(gentle music) - [Becky] Sometimes life gives you an opportunity to reflect on what you would do with a clean slate.

Our guest on this episode is Lorenzo Washington, nationally and internationally known founder and curator of Nashville's Jefferson Street Sound Museum.

♪ I've thrown away my compass ♪ ♪ Done with the chart ♪ ♪ I'm tired of spinning around ♪ ♪ Looking for direction Northern star ♪ ♪ I'm tired of spinning around ♪ ♪ And I'll just step out ♪ ♪ Throw my doubt into the sea ♪ ♪ For what's meant to be will be ♪ - Between the decades of the '40s and '70s, North Nashville's historic Jefferson Street was the home to a thriving scene in jazz, soul, and rhythm and blues.

Lorenzo Washington was part of that later scene and has spent over a decade preserving that legacy.

Washington embraced his passion for music by founding Soul Shack Records and Boutique in the early '70s.

In 1976, he and others created a production company located on Nashville's Music Row and released a hit single titled "Come On Dance" by the Saturday Night Band.

Later, Washington turned his passion of preserving the musical heritage of Jefferson Street through the collection of information and artifacts, documenting the numerous clubs as well as the artists and musicians that performed in them, such as Jimi Hendrix, Etta James, James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner, Marion James, Jackie Shane, and many more.

Lorenzo has been nominated for the Music City Walk of Fame and is recognized each April for Lorenzo Washington Day.

The recipient of numerous awards in Nashville, he's received the first annual historic Jefferson Street Star Award, as well as the Jefferson Street Sound Museum receiving Best Community Music Museum by the Nashville Scene in 2022.

A Nashville native, he has written a book entitled "Rising Above: the Lorenzo Washington Story."

Lorenzo, we're so excited to be here at the Jefferson Street Sound Museum, which actually is located on Jefferson Street in Nashville.

And was your home at one time, right?

- Yes, yes, yes.

This was, I moved in this building in 2010, and I actually turned it into a museum in 2011.

Because of, and matter of fact, Marion James and I smiled whenever I called her name because she was such a spunky lady.

And when I came in here, she wanted to use, because I had a rehearsal hall on this side of the building, and she wanted to use this rehearsal hall.

And she never expect to help out with any finances, she just tell you what she wanted and you just did it.

- I love it.

I love it.

- But Marion was a real sweetheart and I had a lot of respect for Marion James.

But anyway, when they would finish rehearsing over here on this side, they would come over to my house and they would sit around over here and talk trash and tell stories about what took place back in the '60s and the late '50s.

So we had a lot of fun talking about those things.

And then all of a sudden they got into a conversation about their legacy and the stories that's being told, but they're not being told in their behalf.

And she wanted the community first to know that they were a part of this musical history that was here on Jefferson Street.

And Marion said, "We gotta start a museum."

I said, "A museum?"

And I know that took me completely out of the picture, I didn't know nothing about a museum.

I don't only been in one museum in my life.

And one of the guys said, "Well Lorenzo, you could be the curator for the museum."

I said, "Well what's the duties of a curator?"

And started sort of from there.

- Wow, but look at everything you've achieved and accomplished and the history that you're preserving and protecting.

I mean, just share with us a little bit because Jefferson Street in its heyday was really a music scene.

It was the music scene.

- It was the music scene.

And I designed a tree, and I called it the Jefferson Street Music Tree.

I don't know how I come up with that, but that's what it ended up being.

And this tree, the center of this tree represents Jefferson Street, the street that's right out here.

And the limbs on the tree represent the nightclubs that was on Jefferson and the learning institutions like Fisk, Tennessee State now.

And so this tree, and then the leaves on this tree represent the artists and musicians that actually played in the clubs on Jefferson Street.

So on this tree that I put together is over 150 artists and musicians on this tree.

So we got this tree started right after we started talking about curating and founding.

So I was the, I am the founder of the Jefferson Street Museum here on Jefferson Street.

And I represent all of these great artists and musicians that started, put footprints on Jefferson Street.

- What were some of the names of the clubs?

- The clubs were, the club Still Away was up here at 14th and Jefferson.

You might find, I did see Ike and Tina Turner there.

And there was a number of musicians and artists.

The Del Morocco.

The Del Morocco is where Jimi Hendrix made his home on Jefferson Street.

Then you had the Club Baron.

The Club Baron was down at 27th, and that's where Little Richard made his home on Jefferson Street.

And then there was Price's Dinner Club and Restaurant at 33rd in Jefferson.

And every now and then, Fats Domino would come through town and that's where Fats Domino would go and hang out at in the Green Room down at Price's Dinner Club.

So there were, and then the New Era Club was over off Jefferson Street.

It was on Charlotte, 11th and Charlotte.

And then you had the Maceo's, and the Maceo's was over here at 25th and Herman.

So those were some of the clubs where big names played, but they weren't big talents- - They were starting out.

- Yeah, they were starting out.

They were just putting their footprints and they got their start.

