Big Ears in the White House: Obama's boomer soul, and predecessors

About Mark Stryker's Get Me High post from February...I lived less than 2 blocks away and was in there many nights after work for a few years. Yes, the bathroom was on the stage.

I remember the night when former president Jimmy Carter was there well. I was sitting at the bar before the show and my friend, Rick came in and told me the Secret Service was outside. I asked, "how do you know they're Secret Service?" Rick replied, "They're talking into their wrists. I stuck my head out the door and saw men in trench coats talking into their wrists.

Here's how he got there. President Carter's son, Chip, lived in Evanston, and liked the Get Me High, and so took his dad there.

At the end of the evening, we saw President Carter approach Peterson, who autographed a piece of his music and gave it to President Carter.

I loved the Gershwin prize show although it's a shame that Obama, who can clearly get down, felt he had to sit upright, with his hands properly crossed on his lap for most of this blazing hot concert. You just know he wanted to move it like he felt it! Maybe in his second term!

HM: See Stevie Wonder at the White House getting his Award from the Prez and starting "Signed Sealed & Delivered" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbdd1MGTwK8 (I think the rest of the performance clips must be up somewhere, too)

On the subject of Jimmy Carter and jazz, there is this story that I've been told: At some point in the '80s on a trip to Chicago, Carter asked some folks where to go to hear some great live jazz. He got directed to the Get Me High Lounge where saxophonists Ed Peterson and Lin Halliday were playing. The story as I heard it was that the secret service agents came in and cased out the join right before Carter entered. What's hilarious is that the Get Me High was among greatest dives you can imagine -- a crackerbox in which I remember that not only did you have to walk on the bandstand to get to the men's room but sometimes you literally might have to walk between band members.

Howard, I assume you were in Chicago at that point. Does this story ring a bell? (I should probably verify it sometime with Ed Peterson.)

HM: I lived in Chicago at the time and recall the Get Me High, such a dark joint I don't recall ever *seeing* a bathroom. Decent music, though. Good of Carter to venture there, I wonder who tipped him off. Probably Jim dj, the Man in Black (Chicagoans, including Ed Peterson, know of whom I speak).