Royal Theater

Maryland Historical Society

In the 1920s, Baltimore's Pennsylvania Avenue was a musicians' paradise with three or four clubs in each block from Biddle Street to North Avenue, all of them featuring live entertainment. North of Dolphin Street on Pennsylvania Avenue, was the famed Royal Theater, the most important black theater in the city. When it opened in 1921 as the Douglass, it was the only theater in Baltimore built by African American owners for "colored" audiences. In 1926 it was sold to white operators who changed its name to the Royal and reopened with a show starring Fats Waller. Whites began flocking to the Royal to see Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, and Pearl Bailey perform on the Royal's grand stage. The Royal was on the same circuit as the Apollo in New York and the Howard in Washington. Playing the New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, circuit was called "going around the world." From the end of World War I until desegregation, Pennsylvania Avenue was the major business and entertainment center for Baltimore's African American community.

The Royal had a reputation for being tough on its acts. Musicians who had played both houses agreed that the Royal was even more discriminating than New York's Apollo. The finest musicians in the business played at the Royal. Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Louis Armstrong and the Peters Sisters (Mollie, Anne and Virginia) all appeared there in November 1940. The musician who commanded the podium at the Royal occupied the most enviable position on "The Avenue." It was also the most demanding. Rehearsal time was scant and arrangements had to be written and worked up in haste.

Rivers Chambers, whose name in Baltimore was synonymous with good music, led the Royal's orchestra from 1930 to 1937. Chambers was a student at Douglass High School when he began playing with professional bands all over town. The accordion and piano were his instruments of choice, but he was equally adept at the organ and violin. Chambers was succeeded by Tracy McCleary, a classically trained musician who began his career playing in the Oklahoma oil fields. McCleary would be the Royal's last conductor. Tracy's band, the Royal Men of Rhythm was made up of some of the best musicians in Maryland as well as a number of talented outsiders. Charlie "Bird" Parker played with the band for a time. McCleary and the Royal Men of Rhythm played it all: classical, jazz, swing, and later, rock 'n' roll?and they played well.

Many of the Maryland musicians who appeared at the Royal made important contributions to the world of popular music. The Orioles, the group that developed the doo-wop vocal harmony that provided the foundation of rock-and-roll, was organized in Baltimore (originally as the Vibra-Naires). Their first hit, "It's too soon to know," recorded in 1948, was the first recording in this genre. Led by Sonny Til (Earlington Carl Tilghman), the group included George Nelson, Alexander Sharp, Johnny Reed and Tommy Gaither. The Orioles can rightly be called the earliest rock-and-roll group. Their highly individualistic style made them a sensation at Harlem's Apollo Theater. They recorded a string of hit tunes, including "Tell Me So" in 1949, "Crying in the Chapel" in 1953 and "In the Chapel in the Moonlight" in 1954, the year the group disbanded. Sonny Til, known for his ethereal tenor voice, continued to record as a soloist until the year of his death in 1981. Headliners at the Royal often dropped in to clubs around town to jam with local bands.

Touring groups passing through Baltimore were not above raiding the Royal's orchestra when a vacancy cropped up in their own bands. Like many bandleaders, Lionel Hampton, who played at the Royal in 1942, had lost some of his musicians to the war effort. While at the Royal he learned that another, trumpet player Joe Newman, was leaving to go into the service. Hampton replaced him with a fine young trumpet player named Roy McCoy from the Royal Theatre's house band.

On January 6, 1965, the Royal held its last major show with Count Basie as its star, ending a grand tradition of presenting African American artists and musicians for mostly black audiences. As for Pennsylvania Avenue, "I don't know which died first," McCleary mused, "Pennsylvania Avenue or the Royal Theater." The destruction of the most important cultural icon of Baltimore's African American community in 1971 was, paradoxically, part of an urban renewal project.

Note: Much of the information for this entry comes from original source material, including newspaper and microfilm, from the archives of The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, the Maryland Historical Society, and the vertical files at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. The following secondary source may be of help for general background information on American and Baltimore theater:

Engle, Ron and Tice L. Miller, eds. The American Stage: Social and Economic Issues from the Colonial Period to the Present. England; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.