One of the cities that they got their big starts in is right here in Nashville, Tennessee.

- Now, Lorenzo, you told me a great story one time about watching Ray Charles.

Ray Charles played here, right?

And were you standing out on the street?

- No, I wasn't out there, but a couple of my friends were.

When Ray Charles was going up Jefferson Street, he was at the steering wheel and he was waving his hand and holding the steering wheel going up Jefferson Street and they had a big bus with Ray Charles written all up and down on the sides of the bus.

And so my buddy said that he had one of band members on the floor mashing the gas and the brake and steering the bus.

But you could barely see his head.

But Ray Charles would be sitting there.

But everybody had fun.

When you come to Jefferson Street, you look for something exciting to happen.

- Yes, and it was thriving.

It was thriving at that time.

You've been featured in two documentaries.

One by Nashville PBS, which is "Facing North."

One by the Belmont students, which is "Exit 207."

Both shared the changes that came about when Interstate 40 came through and really divided North Nashville.

And so what did you see?

How did that change everything for you?

- Well, it changed things a great deal.

Not that much for me because I was 17, 18 years old when it got started and I lived across the bridge in East Nashville, but just on the other side of the bridge.

So I was working at a gas station over there on that side.

But this is where we did all of our shopping.

So this is where the clothing stores were.

This is where the food markets were.

But we came across that Jefferson Street Bridge for just about everything coming to North Nashville.

Now the park that we learned how to swim in was over here.

The grocery stores, the little dry goods stores, clothing stores, all was over here on this side of the bridge.

And then you head to colleges because at one time there were over 600 and something homes and businesses on this street.

And it was a diverse community.

You had a doctor living here and you had a mechanic living here.

In the clubs, at this table, you might have a bunch of professors and at this table over here, you had the guys that worked at the brickyard.

But everybody came together here on Jefferson Street during those years before the interstate came through.

- Is that what took out the clubs?

- It was the interstate.

- Wow.

- And it seems like the interstates came up Jefferson just enough and just in the right spaces that it would knock out a club.

You'd take out the back side of the club or the front side of the club.

Now down at the Del Morocco where Jimi Hendrix played, right where you get off the exit, exit 207, exit 207.

Right where you get off there is where the Del Morocco Club was.

And it took out the club and the house next door, two doors up where Jimi Hendrix lived.

It was a boarding house.

But that's where Jimi lived for a little over a year.

- You have to just have such a rich history of living in Nashville.

And you've seen a lot living in Nashville.

You've experienced segregation, you've experienced a lot.

What was it like growing up here?

- Well, back then, it was fun growing up and being over here on Jefferson Street.

I really remember the first theater that we had for Blacks in North Nashville because all of the other theaters that was downtown, you had to go down a alley and in the back door.

And they had, I still remember the water fountain, colored and white.

And we used to stand around the white water fountain.

And one of us would go over and take a sip out of that fountain and he'd stand back up in front and wait on another one, go get a sip.

- That is pretty good, Lorenzo.

- And we did that every time we went to the lows of the Paramount Theater.

- Well good for you.

I'm glad to hear that.

When that time period was about, did Blacks and whites socialize over here in the music clubs?

Or was it primarily?

- No, it was pretty much separated.

You didn't, but in my community, which was a small community in the East Nashville out there.

We lived next door.

And I remember so well, Bubba Fields is what we called him.

That was his nickname.

We all had nicknames.

My nickname was Fats.

- Well that's the opposite, right?

- Well, I was a 12 pound born baby.

- What?

- Yes.

That's how I got the name Fats.

But anyway, on Bubba Fields and them, they lived down there, and their family, it was like a little farm, and they had a horse and a couple cows and goats.

They had all kind of farm animals down in there.

So we used to, when I was like 10, 11, 12 years old, we would go and spend the night with them so we could ride the horse and the animals down there.

And they would come and spend the night with us because they loved the way my mother, my grandmother rather, would fix breakfast.

She'd fix breakfast with the biscuits and the chicken, fried chicken, and they loved to come to our house.

So I did not experience a lot of hardcore segregation during my young days because of the community that we lived in.

So I had good white friends as well as Black friends in my day.

- That is fantastic to hear.

I mean that's heartwarming to hear and speaks volumes about the people that you were neighbors with, it sounds like.

So now you worked in the music industry.

You worked with producers.

You put out a hit record, right?

Tell me about that time period.

- Yeah, this was the '70s, '75, six, seven, eight, all the way up to '80.

I worked with my good friend Jesse Boyce, who is deceased now, and Moses Dillard, who is also deceased.

And the company name was Dillard and Boyce Production.

And they were the first Black production team accepted in the Music Row area by Ms. Francis Preston and BMI.

They were accepted and they were doing, they came into the city from Greenville, South Carolina.

They came into the city to do gospel and R&B music, but some kinda way, Marvin Slackter out of Prelude Records out of New York got in touch with these guys and wanted to know if they would do disco if they could.

