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Robinson Auditorium
Built in downtown Little Rock (Pulaski County) during the Great Depression as a Public Works Administration (PWA) project, the Joseph Taylor Robinson Memorial Auditorium—known since 1973 as the Robinson Center Music Hall—frequently hosts touring performances, including Broadway musicals, and is home to the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Named for Lonoke County native Joseph Taylor Robinson, who was governor of Arkansas and a U.S. senator, the Art Deco building on Markham Avenue near Broadway Street is a major Little Rock landmark.1
Prior to the construction of the Robinson Center, Little Rock’s largest auditorium for concerts and other public events was at Little Rock High School (now called Central High School). Senator Robinson, a strong supporter of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, helped to bring several major projects to Arkansas, including a new civic auditorium. Unlike other New Deal programs, the PWA required local funding to accompany federal dollars. On January 26, 1937, Little Rock voters approved a bond referendum to help fund the auditorium, as well as additions to the public library and a city park for African Americans.1
Construction of the auditorium began on December 27 of that year and was largely completed by December 8, 1939. The structure was received by the City of Little Rock on January 24, 1940, and formally dedicated on February 16, 1940. The building was named for Senator Robinson, who had supported its creation; he died in 1937. The total cost of construction was $855,000, more than $200,000 over the initial budget. In addition to the main stage and arena, including mezzanine and balcony seating, the building also holds lecture/exhibit halls and meeting rooms. As originally designed and built, the auditorium had two separate performance venues on an upper and lower level. Its team of architects included the firm of George Wittenberg and Lawson Delony, as well as associate architect Eugene Stern, all of whom had designed many other prominent buildings in Little Rock and around Arkansas.1
The first use of the auditorium was as a basketball court for high school games, but orchestral performances, ballet, and traveling theater rapidly came to the impressive new building. During the 1940s, the building also was used as a community center, offering ping pong, shuffleboard, bridge, checkers, and domino tournaments. Among the many famous performers and speakers to appear at the Robinson Memorial Auditorium in the 1940s were Louis Armstrong, Katharine Hepburn, Ella Fitzgerald, Mae West, Gene Autry, Bob Hope, Ethel Barrymore, Duke Ellington, Guy Lombardo, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Some performers would offer two shows on the same day to different audiences, one upstairs and one downstairs. Elvis Presley performed at the Robinson Center in 1955 and 1956; for the first appearance, he was paid $150, but he grossed $9,000 when he returned a year later.1
On February 20, 1955, Elvis, Scotty and Bill began a weeklong tour of Arkansas and Louisiana with their first appearance at the Robinson Auditorium. As advertised there were two shows that day, a 3 p.m. and an 8:15. Tickets sold at the box office for $1.00 for adults and .50 for children, while advanced tickets sold for .75 at Walgreens. Billed as both the “WSM Grand Ole Opry" show, and "All-Star Jamboree, it featured the Duke of Paducah, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, Charlie Stewart, the Singing Hardens, Sammy Barnhart, Bob Neal, Uncle Dudley and Smilin' Mac Cyclone. According to Lee Cotten, Charlie Stewart was another RCA Victor recording artist managed by Colonel Parker at the time and Uncle Dudley was the stage name for Ernest Hackworth of KTWN radio in Texarkana. Hackworth promoted this tour in conjunction with an old friend, Colonel Parker. Bonnie, Ernest’s first wife, and Marie Parker, the Colonel's wife, sold tickets, "Hack” acted as the program’s emcee, and the Colonel worked the crowd selling programs. The Colonel later offered Hackworth a part of Elvis’ contract for $3,000. Hackworth, who didn’t much care for rock ‘n roll, turned it down, preferring to remain in radio. It is believed that Gladys and Vernon Presley attended this performance, invited by Elvis who wanted to introduce them to the Colonel. Gladys was a big fan of the Duke of Paducah.2
Comedian and banjo player Benjamin Francis “Whitey” Ford was born in DeSoto, Missouri in 1901 and appeared on the Grand Ole Opry from 1942 to 1959. Ford originally developed the Duke character on the air of KWK-AM, St. Louis in the early 1930s and carried the character over to his own show with Red Foley in 1937, on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance. Ford’s signature tagline was “I’m going back to the wagon, these shoes are killing me.” They boys had only earlier that month begun their official association with Colonel Parker, Hank Snow and their Jamboree Attractions. After a meeting between shows at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis initiated by Bob Neal, their help had been enlisted for bookings. The first booking they got from them was in Roswell. The Colonel though had known of Elvis sometime before that and already had his sights on getting control. According to Bill E. Burk, Hackworth had seen Elvis earlier at the Hayride and is reputedly the one who called the Colonel and said, "There’s a kid at the Hayride tearing ‘em up. You’ve got to come down here and have a look." Oscar Davis though, is probably the first to have clued him in after meeting him at the Eagles Nest in Memphis the previous October.3 On August 3, 1955 they returned for their second appearance in Little Rock at the Robinson Auditorium. Billboard listed it as part of Bob Neal's "eighth anniversary tour" that started by drawing capacity crowds in Tupelo at the fairgrounds on the 1st. This tour featured Webb Pierce, Elvis, Scotty and Bill, Red Sovine, Wanda Jackson, Bud Deckelman and Charlie Feathers. Local attraction Sammy Barnhart was again added to the line-up in Little Rock and they played the night after in Camden, Arkansas, and concluded in Memphis on the 5th at the Overton Park Shell. Sonny James and Jim Wilson joined them in Memphis and Johnny Cash performed several dates on the tour as well.
