Traveling Soul by Todd Mayfield

become somebody, for anyone’s name to be put out front was a sort of a blow,” my father said. “When disc jockeys played the record, it was ‘Now here’s Jerry Butler and “For Your Precious Love.”’ And of course the fan mail would come, which we got gobs of, to Jerry Butler.”
    Despite the hard feelings, success had a way of ironing out differences, at least temporarily. Within two weeks, “For Your Precious Love”sold 150,000 copies and charted in every city where it played. When rumors began swirling that the debonair R&B star Roy Hamilton planned to cover the song, Abner decided to set up a promotional tour for the Impressions. Hamilton had a string of smash hits like “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “Unchained Melody.” Abner could just see him driving women wild with “For Your Precious Love,” making it his song before the unknown Impressions could even begin making a name for themselves.
    To get the scoop on Hamilton and build the Impressions’ name, Vee-Jay and Eddie booked dates in Detroit, followed by an appearance on Jim Lounsbury’s
Bandstand Matinee
—Chicago’s version of
American Bandstand
—as well as stops in Philadelphia, Miami, and the prize of them all, Harlem’s Apollo Theater.

    Before leaving for Detroit, the Impressions went to Maxwell Street Market to buy uniforms. Known to many in the Negro community as Jew Town, the market featured “cigar-chomping hawkers in ramshackle kiosks, barking ‘Hot dogs! Polish sausages! Thirty-five cents!’” Jerry recalled, “The musky smell of grilled onions, mustard and sausages always hung in the air. Then there were the merchants who would literally force you into their dark dingy shops, insisting that you buy something.”
    The market also boasted Goldstein’s music store, Leavett’s—a popular bar where musicians hung out—and Smokey Joe’s. The latter was the primary purveyor of hip clothing in the city, its racks full of continental suits with narrow lapels and Dior dresses with the so-called New Look. The space surrounding the kiosks served as an unofficial stage where musicians could set up and plunk out their tunes for a few coins tossed into their open guitar cases or upturned hats. Once upon a time, a shopper could browse the market while the likes of Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, or Howlin’ Wolf provided the soundtrack. It had a festival atmosphere—between Maxwell and Fourteenth Street on Newberry, crowds gathered in an empty lot to listen to the music under a cottonwood tree, or dance in the streets to songs like Waters’s “Mannish Boy” and Wolf’s “Moanin’ at Midnight.”
    The Impressions left the market that day with matching suits—gray silk jackets, black pants, white shirts, black ties, and pocket scarves. Suits were the standard uniform for vocal groups at the time. The Spaniels wore them. So did the Dells, the Flamingoes, and just about everyone else trying to make it in show business. These suits were especially important for Negro entertainers wanting to project an air of debonair worldliness. Suits opened the door to the white supper-club scene, which meant serious money. They didn’t hurt with the ladies, either. Coming years would witness a generational divide regarding Negro performers dressing up for the white world, but for the time at hand, if my father and the Impressions wanted to work, they’d have to do it in suits. For a bunch of kids accustomed to hand-me-downs and whatever ragtag clothing their parents could afford, being forced into a sharp-looking suit wasn’t the hardest sacrifice to endure.
    With their threads in place, they hit the road for their first professional engagement. The Brooks brothers had another brother who lived just outside of Detroit, and the Impressions spent the night in his house playing cards—Dad loved bid