Talkin’ Music with Jack – Remembering the Latin Casino & the Valley Forge Music Fair

Remembering the Latin Casino and the Valley Forge Music Fair

By Jack Coll

Donna and I traveled up Route 202 a few weeks back into New Hope to take in a matinee play at the Bucks County Playhouse. “The Tale of The Allergist’s Wife” was on stage starring Marsha Mason, Marilu Henner, and David Garrison. The Bucks County Playhouse is a terrific little theatre that seats a couple of hundred people making it a great place to take in a show.

While waiting for the play to start my mind drifted back to a time when small venues like the Latin Casino, once located in Cherry Hill New Jersey, and The Valley Forge Music Fair once located in Devon Pennsylvania were also great little venue’s to take in a play, or a concert.

The Latin Casino actually opened as a Philadelphia Night Club in 1950 once located at 13^th and Walnut Streets. The early Latin was a draw for many of the top entertainers of the 1950’s including Pearl Bailey, Jimmy Durante, Sammy Davis Jr., Milton Berle, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Louis Armstrong, Joey Bishop and Harry Belafonte just to name a few. If you enjoy gambling you can play slot for free and win money here.

In 1960 the owners moved the club to Cherry Hill New Jersey and opened a first class 1,500 seat Vegas-style dinner theatre, and renamed it the Latin Casino, (there was no casino, just the name.)

Over the next quarter of a century the biggest names in show business performed at the Latin Casino including Frank Sinatra, who would often play for a week at a time, two shows per day. Other performers included Richard Pryor, who cut a live album at the Latin, Liza Minnelli, Tom Jones, B. B. King, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Don Rickles, Engelbert Humperdinck among others.

The first time I went to the Latin, where you would have dinner before the show was either in 1969, or 1970 and I saw a comedian named Totie Fields. I was a young teenager at the time and hadn’t been exposed to the world of entertainment. They pushed Totie out onto the stage in a wheelchair, because she was missing a leg and I immediately felt sorry for her. The first words out of her mouth was “Jesus Christ, they had to cut off my GD leg to get me to lose weight, if they could just wack my other leg and both of my arms I think I could reach my goal weight.” Well you didn’t feel sorry for her any longer, Totie went on for the next hour and a half and I had never seen anything like her, she was just the greatest.

I returned to the Latin Casino a few more times, first I saw the greatest band of all time, and they happen to be from New Jersey, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. One of the coolest things they ever did was release a Bob Dylan classic “Don’t Think Twice,” under the artist name “The Wonder Who.” Was it the Four Seasons or was it some band trying to sound like them, no one seemed to know, (well I’m sure a lot of people knew, but I didn’t.) Little did I know at that time, radio stations wouldn’t play two of the same artist songs at the same time. So the Seasons disguised their voice so they wouldn’t interfere with another hit song at the same time called “Let’s Hang On!”

Just to show you how cool the Four Seasons were, I remember going to see them another time at the Latin Casino on Christmas Eve with a group of friends and it was snowing really bad, maybe a couple of inches but it was a continuing snowfall. About 30 people showed up, this was in the early 1970’s, the Casino had expanded their seating capacity to about 2,000 people, and yet there were about 30 of us having dinner. None of us really knew if the show would go on, or if the Four Seasons were even in the building. When show time approached, Frankie Valli walked out on stage and said, “Listen, We can see that not many people made it through the snow to see our sold out show. But we have the group here, and we have the band here, and we have you here, so what I want everyone to do is come right down in front of the stage where you’ll all enjoy a front row seat, and the Four Seasons are going to give you the best damn concert you ever heard.” During the course of the show Frankie talked to just about every one of us, and midway through the show he said listen, we’re not gonna go by the playlist, just request your favorite Four Season song and we’ll play it. Valli and the boys were in no hurry to go home and as I remember it he played a set that lasted about two and a half hours.

I also remember seeing the Temptations and Supremes in concert at the Latin Casino, the thing I remember most about the Temptations was constantly watching the foot-work of the band, I had heard that every time one of them misses a step during the performance they were fined a thousand dollars, this really blew my mind because a thousand dollars in the early 1970’s, was like a million dollars to someone who was making $2.65 per hour pumping gas for Bob Wilson at his King of Prussia gas station. I never knew if the $1,000 fine was true or not but on that night my eyes were glued to their foot-work to see if any of them would have to pay the fine, as I recall it, none of them missed a step.

