaries, artist/crew boundaries, artist/venue boundaries. They always encouraged crowd participation. At the end of all their shows … you had a chance to go onstage and hug them or dance with them. … Lately I’ve been talking to people that were at shows then, and it’s definitely this communal feeling — like we were there at this really special time, and we didn’t know how amazing a show could be until we saw shows after this. Because we were all quite young.

So by the time this was all over — the band, and obviously your opportunity to take photos of the band — you were still a teenager, you know?

18!

Was it a letdown to realize you couldn’t do it anymore?

Oh no, I was very happy to go home. In a way, I didn’t experience what they experienced, but I was quote-unquote on the road, as well. At the end, I helped clean up the tour bus — that’s what I did, I would like, clean up, or I’d help out as much as I could because they got me into all these shows. So I was really, really thankful, and I guess I’ve always been kind of like that. But I was definitely happy to be in one place for awhile. And just kind of enjoy the memories from the whole experience.

That’s basically what Heavy Metal Parking Lot is. It’s essentially a movie — if you want to call a plotless 16 minutes and 41 seconds a movie — of drunk teenagers making asses of themselves in a parking lot.

But Heavy Metal Parking Lot has the distinct privilege of being a featured exhibit at the University of Maryland for the next year. Heavy Metal Parking Lot: The 30-Year Journey of a Cult Film Sensation aims to tell the story of how a low-profile 1986 video wound up all over the country — at a time when it wasn’t so easy.

Here’s the short version: Jeff Krulik was working for public-access television in Maryland and had access to recording equipment. His friend John Heyn had the idea to go to the parking lot outside a Judas Priest concert and just see what they could come up with. The two aspiring documentary filmmakers recorded about 65 minutes of footage on the afternoon of May 31, 1986, outside the Capital Centre in Landover.

(James Doubek/WAMU)

Heyn edited it down to the most entertaining encounters — almost all of which involve young people in various degrees of intoxication. And because Heyn had a job at a video dubhouse, they “gave out copies out like water,” Krulik says.

In the early ’90s, some of those copies make their way through friends out to the West Coast, and to places like Mondo Video A-Go-Go, a cult video store in Los Angeles. Dubs got into the hands of people like director Sofia Coppola, who wanted to use it in a TV show, and onto tour buses of bands like Nirvana.

It was protoviral video.

“The story we wanted to tell was kind of twofold,” says Laura Schnitker, the acting curator of the University of Maryland’s Mass Media & Culture collection, who is co-curating the exhibit with Krulik. “First we wanted to tell how the film was created, like what equipment they used and what their initial thinking was. And then we want to talk about how the film went viral at a time when there was no internet and no digital film.”

The exploration of this dissemination is one of the reasons the university agreed to host the exhibit.

Additionally, Schnitker says she was able to “sell” her colleagues on the exhibit because it’s very Maryland-focused. Krulik is a University of Maryland grad (’83) and a lifelong state resident. Schnitker notes the Maryland accents of the people in the movie and its documentation of a “really identifiable subgenre” — working-class white Marylanders, with distinct hair and clothes.

Co-curator Laura Schnitker notes the Maryland accents of the people in the movie and its documentation of a “really identifiable subgenre” — working-class white Marylanders, with distinct hair and clothes.

Krulik donated his archive of source material and video to the university’s Mass Media & Culture collection last year. He pitched the idea of the exhibit in anticipation of the movie’s 30th anniversary, and also as another way to celebrate the donation.

The exhibit is nestled in a small corridor between the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s main building and the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library. The floor is gray with yellow stripes, in tribute to the parking lot.

You can see the whole thing in about the time it takes to watch the movie. VHS tapes of Judas Priest and Dokken (the other band that played that night) are on display. One wall contains screenshots of the movie’s “stars” and their notable quotes, including such words of wisdom as:

“Priest is bad, man. Priest is Number One in heavy metal, man.”

“Joints across America.”

“I’d jump his bones!”

“Who are you here to see tonight?” “Your mother!”

