2/19/2024 0 Comments Montage hotel racist![]() ![]() Pour Blue fire all over your soul & creep into the deepest, most secret part of your heart.Ĭan you feel them? I dare you to feel their message & heal. They’re trying to slow dance you into a corner. Can you hear them singing? Singing songs of a time when Heaven lived on 7th Street & the Blues proudly swaggered out of every door & every open window. Calling & calling & they’re still calling. ‘Cause they won’t leave you alone until you give them all the credit they’re due. And if you really listen, you’re gonna hear them singing wildly & moaning like a homesick whisper in the night wind.Īre you brave enough to hear what they have to say? Don’t be afraid to feel the feelings. They’re waiting! They’ve been waiting a terribly long, long time to meet you. I have not forgotten! And if you are not afraid of listening to the many loud & restless Blue Souls that are still out there trying to give you back your history. This is my way of saying thank you to all those Spirits still roaming all over every inch of 7th Street. And Dancehall battles & Musical wars & the courage to do better that went into making Oakland a West Coast Blues Mecca. Full of all the joy & sadness & the indescribable pain of naively unexpected inescapable racist degradation. It’s a theatrical tale about the coming together of disoriented Black Share Croppers, lonely imported Filipino men, Black entrepreneurs, Latin dancers, Masons, intellectuals & slicksters. Our very own Hilton & was rocking every night with Dancehalls full of all kinds of Jazz & Blues Concerts & Mambo Sessions. Oaktown Blue is also a story of days when the California Hotel was “Swank City”. Up & down “the Street” … 7th Street! 7th Street was our heartbeat, the royal highway of our Stars. Strutting their stuff! … Lookin’ good!! … Clean!!! Making sure they were gonna be seen. Just waiting for their day to be recognized as one of the major Stars. Days when 7th Street was a montage of Superstars, rising Stars, fallen Stars & armies of wide-eyed Wannabe’s. A time when West Oakland was economically & culturally “the only place to be”. Oaktown Blue is a Hymn, a modern day Praise Song of a not so long ago time. The amazing, remarkable, unsung history of a forgotten West Oakland. A musical theater piece (with or without the theater), about the beauty of Oakland. ![]() Even without all the flash of show stopping Dancers & Singers & Musicians, I could feel it waiting to be born. Even before the overwhelming flamboyant drama of the live stage. More than just another choreographed Play full of fantastic hundred dollar clichés about Oakland. Oaktown Blue (a historical Musical/Poetic/Dance Drama)
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