But these guys were so talented, they could produce any kind of music.

So they came in in here and they started producing disco music.

And they produced three or four disco albums.

But the one that made it the biggest was the Saturday Night Band.

And the name of that song was "Come On Dance Dance."

And that song made it to number two on the national disco charts right behind Donna Summers.

And this album got a Grammy nomination along with Donna Summers for Donna Summers beat us out.

So that was pretty good company anyway, that was pretty good.

And they did a second album by the Saturday Night Band.

And that one didn't get a Grammy nomination, but I wrote a song, - What was it?

- Grooving.

- Grooving?

- "Grooving is All I want to Do, Grooving With You."

- That sounds good.

And Karen, my fiance, she ended up writing two songs on that album.

But that was an experience with those guys dealing with that disco music, because at that time, disco was red hot, until that hip hop music came in.

Hip hop came in and kicked disco right out of the water.

And we thought that we were gonna make it to the top of the music scales, the top.

We knew that we headed, we weren't concerned about no other genre of music at that time, but that disco, because we were up in Club 54 in New York.

We were over in Europe.

We were just all over the place, you know?

But then that hip hop music came in and knocked us out of the box.

So that was the story on making music.

- But you've always been very entrepreneurial.

And you had a stint in professional boxing, right?

I don't know how you did that.

Were you the boxer?

- No, my best friend, Dr. Morgan Hines, started a gym down in Columbia, Tennessee.

And after he started that gym, he didn't have any help.

And I'm up here in Nashville, I'm his best friend.

So I'm saying, "Well, I gotta go down there and help the guy get this boxing team off the ground."

So after about six, seven years, we had a pro, had a couple of pros.

And so we took the pros on the roads.

We travel all over the United States, at least 40 different states in the United States we traveled, and the next thing you know, Don King had his eye on one of our fighters.

And Don King signed Tim Webb as one of his fighters.

And so we were on the road with Don King.

Yeah, we were on the road with Don King.

- Well, you just are always reinventing, and I love that about you.

The premise of this show is called Clean Slate.

And so I'm just gonna ask you, what would you do with a clean slate?

- I'd like to have a clean slate for what's happening on Jefferson Street.

I'd like to see Jefferson Street revised, I'd like to see more nightlife, more businesses, publishing companies, record labels.

I'd like to see that kind of thing.

And I don't know, I got so involved with this music thing, so I don't say libraries or soda shops like what used to be on Jefferson Street.

I know it's gonna take a lot more than I can do personally to revise all of this and to get a clean slate on what I think should be next for this community.

- You're very inspirational to a lot of people, Lorenzo.

In fact, you're one of the only people I know who have their own day, the Lorenzo Washington Day in Nashville.

And you've had a featured exhibit at the National Museum of African American Music.

So what do you want people to know about your museum and how can you encourage them to maybe start here?

- Well, just to let folks know that this is one of the only museums that tells the story from Jefferson Street to Music Row.

This little museum here tells the stories of the Black community, which stopped being told there at one time.

And I want the young generation to know that we was a part of making history through the years of the '20s, '30s, '40s, when we had all of the businesses on Jefferson Street.

And we serviced all of the families that was on Jefferson Street, which was over 600 and something homes and businesses on the street.

But just to let them know that we were a part of making Nashville the music city that it is.

And by all of these artists and musicians that came through here, like James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, all of these artists and musicians came through Nashville and that helped make Nashville what it is today because the influence that they had on this city brought other people with influences to the city and made them a part of the history.

And we had a big history, not only in music, but we had Tennessee State out there with the Agricultural Center.

So we were learning all about farming and stuff.

And then we had the doctors and dentists over at Meharry.

So we were producing some of the best doctors and dentists in the world came right out of Nashville, Meharry Medical College.

And then we had Fisk University up there, and we wouldn't be named Music City if it weren't for the Fisk Jubilee Singers had gone to Europe to perform for Queen Victoria.

And Queen Victoria at the end of the concert said, "Those beautiful voices must have come from the Music City."

And so Music City got involved with being a part of Nashville, Tennessee.

So we had a lot of involvement and we produced a lot before country music even got started.

- Yeah.

Well, you're a treasure, your museum's a treasure.

It's time, I wish we had more time, but is there anything that I didn't ask you you wish I had?

jeffersonstreetsoundmuseum.com and we're open on Saturdays from 11 till four every Saturday.

And I'm your curator.

There are some special things that's getting ready to happen over here, and you need to be a part of it.

- That sounds great.

Thanks, Lorenzo.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

(gentle music) ♪ I've thrown away my compass ♪ ♪ Done with the chart ♪ ♪ I'm tired of spinning around ♪ ♪ In one direction ♪ - Lorenzo, a lot of people may not know that you have a history with Nashville PBS because you're on our Community Advisory Board.

- Well, I am, and I was honored to be asked to be a part of it because I never expect to be a part of all of these different opportunities that's coming to me.

But I am proud to be a board member and sponsor to the organization.