Krulik especially wanted to “pay homage” to the Cap Centre, Schnitker says, noting its importance to people who grew up in Maryland in the ’80s and ’90s. The exhibit features a brief history of the venue, along with asphalt taken shortly before its demolition in 2002.

Visitors can see a handwritten postcard from John Waters, sent to John Heyn in 1987. “Your film was great — what monsters!” Waters writes. In what must be truly a feat of accomplishment for Heyn and Krulik, the director of Pink Flamingos writes that Heavy Metal Parking Lot “gave me the creeps.”

In what must be truly a feat of accomplishment for Heyn and Krulik, director John Waters writes that Heavy Metal Parking Lot “gave me the creeps.”

That postcard is one of Schnitker’s favorite items, along with a ticket stub from the concert. It harks back to the days when people saved Ticketmaster stubs as mementos. Scannable codes on smartphone screens these days just don’t have the same charm.

There’s also a wall filled with pictures of magazines from the ’90s and 2000s that mentioned the movie. Request magazine in August 1999 referred to “a Wild Kingdom-style study of haystack-haired headbangers like ‘Zebraman,’ drug-legalization champion Gram, and other Jack Daniels-swilling Beavises and Butt-heads in their natural environment.”

Even though it’s a Maryland story, something like Heavy Metal Parking Lot probably could have happened at any Judas Priest concert on that tour.

What makes it unique is that events weren’t “documented to death like things are today,” Krulik says. “It was a real novelty to be in that kind of environment, that place with professional video equipment.”

The exhibit will be up through May 2017, after which it will be put back with the rest of Krulik’s collection in the university’s Hornbake Library. Schnitker and others are creating a digital version to put online.

On a summer day with the semester over, not many students passed by the day I saw the exhibit. But Krulik is hopeful students will take a second to be inspired when they do walk through. Perhaps from some words on the wall: “Heavy metal rules!”

(James Doubek/WAMU)

“Heavy Metal Parking Lot: The 30-Year Journey of a Cult Film Sensation” is on view at the Gallery at the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library through May 2017.

It wasn’t always that way for Margus. There was a time that he wouldn’t think twice about wearing a flaming red wig and playing guitar onstage in a Ronald McDonald costume. That outfit — deployed during a medley of TV-commercial music — was one of many he wore when he performed with his band Friends of the Family in the ’70s.

The band Inspiration, in another photo posted on the DC Bands from the 70’s group on Facebook.

The fast-food-clown getup was hardly the most outrageous thing in the band’s wardrobe.

“Spandex and satin were pretty happening at that point. Once we did a Queen medley and a couple of the guys had capes that had hundreds of lights inside,” says Margus, 65.

In an early photo of the band, its seven members are wearing matching white suits, each adorned with colorful floral patterns made by a man who designed costumes for KC and the Sunshine Band. Caught in what appears to be mid-strut, the band is smiling.

“If I put that on today, I’d get arrested,” Margus laughs.

The outfits worn by Friends of the Family are unforgettable. But the band and its community are little remembered. In an era when walloping hardcore punk and hip-shaking funk were the loudest sounds emerging from the nation’s capital, there was a shadow scene of flamboyant and popular cover bands that played at long-forgotten venues in the Washington suburbs.

These were show bands. They were typically all-male, and often racially integrated. The types of variety shows they staged weren’t exclusive to the Washington area, but the scene was particularly vibrant in suburban Maryland, Baltimore and Ocean City. Like many cover bands, show bands included accomplished musicians who dreamed of making a living with original material. But to make ends meet, they played nights full of Top 40 hits at nightclubs and hotel bars. Making it on that circuit required, at a minimum, versatile musicians who could easily satisfy audience requests for Styx and Billy Joel, “Freebird” and “Stairway to Heaven.”

Friends From the Start press image

The bands that stood out had something more to offer, though: Comedy skits. Magic acts. Stunts. Friends From the Start, another of Margus’ bands, brought a gallows on stage for a cover of Alice Cooper’s “Welcome to My Nightmare.” Bandmate Rick Davis was the lucky member who got to hang during the song.

