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Marilyn promised Mocambo owner Charlie Morrison that if he would book Ella, she would make sure the booking received worldwide publicity. Ella’s appearance in March 1955 was given a boost by her superstar fangirl, Marilyn Monroe. Eartha Kitt, Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald all played there in the 1940s and 1950s. The club was also at the forefront of breaking the color line during the Jim Crow era.
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In October that year, Errol Flynn punched Los Angeles Times columnist Jimmy Fidler at Mocambo in retaliation for purported derogatory comments Fidler had made in his column.Īfter Frank Sinatra left the Tommy Dorsey orchestra in 1943, he made his debut as a solo act at Mocambo. “I wish they had let me go just for a minute and I would have annihilated him,” Romanoff said later.
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In 1941, a movie agent named William Burnside cold-cocked restaurateur Michael Romanoff there, for reasons now forgotten. (And, yes, the ASPCA objected to this arrangement.)ĭuring its 17-year run, the Mocambo was the scene of a number of celebrity brawls. , it opened on January 3, 1941, featuring Mexican-themed decor said to have cost over $100,000 (about $1.6 million today) and dominated by glass-walled aviaries that housed live macaws, cockatoos, parrots and other birds. (Wryly, Jagger introduces it “a little-known number we hope to make popular,” which was wishful thinking.) Most of these songs, especially the Black and Blue ones, wouldn’t be played again onstage for over 20 years, which adds another level of historical interest to these tapes.Like Cafe Trocadero and Ciro’s, the Mocambo was a world-famous nightclub on the Sunset Strip catering to celebrities. Say what one will about their proto-gangsta, killer-on-the-run saga “Hand of Fate” or the uncomfortably hostile “Crazy Mama.” But the band plays them with deliciously desperate energy, and they overhaul It’s Only Rock’n Roll‘s ersatz-reggae “Luxury” into a more typical swaggering stomp.
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A few hits from the Sixties are here, but the focus is on their last few albums up to that point. That telling omission aside, what’s most fascinating about Live at the El Mocambo is the way it presents the Stones not as a nascent oldies act but as a working, actively creative band. Perhaps, as with the way the band excised “Brown Sugar” from its recent set list, someone thought those jokes were a tad … insensitive in 2022? On Love You Live, Jagger was heard introducing the band by way of wisecracks about their sexual proclivities: “Billy is open for offers,” “Charlie Watts is sort of a maybe,” “Bill Wyman just wants to take photographs of girls’ legs,” and “Ronnie Wood’s gay.” Those remarks are completely MIA on Live at the El Mocambo. Live at the El Mocambo restores them to their untouched state–while also erasing a bit of dubious history. The four El Mocambo songs tucked into Love You Live weren’t pure the band overdubbed new parts onto some of them. Watch the Rolling Stones Play 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' With Ukrainian Choir The El Mocambo tracks, pushed on by a clearly audible and enthralled small audience, presented them as a band that wanted to re-connect with those fans and stay relevant, just as punk rock was rearing its spiky head. The distant crowd roar heard throughout most of Love You Live was a metaphor for how removed the Stones had become from the average rock fan, not to mention most mundane household chores. With Mick Jagger unleashing a new style of growl, their crackling covers of Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and Willie Dixon songs paid strutting homage to their heroes, and the recordings were so visceral that you felt as if you were in the first few rows of the 300-seat club. And judging from the small portion of the two El Mocambo shows heard on Love You Live, they stepped up to the job. Playing in front of a few hundred people, and unable to hide behind props like the giant inflatable penis of the 1975 shows, the Stones had to focus on music, not spectacle.
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But tucked away (on side three) were four songs cut at Toronto’s tiny El Mocambo club in March 1977, when the Stones played a surprise set billed as “The Cockroaches.” For 45 years, the Rolling Stones’ Love You Live has been one of rock’s greatest teases. About 75 percent of the double LP was recorded in arenas and stadiums during the band’s 1976 tour, and presented competent but rarely exhilarating or necessary renditions of concert warhorses and deep cuts.