Performing Arts

Not since the construction of the Columbus courthouse had one man and his vision received as much publicity from local newspapers as John Crump and his theater, designed and built by architect Charles Sparrell in 1889. This is the story of the passion, struggles and triumphs that created the first true cultural arts center in this small town and the legacy that continues to inspire the community over a century later to protect this local landmark. It is a journey marked by first-class opera performances, flickering silent films, police intervention and arrests and, ultimately, decay and closure. A portion of the proceeds from sales of this book will go to the Heritage Fund in support of the Crump Theatre building--an architectural treasure in a city that boasts many.

In 1949, when the first television station in Indianapolis was about to go on the air, R.K. Shull, the venerated television columnist for the Indianapolis Times and Indianapolis News, said, "Channel 6 has laid plans for the biggest possible attention-grabbing debut a TV station could make in Indianapolis . . . live coverage of the Indianapolis 500-mile race." Only three cameras covered the entire track, but the audience at the time was not very discriminating. Before networks had full-time programming, casts and crews experimented with the new medium in full view of the audience. Even after the networks began to monopolize programming, a number of local personalities became viewer favorites. David Letterman decided to have fun with the weather. Jane Pauley refused to cut her long locks, so her entire face was seldom seen on location in windy weather. George Willeford made fun of the movies he was introducing. Frank Edwards had his dog sitting on his desk during his newscast. Debbie Drake started her own daily exercise show, which was later nationally syndicated.

Indiana Avenue was traditionally the host to some of America's premier, world-renown entertainment icons in various genres. Along this winding, brightly lit thoroughfare were nightclubs, lounges, supper clubs, taverns, juke joints, and holes-in-the-wall that celebrated the best of the best in entertainment that America had to offer, from the 1920s on into the 1970s. On the bandstand at Denver Ferguson's Sunset Terrace Ballroom, the elegantly attired crooner Nat King Cole, in a sparkling blue silk suit, delivered his signature song Mona Lisa. Nearby, B.B. King sang his 1973 down-home blues classic To Know You is to Love You. At Tuffy Mitchell's Pink Poodle nightclub, Moms Mabley made the audience roar with laughter during her sidesplitting comedy routine. Indiana Avenue truly was the place to be for the best in entertainment.

As they watched construction of the block-long flatiron building brick by brick throughout 1927, African American residents of Indianapolis could scarcely contain their pride.

This new headquarters of the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, with its terra-cotta trimmed facade, was to be more than corporate offices and a factory for what then was one of America's most successful black businesses. In fact, it was designed as "a city within a city," with an African Art Deco theater, ballroom, restaurant, drugstore, beauty salon, beauty school, and medical offices. Generations of African American families met for Sunday dinner at the Coffee Pot, enjoyed first-run movies and live performances in the Walker Theatre, and hosted dances in the Casino. Today, this National Historic Landmark is an arts center anchoring the Indiana Avenue Cultural District.

It was a fight to the death . . . well, maybe not to the death, but it was definitely a battle that would change not only the listening habits of tens of thousands of Hoosiers but also the entire culture of the Indiana state capital city.

It had repercussions throughout the nation as the first major war of AM radio versus FM radio. It was Forty-fives versus album cuts and the "good guys" versus the "bad boys"--and Naptown would never be the same. Two brilliant and fierce broadcasting competitors went head to head: Richard Fairbanks, who for almost two decades owned WIBC-AM 1070, the 50,000-watt radio behemoth, versus Don Burden, the young upstart broadcasting impresario who swaggered into town and launched the glitzy, promotion-oriented though relatively low-powered WIFE-AM 1310. How was the war fought? What were the strategies? Who were the personalities both in the limelight and behind the scenes? And who, in the end, would win Naptown's rock radio wars?