“We went through all kinds of testing with this thing,” Margus remembers. ”We had him hooked up with harnesses and had the noose so when the hatch pulled he actually wouldn’t hang, but we had him hooked up in the back on bungee cords so it would look like he was hanging.”

Tiny Barge and ‘shooter sets’

Some of the history has been collected by Michael Weiland, who was in the bands Confection, Springfield and Redemption. He operates the Facebook group DC Bands from the 70’s, which features colorful promotional photos of groups represented by the Washington Talent Agency and Barry Rick, once prime movers in the scene.

Prominent bands played as many as five sets a night, six days a week. The most successful groups made $6,500 a week, which would be $20,000 today. One of those sets would be a floor show.

Friends From the Start members Rick Davis and Pete Margus perform at Mr Pip’s in Glen Burnie, Maryland, in an undated photo.

“For the most part bands sat on stage and people were on the dance floor,” explains Arthur Leon “Tiny” Barge, a musician and promoter who developed floor shows for bands while he worked for the Washington Talent Agency. “These were a special presentation where the audience would take their seats and the band would be on the dance floor.” Floor shows were an added attraction for patrons out to see live music. A band that played six nights a week might only do floor shows on two of those. On Thursdays, floor shows drew patrons into clubs on a slow night. Saturday nights, they whipped up a party.

The show-band scene owes much of its success to Barge. A composer who could sing and play multiple instruments, he was a founding member of ’60s D.C. soul group the El Corols, the first band signed to the fledgling Washington Talent Agency. The group’s knack for showmanship made it a hot commodity — so much so that while Barge was still a student at the University of Maryland in the early 1970s, the company had him coach other acts in choreography and audience interaction.

“We were prostitutes. We had to play what they heard on the radio. We sold liquor. If they sold more liquor that night, the band would come back.” — Bob Farris, show-band guitarist

Barge helped show bands pace their sets and warned against habits that hampered audience engagement, like drum solos. Mimicking a solo with his voice, he explains how an audience will stop clapping if unaccompanied drumming continues past a reasonable point.

Kent Harris, singer with the show band Springfield, credits Barge with taking a bunch of white guys and teaching them to dance. “We were idiots!” Harris says.

The most successful show bands could perform, in addition to Top 40 hits, a live variety show that kept customers coming back to the nightclubs. And kept them drinking.

“We were prostitutes,” says Bob Farris, who played guitar in a number of show bands. “We had to play what they heard on the radio. We sold liquor. If they sold more liquor that night, the band would come back.”

Friends From the Start even had what it called a “shooter set,” where customers would send the band trays of lemon drop, apple pie and lime shooters. “People wanted to see if they could get the band wasted, and it happened more than a few times,” Margus says.

A newspaper ad from September 1980 featuring Friends From the Start’s multi-day schedule at Chesapeake Crab House & Lounge in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Show bands played venues like the Classics III Supper Club (now the Classics) in Camp Springs, Club Venus in Baltimore, Mr. Pip’s and Bojangles Too in Glen Burnie and Randy’s California Inn, which currently sits abandoned at the intersection of Route 1 and Whiskey Bottom Road in Laurel. (There were occasional gigs in Virginia, too.)

Sometimes a show band had a good idea but not good timing. Harris, who sang in several bands with Margus, recalls a plan he had hatched with his band, MacArthur Park. “We were getting ready to do a disco version of ‘MacArthur Park.’ We had an excellent female singer, a little like Chaka Khan. Then Donna Summer came in and did a version.” That version became Summer’s first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. MacArthur Park never recorded its own version.

Despite that missed opportunity, Harris, who also booked and managed acts for the Washington Talent Agency, had other good ideas.

“I went into the Rockville Ramada, which is now a Comfort Inn off of [Interstate] 270. And there was a piano thing going on, a single act. There were only a few people there, and I thought, there’s no club activity at all around here — there’s no place to go. I got together with the general manager to start a band and I told him we’re gonna blow this place away.”

