**I'm sorry that I typed the wrong date for when The Music Zone would be back online. Maybe next time I'll use a little invention called The Calendar.
New York was absolutely great! It's kind of weird to think that I was there on Wednesday. So much has happened since then, but it was an adventure I won't forget. When I got to NY, the first place I had to see (again) was The Apollo Theatre. When I was younger, there wasn't a Sunday evening that went by when I (and my fam) didn't catch Showtime at the Apollo. I had to be there to help the audience boo away the worst of the worst. And my family and I always thought it was funny that the gospel singers never got booed no matter how terrible they were.
According to Wikipedia (I heart Wikipedia), The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the oldest and most famous music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with African-American performers. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and was the home of Showtime at the Apollo, a nationally syndicated television variety show consisting of new talent.
Ella Fitzgerald made her singing debut at 17 at the Apollo, on November 21, 1934. Fitzgerald's performances pulled in a weekly audience at the Apollo and she won the opportunity to compete in one of the earliest of its "Amateur Nights". She had originally intended to go on stage and dance, but intimidated by the Edwards Sisters, a local dance duo, she opted to sing instead, in the style of Connee Boswell. She sang Hoagy Carmichael's "Judy" and "The Object of My Affection", a song recorded by the Boswell Sisters, and won the first prize of US$25.00.
The Apollo grew to prominence during the Harlem Renaissance of the pre-World War II years. In 1934, it introduced its regular Amateur Night shows hosted by Ralph Cooper. Billing itself as a place "where stars are born and legends are made," the Apollo became famous for launching the careers of artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, James Brown, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Gladys Knight & the Pips, The Jackson 5, Patti LaBelle, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Ben E. King, Mariah Carey, The Isley Brothers, Lauryn Hill, Sarah Vaughan, and Machine Gun Kelly (rapper). The Apollo also featured the performances of old-time vaudeville favorites like Tim Moore, Stepin Fetchit, Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham, Clinton "Dusty" Fletcher, John "Spider Bruce" Mason, and Johnny Lee, as well as younger comics like Godfrey Cambridge. Jimi Hendrix won the first place prize in an amateur musician contest at the Apollo in 1964. Amateur Night marked its first tie on October 27, 2010, with guitarist Nathan Foley, 16, of Rockville, Maryland, and cellist and singer Ayanna Witter-Johnson, 25, a London, England, student at the Manhattan School of Music, sharing the $10,000 prize.
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