Hey to Your Mama N'em

Juanita, age 7, at her piano recital, surrounded by baskets of flowers, 1919

Shades of L.A.: African American Community, Los Angeles Public Library

“UPTIGHT RELAXER—Alvin Taylor, a rock drummer, gets his relaxed hair body-curled at Ikoyi.”

December 19, 1974

Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library. Copyright Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.

Jimi Hendrix in the bedroom of his flat at 23 Brook Street, Mayfair, January 1969. Photography by Barrie Wentzell.

Jimi Hendrix arrived in London on September 24, 1966. He brought with him a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar and a small bag of clothes and necessities (including his plastic hair rollers). He had $40 in his pocket. London became his home, off and on, for the next four years. He formed the iconic Jimi Hendrix Experience in London and enjoyed his first real success there.

Hendrix’s last performance was at the Isle of Wight Festival in late August 1970. It was an event that surpassed Woodstock in attendance and included many of the most famous musicians in the world. 

Jimi Hendrix died three weeks later, on September 18, 1970 at the Samarkand Hotel in London. He was 27 years old.

Nina Simone (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) in concert at Morlaix (Bretagne, France), May 1982. Roland Godefroy, photographer.

Bitter over America’s racism, disputes with the record companies, and troubles with the IRS, Nina Simone left the United States in 1970. For the next eight years, she lived in Barbados, Liberia, Switzerland and Paris.

In 1985, Simone returned to the United States to record and perform. Her career soared when a British commercial for Chanel used her 1958 recording of “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” which then became a hit in Europe.

Nina Simone eventually moved back to Europe— first to the Netherlands then to the South of France in 1991. She died in  Carry-le-Rouet, France on April 21, 2003.

African American boy playing drum set at 1941 Children’s Christmas party at May Co. department store in Los Angeles, California

December 1, 1941

Image Caption: “Many of the thousands of Negro inhabitants of the Canal Zone and the Panama Republic were brought here from Jamaica and Barbadoes by the Americans to work on the Canal while it was being built.

From Lands of the Caribbean: the Canal Zone, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Porto Rico, and the Virgin Islands by Frank G. Carpenter. 1926.

Does anyone know what this instrument is? Is it bordonúa or a tiple?

Summit Avenue Ensemble, Atlanta, Georgia, ca. 1899

Thomas E. Askew, photographer

From left: the photographer’s twin sons  Clarence and Norman Askew, neighbor Jake Sansome; and sons Robert and Walter Askew.

Part of the collection African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition.

Woman and cello, Howard University.

Scurlock Studio, Washington D.C. (date unknown).

Stevie Wonder married his labelmate and longtime collaborator, Syreeta Wright, on September 12, 1970 in Detroit. Although the marriage ended after only 18 months, the couple continued to make beautiful music together until the mid 1990s.

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