Just Like Old Times

You'll see hognose rest'rants and chit'-lin cafes,

You'll see jugs that tell of bygone days,

And places, once palaces, now just a sham.

You'll see golden balls enough to pave

the new Jerusalem . . .

Of all the boulevards and byways that empty into Tin Pan Alley, few are as celebrated as Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn. Nobody knows who the original Beale was, but the street was once a fashionable place where wealthy white men built their mansions. During the Civil War, General Ulysses Grant planned the siege of Vicksburg from headquarters on Beale Street. But its real fame and flavor began after Reconstruction and the yellow fever epidemic of 1876-1878, when the white man moved away, and the street became the Main Stem of Memphis' darktown. The night life and mayhem, and, above all, the music of Beale Street became famous up and down the Mississippi.

De Soto to Tittiwee. Beale Street was a midway of dives, "conjure" doctors, fortune tellers, pawnshops and gambling joints. Colorful riverboat characters jostled streetwalkers, dope peddlers and bug-eyed farm kids who filled it from the De Soto dock* (on the Wolf River just before it joins the Mississippi) to the other end at East Street, a mile away. On Saturday nights the clatter of ragtime music mingled with the wail of ambulances. Its leading citizens have been as bizarre as Beale Street itself: "River George," a giant roustabout of bloody fame; "Tittiwee" and "Black Slick," both pimps; "Treetop Tall" and "Coal Oil Johnny," two policemen; "Speedway," a gambler; and "Dr. Scissors," a famed Beale Street medicine man. They frequented such dives as Peewee's, a citadel of early jazz, the Hole in the Wall, and such infamous gambling dens as the Grey Mule and Hamet's.

In 1899, William Christopher Handy, a young bandleader from Florence, Ala., first arrived on Beale Street. Ten years later, Handy and his band were hired to play at political rallies for a young candidate for mayor. As an innovation, Handy wrote a syncopated campaign song, Mister Crump (don't 'low no easy riders here), which became a local sensation. Later, more lyrics were added, the title was changed to Memphis Blues, and the song became an international hit. Before he left Memphis for New York City in 1917, Handy wrote Beale Street Blues, which immortalized the street.

Crump to Danny Thomas. Beale Street has remained pretty much the same. The place has been cleaned up a bit (Peewee's now houses a dry-cleaning establishment, and Handy Park is green among the pool halls), but on payday nights and Saturdays, a portion of it is almost the same old dangerous, wide-open Beale Street. There is one difference, however: about a dozen years ago, under Boss Crump, all east-west streets in Memphis were designated avenues, and Beale Street became Beale Avenue.

Memphians and tourists alike have deplored the change. Touring Comedian Danny Thomas added his lament to the rest. In Memphis he dashed off a song Bring Back Our Beale Street Blues, a couple of nights later sang it to 15,000 cheering Memphians. Mayor Frank Tobey took the hint, promptly presented an ordinance to the city commission. Next week, after the third official reading, Beale Avenue will once more become Beale Street.

*Named for Hernando De Soto, who first looked on the Mississippi River from a nearby bluff in 1571.

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