Because Harris was also a talent agent, he had access to top local musicians. “We started doing entertainment there, and the place went crazy — people lined up all the time. There were people standing in the back and one Saturday night the fire marshall was there, and I had to stop right in the middle of a floor show.”

All of that energy and showmanship also led to some ideas that are politically incorrect by today’s standards.

“We did a takeoff on the Jackson Five,” Harris says. “We were the Jacksons but instead of Michael we were Stonewall Jackson and Andrew Jackson. There were things that today you couldn’t do.”

Changes in the grind

When Barge left the East Coast for Chicago and points West, he brought the show-band aesthetic with him, but while some bands adopted the variety show format, it didn’t take off as much as it did back east.

Show bands thrived through the 1970s and mid-1980s, and while some of them still perform as wedding bands, the show-band business model had faltered by the dawn of the ’90s. What happened?

“I was in was the band Bittersweet almost 15 years doing as many as 50 jobs a year. We opened up for Bill Cosby, Fifth Dimension, Ray Charles, Barbara Mandrell. Then it was just wedding bands, bar mitzvahs and company parties. Some of the players had graduated into that,” Margus says. “Then you’re playing the circuit for years, with no recording contract, and you’re on the road six days a week, married with kids.”

Other factors led to changes in the scene: DJs became more popular, and they charged less than a live seven-piece band. But many show-band players say the law interfered.

“In those days,” Harris says, “People would go out any night of the week. When DUI laws went into effect in the ’80s, people would not go out as much. The budgets just collapsed.“

Farris, who performs to sold-out audiences today as part of local rockabilly legend Johnny Seaton’s band, recalls that in least one case, clubs pulled the plug on show bands too soon. He had a regular gig in a popular oldies band at the Pooks Hill Marriott in Bethesda, when one night in the early ’90s a waitress informed him that the venue was closing. It was to be converted into a corporate replica of the bar from television series Cheers.

“I went back there when it opened on a Friday night,” Farris remembers, “and there were three people at the bar, period. There was a stuffed animatronic Norm and Cliff. Cheers was playing on eight different televisions. Three people at the bar. That was the end.”

Take the Lincoln Theatre, the legendary music venue at 1215 U St. NW. Owned by the District but booked by 9:30 Club operator I.M.P., it’s no longer the epicenter of black music it once was. Then there’s the high-end apartment building at 1301 U St. NW. Called the Ellington, the residence pays homage to a music giant born in Washington, but costs far more than many jazz musicians could afford.

Shellée Haynesworth doesn’t want U Street’s black cultural history to be washed away in the undertow of development. That’s why in 2013 the multimedia producer — who’s also a third generation Washingtonian — started “Black Broadway on U,” a sweeping, grant- and donation-funded digital project that remembers the black artists and innovators who made U Street as vital as New York during the Harlem Renaissance.

Saturday, Haynesworth co-presents the show “Black Broadway on U: Echoes of an Era” during the Funk Parade, the daylong music festival expected to shut down U Street for part of an afternoon. In advance of the event, Bandwidth contributor Paulette Mensah talked with Haynesworth about her research, the state of black hangouts on U Street NW and whether D.C. schoolchildren are being taught enough about U Street’s history. Here are snippets from their conversation.  —Ally Schweitzer 

This interview, conducted by Paulette Mensah, has been edited for length and clarity.

Bandwidth: What circumstances led to you starting the “Black Broadway on U” project?

Shellée Haynesworth: My grandparents both grew up in the U Street corridor. That’s where black D.C. [was] because of redistricting, segregation and housing laws. We got pushed out of Georgetown. So one day I was driving [my grandmother] on U Street, and she was like, ‘Oh my God,” and started telling the story of what was here and what they did. That influenced me to get out and do something because [the neighborhood] was changing rapidly.