Just 18 years after opening the Cherry Hill venue the Latin Casino closed its doors in the summer of 1978. The small dinner club scene was over, casinos had been introduced in Atlantic City and the clubs couldn’t compete for the competition. Five months after closing the doors it re-opened as the Emerald City, an exotic disco club, just like the disco era, the club was short lived and the former Latin was converted to a venue for progressive rock bands, the club lasted until December 1982, and closed for good, it was later demolished for commercial use.

For most of us, The Valley Forge Music Fair was simply the greatest entertainment venue in the world. Once located in Devon Pennsylvania, just outside Valley Forge Park, the Valley Forge Music Fair hosted everyone in the entertainment business that was someone, Benny Goodman, Tom Jones, Rudy Vallee, Natalie Cole, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, Liberace, and B.B. King.

How about Jim Croce, Huey Lewis and the News, Gordon Lightfoot, Donna Summer, Chicago, Neil Diamond, Bette Midler, Sammy Davis, The Jackson Five, Richard Pryor, Little Richard and James Brown, the list goes into the hundreds.

The Valley Forge Music Fair was founded by radio broadcaster Frank Ford, and night club owner Lee Guber, and together with Shelly Gross they raised $100,000 back in 1955, calling themselves the Music Fair Enterprises, Inc. Guber and Ford were returning home following seeing a show with their wives that had been held in a tent. On the way home the two were discussing how they could improve on the tent shows, and Ford’s wife said “Well why don’t you.” The trio raised the necessary funds and pitched their tent in Devon and for the next 18 years ran first class shows in the tent. In 1973 a 3,000 seat permanent structure was built with the stage in the center of the seats, the stage was a round slow rotating stage enabling everyone to see the performers throughout the performance.

While everyone loved the plays, the musicals, and the rock and roll, once again it was difficult to compete with the New Jersey Casino’s, it was hard to compete with the outdoor Mann Music Center, and it was hard to compete with the Spectrum in South Philadelphia. In December 1996 Kenny Rogers brought his Christmas Show to the Valley Forge Music Fair and shortly after Kenny’s performance the announcement came that the Music Fair would be demolished and replaced with a Giant Supermarket.

During an interview Shelly Gross had a great quote, he recalled being very conflicted feeling that it was “like watching your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your brand new Mercedes, mixed emotions.” Less than a year and a half after the supermarket opened, it also closed down.

I remember somewhere around 1982 or 83 Donna and I had tickets to see The Band, but Jackie got sick and Brian and I went to enjoy the evening. I also saw Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons at the Music Fair, America, Chicago, Dion, Chuck Berry, Peter Paul and Mary, Ronnie Spector, Jackie Wilson, The Dovells, Donna Summer, Gladys Knight and The Pips and several other concerts and plays.

Over the years I met a number of the performers before or after the show including Dion, Peter, Paul and Mary and a few others. But the performer I enjoyed most of all was Harry Chapin. I’ve often told this story so I apologize if you’ve already heard it but it’s one of my favorites.

During the 1970’s I loved the singer-song writers, the soft sound, guys like Gordon Lightfoot, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Carole King, Don McLean, Neil Young, and Jim Croce, and on and on and on. The one guy I really liked was Harry Chapin, so when Harry was appearing at the Music Fair, well I had something to do. And when Harry was at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, I really couldn’t make it. When Harry was playing a small club in Philadelphia well I had a game to coach or some other life issue, you know how it goes, life gets in the way of having a good time.

So one night in April of 1981, Donna calls me at home from work and says her boss has two tickets to see Harry Chapin at the Valley Forge Music Fair the following night, and his date canceled, do I want the ticket? Well it really wasn’t a good night for me to disappear to the Music Fair but Donna said ya know Harry might not be around forever and you’ve been wanting to see him for years, so I accepted the tickets.

The night of the concert I drove over to the Music Fair in the rain, sat in my seat at show time next to Donna’s boss who I did not know. About a half hour after the starting time of the show an announcement was made that Harry’s plane had been diverted from Philadelphia International Airport to Wings Field due to the heavy rain, they were expecting him to arrive within ten to twenty minutes, and encouraged us to grab another drink at the bar. So I got up out of my seat and wandered out to the lobby at the front of the building. I was standing in this outer lobby starring out into the rain when this taxi cab pulls up, and with the raindrops on the window creating one of those blurred wet looks I could see Harry Chapin sitting in the back of this cab. He pays the driver and comes through the front door and says to me, “hey, how ya doin, sorry I’m late, give me about ten minutes and I’ll see you on stage.”

