Four handsome Black men in flashy suits crooning a song with showbiz flair and joy in their eyes.
I watched the foursome take the stage, and my eyes immediately locked on this one cool cat singing and dancing his heart out. That guy, center right, was my dad, Robert Meeks Jr. He was 24 years old.otherI rewound the tape and played it again and again while my dad sat on the sofa, beaming the entire time.
At the start of 2020, when we started to see a steady rise in COVID-19 cases in the U.S., my father was scheduled to have surgery to repair a nerve that severely limited his mobility. For an 80-year-old man, the timing of going into the hospital and having an extended stay in another facility to recuperate raised concerns for our family.
As several of my father’s friends from Nashville would attest over the years, the quartet was a draw back then. And that popularity led to shows in places where the audiences were primarily white, including spots in Nashville’s Printers Alley where the group sang covers of songs recorded by big-time musicians such as Fats Domino.
Then in 1964, the Hollywood All Stars were presented with a major opportunity to boost their exposure.