Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Lost Memphis The Whirlaway Club
Posted by Vance Lauderdale on Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:08 PM
If you're not a subscriber to Memphis magazine — which should be a Class C felony, or at least a misdemeanor — then you should go right now to the nearest newsstand and pick up a copy of our June issue. Because in it, I tell the dramatic story of the Whirlaway Club, one of our city's most (in)famous nightspots. And I also include some rather risque images of two "exotic dancers" who got the place closed in the 1960s for "aiding and abetting obscene acts."
Now, if that won't get you out of the house to buy that magazine, well, I just don't know what will.
Anyway, space prevented me from including in that column a couple of old magazine advertisements for the Whirlaway Club, so I thought I'd include them here, for your viewing pleasure. Man oh man, you can tell it was one happening place. Why, it stayed open until 4 a.m., which would be — let's see — oh, about 8 hours past my bedtime. The ad at the top is from 1972, and the one below shows the stage and dance floor in 1968. Take a close look at that picture. What's really interesting, to me, is that back in 1968, the Whirlaway Club band was integrated. Well, at least the band was.
Does anybody know who these guys were? Or any of the dancers, for that matter?
Showing 1-5 of 5
Randy Haspel will know who those guys are.
Whatever happened to that place? Was it shut down by an eager young Bill Gibbons as he prepared to run for Senior Class President?
My husband is long-time Memphis musician Mike Plunk and he's pretty sure of some of the IDs. Bass player in the top photo is Ben Wages, now deceased. In the botton photo, the bass player is Ronnie Moore, also deceased, and the guitar player is Tony O'Teri who also played with Eddie Floyd (Knock on Wood).
Mike played some at the Whirlaway and remembers that ties were required. If a guy showed up without one, they'd rent him a tie. Legend has it that the Righteous Brothers showed up at the Whirlaway, had no ties, refused to rent ties -- and were turned away.
BTW -- we wanted to point out that it was not unusual for bands to be integrated in that era, and there was one integrated club in Memphis -- The Riviera -- although black guests sat on one side of the dance floor and whites on the other.
Vance, do you rememeber the Guilloteens from the 60's, see below........
http://www.break-a-way.de/pages/gteens/sto…
This caption appears below one of the photo's on this webpage:
A ROYAL MEMPHIS welcome was tendered as Memphis‘ own Guilloteens when Mayer Ingram presented keys to the city to the new famed rock n‘ roll trio. Getting the keys are, left to right: Louis Paul, Laddie Hutchinson and Joe Davis, billed as the “world‘s fastest drummer.“ The threesome, managed by Memphis‘ Jerry Williams, will be featured on the coast-tocoast Shindig show at 7:30 tonight on Channel 13.
Could one of the girls in the '72 ad be Kathleen Selph (she was photographed with Elvis riding on a bike on East Parkway in 1972 and she died shortly after), see article below from the Commercial Appeal
"Woman with Elvis No Longer a Mystery"
Original Publication Date: January 8, 2000
By Michael Lollar
For 27 years, the mother says she has remained silent, watching over and over as her daughter showed up in photographs on a motorcycle with Elvis Presley.
Each time, the daughter has been referred to as "an unidentified woman." "I just didn't want her to go on as an unidentified woman," says the mother, Peggy Selph Cannon of Bartlett, after the photograph appeared in The Commercial Appeal's special Turn of the Century section on Jan. 1.
Cannon says her daughter, Kathleen "Kathy" Selph, then 20, was being driven home by Elvis when the picture was shot by a photographer for The Commercial Appeal in June 1972. A neighbor showed her the photograph in the newspaper that week, and Cannon says she "reprimanded" her daughter for dating a married man. That's when she learned that Elvis and Priscilla Presley had separated.
The daughter, who had moved out of her parents' home, had been working as a dancer and singer at the old Whirlaway Club, where a member of Elvis' Memphis Mafia noticed she resembled Priscilla Presley, says Selph's brother, Steve. His sister and Elvis were introduced and dated for a while, he says.
It ended less than a month after the photograph was taken when Selph died in an automobile accident. "There was a real nice spray of flowers at her funeral from the Presley family. And there was a huge orchid at the funeral. I always felt it came from Elvis," says Cannon, who remarried after the death of her husband, former deputy fire chief E. B. Selph.
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Yes, the dancer in the white bikini was indeed Kathy Selph, the girl on the back of Elvis' motorcycle. - Vance
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