In its early days, the Apollo primarily staged vaudeville-style shows, complete with a chorus line of dancing girls. Over time though, such acts became less common and in the ‘swing’ era, the likes of Duke Ellington (whose music still features in the Christmas shows), Count Basie and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson headlined. Sam Cook, Aretha Franklin, and Ray Charles followed and gospel and soul music filled the neighbourhood.
These days many people visit the Apollo Theater on Monday evenings to attend Amateur Night, where a man with a broom (“The Executioner”) sweeps performers off the stage whenever the highly vocal and opinionated audience demands it.
And the Apollo audience sure knows what it likes. When an amateur Ella Fitzgerald first took the stage in 1934, the audience was sensible enough to love her – likewise when Jimi Hendrix won first place in his amateur music contest there thirty years later. Other big names whose careers can be attributed to a start at the Apollo Theater include James Brown, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross & the Supremes, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, and Mariah Carey.
