Word: apollos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Johnson found himself locked in silent combat with a sense of escalating dread. Over breakfast and as he walked to work through Brooklyn's shattered Brownsville section, the power of positive thinking had kept the terror at bay: tonight he'd be making his singing debut at Harlem's Apollo Theater, and that was obviously something to worry about. But the venue shouldn't matter to a real pro, he told himself over and over. If a man hits the right notes in the shower, he can do the same thing in front of 1,500 people. Tonight was amateur...
...Jackson. A second and more kindly presence kept urging him to wriggle off the hook. The next stop would be his last chance to walk across the platform and jump the first train home. "Save yourself," the voice said, reminding him yet again that the Wednesday crowd at the Apollo was the meanest, most capricious mob since the days of Nero's circus and the Christian martyrs. Arthur refused to listen, finding within his 22-year-old heart a last, untapped reservoir of ambition to carry him out into the whirl of 125th Street...
Bright and unblinking, the marquee rose above the horizon of the subway staircase: TOMORROW'S STARS TODAY -- RALPH COOPER PRESENTS AMATEUR NIGHT AT THE APOLLO. Tomorrow's stars! He liked the sound of it. He pushed the stage- door buzzer and stepped into another world...
...with me," Cruz remarked while they were waiting. "Three hundred and sixty-five days of the year I'm plain old Steve Cruz, the guy who drives his truck up to construction sites. But tonight I'm going to be the One and Only Steve Cruz, Live at the Apollo. Winning would be nice, but being out there and singing, that's good enough...
...anyone with dreams not daubed in greasepaint, the Apollo's peculiar magic can be a little hard to fathom. That night's first-place winner -- an honor determined solely by the applause -- would pocket just $200. And, of course, there is that infamous Apollo audience, an orchestra and two balconies bursting with folks who give no quarter. Ella Fitzgerald's hazing is a legend. She managed no more than a few off-key notes before Master of Ceremonies Ralph Cooper came out to save her. Stilling the jeers, he won her a reprieve and she started again. On the second...