Beale back when
Pee Wee’s Saloon on Beale Street was run by Vigelo Maffei along with his partner and son-in-law, Lorenzo Pacini. The two were always willing to take messages on the phone at the cigar counter from promoters, committee chairmen, funeral directors and anyone else booking musicians. Most of Beale Street’s musicians checked in there daily in the early part of the 20th century, trying to find another night’s work; the majority, W.C. Handy along with them, lived from one night to the next. In Handy’s autobiography, “Father of the Blues” he described the clientele; “glittering young devils in silk toppers and Prince Alberts ... chocolate dandies with red roses embroidered on cream waistcoats ... a fancy gal with shadowed eyes and a wedding-ring waist.”