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Preston Lauterbach

@prestonlauterbach

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Author of The Chitlin Circuit, Beale Street Dynasty, and Harlem Underworld.

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Sister Act, Club Handy, Memphis, 1960
#bealestreet #chitlincircuit #rockandroll #rhythmandblues #bluemonday by @prestonlauterbach

Es-Scare-ita in a highly offensive whiteface routine at the Owl Club in Greenville, South Carolina, 1958. Gone forty years this month. Eskeew but never forgotten. ❤️#esquerita #chitlincircuit #rockandroll #greenvillesc by @prestonlauterbach

Fat Jack Taylor, from Greeneville, South Carolina to 116th Street and Lenox Avenue. “Everyone you know need something right now.”

He was a complex man, a genius with little education, a queer in a masculine dominated game, a builder of community who sold poison to the community. Innovative, generous, charming, and cunning, he founded Rojac Records, Tay-Ster Records, and he opened the Harlem World nightclub, where hip-hop got its name and Kool Moe Dee wrecked...the house.

While spreading addiction, he helped Big Maybelle kick. He empowered women in the music business and opened legit fronts all over Harlem. He lived large, with an entourage and stash-houses across New York City, but unlike his fellow kingpins Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas, shunned the limelight, keeping his business quiet and staying out of trouble. His legacy, low-key, continues.

His life has been a mystery.

Until now.
Pre-order HARLEM UNDERWORLD, publishing in March 2027. Link in bio.

#harlem #hiphop #fatjack #northernsoul by @prestonlauterbach

The man you see here is the key to that book in his hand. TaharQa Aleem and his twin brother Tunde Ra worked the streets with Fat Jack Taylor’s crew in the mid-1960s and worked the studio for Fat Jack’s Rojac Records. They are legit Harlem legends, core members of America’s first musical crime family. Not many people survived 116th Street but the Aleems went on to sing backup for Jimi Hendrix and turn street money into gold cutting disco and early rap classics for their NIA Records. TaharQa’s generosity in telling his story made Harlem Underworld possible. Photo credit Andreas Vingaard @frederiksbergrecords

#harlem #underworld #hiphop #soul #jimihendrix by @prestonlauterbach

TBT
Tri-State Blues Festival
De Soto County, #mississippi by @prestonlauterbach

by @prestonlauterbach