Robert Raiford, a Memphis legend, dies
Whether it was his outrageous attire — perhaps a gold-sequined vest underneath a long black cape, or maybe it was an all-white suit topped with a natty fedora — or his signature Cadillac, American flags flapping in the breeze, Robert Raiford was a man people noticed. That suited him just fine. “I may be coming down Main Street and they’ll say, ‘Who is that? Oh, wow. That’s somebody. That’s got to be some movie star or somebody or other. He’s not the brokest person on Earth. He’s got some style. He’s got some class about him,’” Mr. Raiford told The Commercial Appeal in 1997. “If you go out there and look at my cars, they both are nice-looking cars, but each one of those cars got their own style. If I can put the flags on the one and make it a little different and make people look at it, that’s all I want.”
Mr. Raiford, who operated the legendary Hollywood Raiford’s at 115 Vance for more than three decades, died March 22 of natural causes, his daughter Paula Raiford said. The man who called himself “Hollywood” was 75.
“He was a Memphis late-night entertainment icon. He was synonymous with music and disco,” said Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau head Kevin Kane, who entertained many a guest at Raiford’s. “Out-of-town tourists knew him, the locals revered him. He was one of those characters, one of those personalities who completely lit up a room. When people went to his places, they went there to see him.”
Born in Blytheville in 1941, Mr. Raiford grew up working on a plantation. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Raiford moved to Memphis and bought a Shell service station. He opened his first club, a joint called “Casablanca,” at Lamar and Willett, and also added a restaurant called Raiford’s Fine Food at Josephine and Park.
But it was in 1976 that Mr. Raiford made the move that would make him legendary across this city. That was when he first leased a cramped cinderblock building on Vance, calling it Hollywood Raiford’s. For years, the place was almost a secret but in the mid-’90s, word got out. That’s when people began flooding the disco, which gained a reputation for old-school soul music with Mr. Raiford himself usually manning the DJ booth. On some songs, he’d shake a pair of maracas. On others, he’d grab the microphone to encourage the dancers.
“This is a world within another world,” Mr. Raiford once said. “Once you get past that front door, you’re in a whole different environment.”
On a weekend night, there was often a line to get in that door. Once inside, patrons had two choices of beverage — quarts of Bud or Bud Light. Rolling chairs lined the tiny room. A chandelier hung over the bar. The wooden dance floor was in the back, surrounded by mirrors (”People love to look at themselves,” Raiford explained.) The smoke machine sometimes made the dance floor foggy. That’s where the real action took place, where people of all races and ages shook what they had. Raiford’s was a place that didn’t start hopping until well after midnight and didn’t stop hopping until the sun peeked out.
“It was iconic. It was ‘Who thought of this?’ It was eclectic,” said former Mayor A C Wharton, a familiar face to Mr. Raiford. “What really went through my mind was, ‘Where else would you find this other than a place called Memphis? If you’re (writing) a dictionary and you want to define Memphis, just put a picture of Raiford and his disco.”
It was also a place that occasionally attracted a bad element. In 2003, authorities shut the club down and arrested two employees for selling drugs inside. The club was allowed to reopen soon afterward, with Mr. Raiford painting a large sign on the outside wall that announced “No Illegal Drugs.”
But in 2007, Mr. Raiford surprised everyone by abruptly closing the club. One Saturday morning in May, he shut the place down at 4 a.m. It never opened again, at least as it once was.
“When I went to work Friday night, I had no intention that was gonna be my last night. I did not go down there to close Friday night, but my instinct in my mind told me, ‘Raiford, this is it,’ ” he told the newspaper. “Me being the sole owner and the entertainment, 32 years jumping up and down, that’s quite a long time.”
In 2009, though, Mr. Raiford and his daughter, along with investors, opened a new club on Second Street, a spot that continues today.
Back in 1997, Mr. Raiford told the newspaper that he planned to stay in his tiny club as long as he lived, a prediction that didn’t quite pan out. But he added another quote, one that might serve perfectly well as Mr. Raiford’s epitaph.
“Somebody’s gonna always say, ‘You know what? I remember when Raiford’s was there. I used to have some good times there.’ ”