It was one of those rare moments when I really didn’t have a reply so I just said “OK, no problem.”

Harry cuts through the crowd and made his way down to the stage and then backstage. I was left standing there thinking, “OK, no problem,” was the best I could do. Harry comes out, plays his usual set, funny guy, good musician, and ironically, Harry mentions Conshohocken during the show, by mistake, but he still mentioned Conshohocken. His guitar player a guy named “Big” John Wallace was from Maniyunk, and Harry made reference to Big John during the show about being slow or something to that effect, and Harry said “I guess that comes because of all the hills you climb in Conshohocken, and Big John corrected him saying no it’s from climbing the all those hills in Maniyunk, and I remember thinking how cool, that Harry would even know Conshohocken, and he pronounced it very well.

After the show I spent about 15-20 minutes with him, had him sign my program and we went our separate ways.

Less than three months later on July 16, 1981 Donna and I spent the night at the Spectrum with Bruce Springsteen. Bruce was feeling pretty good that night and played for nearly four hours. Sometime after one in the morning Donna and I reached Conshohocken and decided to head to Dunkin Doughnuts for a coffee, while on Ridge Pike just outside the Dunkin Doughnuts we listened together as the radio broke the news that Harry Chapin had been killed in a one car accident on the Long Island Expressway. The only thing I could think of was how grateful I was to have met him in person to know and understand what a great human being he was. In 1987 Harry was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his campaigning on social issues, particularly his highlighting of hunger around the world and in the United States. Chapin was a key player in the creation of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger in 1977 and served under President Jimmy Carter.

In the late 1970’s the Norris Theatre once located at 125 West Main Street in Norristown had run its course. The Norris Theatre opened on December 22, 1930 and for more than four decades ran first class “A” movies. Like most main street movie houses by the mid 1970’s they were struggling to stay alive. With families flocking to the Mall movie theatres, thanks to free parking, the Norris starting showing triple “X” pornographic movies.

In 1979 Bill Catanese leased the theatre in an effort to showcase top live entertainment for all ages, and show rock movies like The Who’s “The Kids Are Alright,” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Catanese hoped to capitalize on this as did other successful small venues like the Main Point in Bryn Mawr. Catanese booked a number of great acts into the theatre in 1980 including Maynard Ferguson, Blood Sweat and Tears, Rick Nelson, Kool And The Gang, David Bromberg, Cyd Charisse, Woodstock legend Richie Havens, Healy-Treece Band starring former members of the Grateful Dead, Dr. Hook, Atlantic Rhythm Section, TAJ Mahal and a number of other acts.

It was hard to believe all those acts and more were performing in Norristown. I remember going to Norristown to see David Clayton Thomas with “Blood Sweat and Tears,” and I have to say it was a great show. I would say that all 35 of us enjoyed every minute of the show, the theatre had 1700 seats but going to Norristown at that time was a hard sell. Despite having first class acts, the crowds didn’t come. Parking was always an issue, as I remember it, I parked about three blocks from the theatre, and we’re not talking city blocks but coming out of the theatre after midnight, and walking three blocks with your wife or girlfriend was a very un-safe situation.

The Norristown entertainment mecca was short lived, Bill Catanese did all he could do to bring the theatre crowds back to Norristown, but the Valley Forge Music Fair had a strangle hold on the Philadelphia and Montgomery County area concert goers. The Norris Theatre closed its doors for good within a year, and the demise of the theatre is history. The historic Art Deco façade can still be seen at an Art Deco Museum located in Florida.

Do you have a music venue memory you would like to share, feel free.

Answer to last week’s trivia questions.

Philadelphia radio personality Don Cannon came to Philadelphia in 1969 with WIBG, Wibbage 99 and retired in 2004 from WOGL Oldies 98. Don worked for four other Philadelphia stations as an on air personality, can you name one of them? Don worked on air with WIP, WFIL, WIFI, and WSNI.

This week’s trivia questions

#1 Can you name me two hits by Blood Sweat and Tears?

#2 I mentioned Frank Sinatra, how many number one hits did he have on the pop charts over his thirty year career, One, Three, Five or Seven. Frank shared one of those number one hits with his daughter Nancy, hint! It wasn’t “These Boots Were Made For Walkin’.”

#3 In Norristown’s heyday, the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s, Norristown had four thriving movie theatre’s, The Norris Theatre was one of them, can you name one of the other three.

Answers next week