Peckerwood Manor

Are you ready? DJ Li'l Scratch is bringin' the fire to the Manor's "Tube Steak Lounge" tonight with the alluring, the incomparable Miss  Abbe Lane. This hot-cha Broadway, movie and nightclub bombshell is the perfect way to heat up the holiday season, though honestly, she's welcome all year-round.  Did you know? She was called  "the swingingest sexpot in show business"  during her heyday in the 1950s and early 60s, and once said, "Jayne Mansfield may turn boys into men, but I take them from there." For that quote alone, how can you not like her?  Of her marriage to Francesc "Cugat" de Deulofeu, the famed and notoriously volatile Cuban-born bandleader - she was a teenager and he was thirty-years her senior! - she offered this terse sum-up, "Oh, those gossip columnists. He was never really mean to me. Just Latin." Or was there more to it? In 1992, she wrote the novel " But Where Is Love? " I haven't read it y...

Calling all hepcats! DJ Li'l Scratch is layin' down some swingin' tracks at the Manor's "Pork Sword" lounge tonight. But first, have you seen the 1980's sitcom "It's a Living?" If you have, then you know about "Sonny Mann," the comically boorish lounge singer played by Paul Kreppel (in a performance that used to annoy me, though now I find it oddly endearing). Photo: ABC Networks Kreppel had to have been lampooning Buddy Greco, at least vocally, a fantastic Vegas lounge singer who surely originated the phrases "Who loves ya', baby!" and "Ring-a-ding-ding!" and "The meatloaf's fantastic! We're open all night!" Photo: Getty Images And while I make fun of Buddy, his LP, "16 Most Requested Songs" is winningly primeval. This is how songs like "The Lady Is A Tramp" and "She Loves Me" were first performed - or so I imagine - and in fact, how they should always be perf...

Aren't you lucky! Tonight at Peckerwood's "Meat Whistle" after-hours club, DJ Li'l Scratch will be playing Teresa Graves. Who, you may ask, is Miss Teresa? Before we get to that, watch her performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1971. And brace yourself. It's a wowza.  Phew! Can you believe? If you're an old, you may recognize Teresa from " Get Christie Love ," a groundbreaking 1974 TV series in which she played the namesake undercover agent. Teresa was only the second Black female actor to lead a series - and the first to star in a one-hour series - and though the show lasted just one season, that was enough to burn her image into the nation's consciousness.  The show was hoping to ride the wave of sassy, sexy Pam Grier movies, like "Coffy" and "Cleopatra Jones," but it was perhaps too hot a potato for many, including TV critics, who regarded the show's premise of a Black female undercover agent as "p...

Are you freaking out about the election tomorrow? Me, too. Or maybe you're having a more generalized "It's Monday, oh-my-fucking-gawd" freak out? In either case, please allow Peckerwood Manor's esteemed DJ Li'l Scratch to take you away. Many of you already know about Li'l Scratch, as he regularly lays tracks at "Heavy D's," the Manor's exclusive after-hours club.  Today he's spinning Teri Thornton, a vibrant, husky-voiced jazz singer and piano player who hailed from Detroit. In 1961, she exploded onto the scene with her debut LP, "Devil May Care," demonstrating show-stopping vocal prowess. The reviews were through the roof and so was the public reception, yet just as suddenly - poof - she vanished after a few more LPs, her career thwarted by market changes given the rise of rock 'n' roll. And that was that. She was all but forgotten, reduced to driving a taxi to make ends meet.  But in a jaw-dropping comeback, she re...