Haynesworth’s grandmother (center, age 12) with her parents when they moved to 936 Westminister St. NW from Louisiana, circa July 1932 (Courtesy Shellée Haynesworth)

I feel like a lot of people in my age group — in their 20s and younger — don’t necessarily understand the history of U Street.

Exactly. And I don’t like to make blanket comments about African Americans, our people, but I just don’t think we care enough, you know? And I think it’s that institutional knowledge — that knowledge we just don’t pass down. Because it’s painful for some people. On this project journey, I’ve had older people tell me that it’s too sad, no one wants to talk about it. Well, we need to talk about it, and we need to celebrate it. That’s really my goal, and I’m trying to get more funding [to help tell a] deeper story… so I can create more content that supports and reflects why this community was significant to black America at large, not just D.C.

How do you do your research?

My goal is to tell the authentic story [from] people who lived through the history, so a lot of the information I’ve gotten from people I’ve interviewed. Historically, [black history] hasn’t been a priority when you look at these American institutions. They don’t document it unless it’s to their benefit. So I discover places that aren’t listed anywhere, people that live in the community by interviewing a lot of authentic voices. But of course I’ve done the traditional research by reading a lot of books and going down to [historical societies] and the Library of Congress.

What are your thoughts on the recent closure of jazz club Bohemian Caverns and the financial troubles plaguing the historically black Howard Theatre?

We’ve got to get back to understanding that in order for our businesses to survive and thrive, we have to support [them]. And I think by getting a better sense of the culture and history behind some of these places, maybe people will be more inclined to support [them]. I think we’re walking away from this cultural legacy instead of embracing it, you know?

How do you think we should continue to preserve black history on U Street?

We need to collaborate, the African-American community. I think what happens is there are so many things happening every day, there’s this issue, there’s crime, there’s this — so somehow, we’ve got to realize that everything is important. The people who want to preserve and revive and keep the history alive, somehow we have to collaborate.

[I hope] to get more people to understand why we’ve got to get this history out of the boxes and get people to understand that this was really a significant community, and I think more significant than Harlem. I mean, no disrespect to Harlem, but we didn’t own the Cotton Club and some of the major venues. They were owned by the external community.

“They’re teaching our students here in D.C. about the Harlem Renaissance, but they don’t teach them about the black renaissance in their own backyard.” — Shellée Haynesworth

I’ll just share this little story. I was doing some online research and came across this [image of] Ella Fitzgerald … at 18 years old, at Howard Theatre, performing with Chick Webb. So that just gives you a sense. This is 1935. The story is that Ella Fitzgerald actually won amateur night at 17 at Howard Theatre, and that’s how she hooked up with Billy Eckstine and Chick Webb. But all you hear about is her starting in Harlem. Well, she actually performed here before that — and won amateur night. They were doing amateur night years before they were doing it at the Apollo Theater. And you had folks like Billy Eckstine. He won. And he went to Armstrong High School here in D.C.

They’re teaching our students here in D.C. about the Harlem Renaissance, but they don’t teach them about the black renaissance in their own backyard. Just recently I went to Anacostia High School with Blair Ruble, who wrote a book about U Street. You should’ve seen the kids. They were blown away. Just blown away — because they had no idea.

All-American Insurance Company Parade on U Street (between Vermont and 9th streets), circa 1950. (Scurlock Studio via National Museum of American History)

And there were black [people] thriving in Georgetown long before white people lived there.

Yes, and Anacostia. So my goal is to show our people that even in the midst of this gentrification — which in my opinion is like the second coming of what we experienced in black Washington in the early 20th century — here’s what we did during that time, and we can do it again. That’s my goal. It’s to inspire, educate and elevate.

“Black Broadway on U: Echoes of an Area” takes place May 7 at Mulebone Restaurant. Explore the project on blackbroadwayonu.com. Top photo: Ave Marie Odell (center, DCPS educator) with family and friends at the Lincoln Colonnade Ballroom, formerly located underneath the Lincoln Theatre, circa 1940s. (Gina Strange Family via Black Broadway on U Archives)