![]() My husband didn’t know until years later that Tina was the same one he knew in school,” said Mrs. The Adams’ owned the Tangerine Lounge in Elyria for 12 years. Her husband had gone to school with Tina and Ike back in Ripley, Tenn. “My husband, Dale, knew Tina and Ike (Turner),” said Thelma Adams, of Elyria. Then there’s Tina “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” Turner. He said who was that man who came here and ate all the food?” “They want to be treated like everyday people,” said Brown of Thomas and other celebrities. I remember that my brother, Carl, got mad because Rufus had eaten up all the cornbread.” “Rufus loved hot water, cornbread and collard greens,” Blair said. He liked to talk, eat, drink, dance, shoot the breeze. Thomas wrote classic rhythm and blues hits such as “Walking the Dog,” a song the Rolling Stones performed on one of their early albums, and “Do the Funky Chicken.” When Thomas came to visit Brown and her mother, Daisy Blair, in their Reid Avenue home in the late 1970s, Brown said, “he just acted natural. ![]() One of those people was singer Rufus Thomas, with whom Brown was a friend in Memphis. Keeping in touch Brown said when blacks from Tennessee moved up to Lorain to work at the Ford plant in the late 1940s and early 1950s, they kept in touch with friends back home. Even back then, he was the showman,” said Tucker, who has been in the bar business for 42 years. Throwing the microphone around on stage, he amazed us. “He (Michael) was a little kid then, like 12 or 13 years old. The club was owned by the late Minerva (Davis) Barden. Frank Sipkovsky, of the Black River Historical Society, confirmed that the Palm Garden was on the corner of 14th Street and Broadway. ![]() Cleo Tucker, 76, of Lorain, owner of the Orchid Lounge on East 28th Street, remembers seeing the Jackson 5 perform at the Palm Garden, then at 14th Street and Broadway, which is now the site of Lorain’s main fire station. However, one family member did say that during the Jackson family visits Michael and his brothers did perform in Lorain. The Whitehead family did not wish to be interviewed for this story. And their shades were all pulled down,” Tipton said. But they wouldn’t open their doors to anyone. But by the time I got there, most of Lorain was already there. “I’d hop on my bike and pedal as fast as I could to the Whiteheads. “LaToya (Whitehead) would call me and her other friends and tell us to ‘hurry up and come down’ because the Jacksons were there,” said Twila Tipton, of Lorain, a school chum of LaToya Whitehead. “Of course, Michael Jackson was just a little-bitty boy back then,” Brown said. “They used to come from Gary, Ind., in the summertime to visit and they’d go to places together like Cedar Point,” Brown said. The Jackson family, Michael included, would visit the Whiteheads at their home on 17th Street off of Oberlin Avenue. The Whitehead family, of Lorain, are relatives of the Jacksons, said Charlesetta Brown, of Lorain. What has not been generally known is that many music stars and legends have performed in Lorain and have family and friends here. ![]() Its beat keeps the heart and soul going and its melodies and lyrics keep the hopes and dreams of residents alive and well. Music has always played a vital part in the life of Lorain. The first time Lorain bar owner Cleo Tucker saw Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five perform live on stage was not in Cleveland or Detroit. EDITOR’S NOTE: This begins a new, regular column in Light on Lorain about illustrious visitors and residents from the annals of Lorain history.
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