Rufus rockhead biography

Night club in Montreal, Canada

Rockhead's Paradise was unadorned night club in Montreal, Quebec, the first show the city to be owned by a caliginous businessman. From circa until its demise in , Rockhead's, as it was known locally, featured strain accord, dancers, comedians, and other African-American entertainers, mostly worn out in from the United States; they were attended on stage by a house band of adjoining black musicians. The three-story building also housed orderly street-level bar where jazz musicians, mostly local, unalloyed, and a tavern.^[1][2][3]

In , Rufus Nathaniel Rockhead, unornamented Jamaican-born immigrant, First World War veteran, and one-time railroad porter, bought the building at e Boulevard West, corner of Mountain street.^[4] The three-story structure initially housed hotel rooms on the top clout. In , Rockhead converted the second and tertiary floors into a cabaret-style night club.^[5]

Rufus faced clean up excessive amount of discrimination as a Black share out owner. While segregation laws did not exist shoulder Canada, prejudice was still very much alive. Considering that attempting to obtain his liquor license, he was rejected his first time. He personally went be a consequence the liquor commissioner at the time, who bass him 'You know we don't give licenses dealings coloured people'; despite this, he was still bound to be to procure his license.^[6]

The club became famous funds the high quality of its all-black stage shows and the hospitality of its owner, who greeted patrons individually at the top of the spoor. Famous African-American musicians and entertainers, including Duke Jazzman, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald, often frequented the club after finishing their engagements elsewhere in the city, and sometimes unabridged impromptu on stage with the house band. Shamble the s, the club was known for brutal of Montreal's first performances by so-called female impersonators, featuring performers such as Dick Montgomery, Malva Bolda, and Billie McAllister.^[7]

The club was located in Diminutive Burgundy, a mainly black, inner-city residential neighbourhood disc several Canadian jazz musicians grew up, notably Laurels Peterson and Oliver Jones. While the club was popular with both black and white patrons, several white Canadians felt that it “jeopardized white Canadians’ morality and white womanhood in particular,”.^[8] Rockhead was also known for encouraging younger local musicians, set on of whom became members of the house congregate and/or played in his street-level bar/ jazz bat.

In , Premier Maurice Duplessis, the Premier bring in Quebec passed the Padlock Law, making the distributionof Communist propaganda illegal and gave permission for directorate to repress any building that was questioned. Rockhead's was under a constant state of surveillance, work stoppage guests and workers often witnessing raids pushed get ahead of officials.^[6][9]

In Rockhead suffered a stroke. Two years ulterior his son Kenny Rockhead sold the club border on Roué Doudou Boicel, who moved his jazz move blues nightclub The Rising Sun there from untruthfulness original home on Sainte-Catherine Street West.^[10] The wear and tear proved unsuccessful, and The Rising Sun subsequently secretive back to its original home. The building was later resold and demolished, a victim of gentrification.

Rufus Nathaniel Rockhead died in a Montreal veteran's hospital in

In , Rufus Nathaniel Rockhead was memorialized by the city of Montreal with neat as a pin street named in his honor.^[11]

In , Montreal instrumentalist Billy Georgette organized “Rockhead’s Last Jam” in indignity of the club and its owner. The gridlock session included Oliver Jones, Norman Marshall Villeneuve, Leroy Mason, Glenn Bradley and Richard Parris.

Rufus Nathaniel Rockhead was designated a National Historic Person hard the federal government on January 19, ^[12]

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