According to Lee Cotten, the Little Rock show drew an estimated 3,000 and Gladys and Vernon Presley were remembered to have been on hand for this show. They drove to Little Rock specifically to meet again with Colonel Parker at Elvis’ insistence. As an extra incentive, the Colonel brought along Whitey Ford, the Duke of Paducah, who happened to be the Colonel’s neighbor in Madison, Tennessee. As mentioned earlier, the Duke was a favorite of Gladys. After all this attention the Presleys still did not sign a contract with Colonel Parker that would have allowed him to become Elvis’ "special advisor." They would however sign less than two weeks later, on the 15th, granting him exclusive territorial rights to book him in 47 cities and the exclusive right to negotiate any renewal to existing contracts on his behalf.2 Only several weeks before Elvis, Scotty and Bill had recorded what would be their last single for Sun, Mystery Train, the flip side of which was I Forget to Remember to Forget, written by Stan Kessler. According to Kessler, he needed a good demo of the song and got Feathers to sing it for which he gave him 50% of the royalties. According to Feathers though, Stan started the song and he finished it, also making the somewhat dubious claim that he worked out the vocal licks and taught Elvis the vocal arrangement.3 Feathers, originally from Holly Springs, MS, had been around Sun and Sam Phillips at least as early as October of 1954 and in 1955 started spending time at Sun on a regular basis. Colin Escott describes him as a superb stylist who made a handful of brilliant records though eclipsed by larger than life boasting. Frustrated at Sun, he went to Meteor records in May of 1956 and his trio would later tour on package shows with Warren Smith, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Horton and Roy Orbison. They would even make one appearance in Dallas on the Big D Jamboree but would never rise to more than an underground figure in Memphis.3
By their third and last appearance at the Robinson auditorium on May 16, 1956, the price of the show had
doubled to $1.50 in advance at Walgreens and $2.00 at the box office.
The ads featured 8 great acts in "his" variety show which consisted of
the Jordonaires; Rick and Emil Flaim and their orchestra; vocalists
Frankie Conners and Jackie Little and comedian-magician Phil Maraquin.
The review in the Arkansas Gazette the following day read:
In between shows backstage Elvis was interviewed by KLRA deejay Ray Green. Green started his career in radio in Little Rock where he developed his own daily radio show called 'The Ray Green Show'. He is said to have the highest rated radio audience in radio history for Arkansas. During the latter part of the interview before Elvis returns for the second show, Jackie Little backed by the Flaim brothers can be heard singing onstage.
Ray Green held on to that interview in his private collection and also a recording of one of Elvis' entire performances. Years later it was rediscovered and released though RCA on collector editions.
During the 1940s and 1950s, seating in the Robinson Center was often segregated by race. Music manager and promoter Jim Porter Jr. sought to overturn this policy in the wake of the desegregation of Little Rock’s school system. In 1961, he was arrested during a Ray Charles concert at the center for sitting among black audience members; other concerts by black performers such as Duke Ellington were canceled because of the segregated seating. By the time Louis Armstrong performed at the Robinson Center in September 1966, this policy had ended.1
In 1966, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra made the Robinson Memorial Auditorium its home. The building underwent extensive renovation in 1973, with underground parking added in the place of the lower performance hall. An attached hotel was erected to the east. At this time, the name was formally changed to the Robinson Center Music Hall. Famous acts continue to appear at the Robinson Center, including traveling Broadway shows such as Les Miserables, Riverdance, and Wicked. Since its renovation, the auditorium seats 2,609. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 21, 2007.1
Page added October 28, 2011 All 1956 ads and articles courtesy the Little Rock Public Library. 1
by Steven Teske ©
Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture March 7, 2011
According to the Internet Movie Database, after radio, Ray Green began acting in commercials, and got some small parts in different television series. Finally, he won the role of Lomax in his first and last feature film 'Axe', which also carried the name of 'Virgin Slaughter', 'California Axe massacre' & 'Lisa, Lisa. After 'Axe', he developed a line of motivational kits, and tapes called 'Redirectional Thinking' and traveled as a motivational speaker and a sales trainer, encouraging and training people all over the country. Ray Green now lives in Lafayette, Louisiana with his wife. He is involved part time in local public television, and still gives occasional interviews about his Elvis Presley interview. He has 4 children and 6 grandchildren. Ray is also the founder and president of the "I Met Elvis Fan Club."
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