Tapping Into Black History: Peg Leg Bates *LIVE* Special 🎙️

Transcription by Jerome Kazlauskas

[00:00:00] Brett Barry: Today's show was recorded live at the Emerson Resort & Spa on November 8, 2024. Welcome to "Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast," recording live from the Emerson Resort & Spa in Mount Tremper, New York, where we're getting to know Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates with our guest Elinor Levy, Folk Arts Program Manager at Arts Mid-Hudson. I'm Brett Barry, and this is "Kaatscast." Welcome to the show. The story of Peg Leg Bates might have started just over 100 years ago when Clayton Bates lost a leg in a farming accident, but the "Kaatscast" angle started earlier this year when our neighbors Kathleen and Boyd joined us for an interpretive tour of the Amistad, which was decked or docked at the Rondout. Driving back home, we passed a sign on Route 209 that we've probably all passed many times, and it reads "Peg Leg Bates Memorial Highway," and Kathleen said something like...

[00:01:12] Kathleen McNenny: Hey, who's that?

[00:01:14] Brett Barry: And honestly, I used to wonder who this woman Peg was, and I'm sure I looked it up a while back, but I couldn't remember, so the research began, and it's not a woman, it's a man, and his name is Clayton. Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates, and so I started researching on my phone in Kathleen and Boyd's car. Here's what I found. Born October 11, 1907, in a small South Carolina town, Clayton Bates took to dancing at age five and lost a leg at age twelve in a cotton gin. Three years later, his uncle fashioned him a peg leg, and then Peg Leg Bates launched his career on the Black vaudeville circuit. By twenty, he was on Broadway with what the New York Times called an energetic blend of soft shoe, tap, and jitterbug. In fact, he would become one of the greatest tap dancers of all time. "The Ed Sullivan Show" featured him at least 21 times. Here's a clip.

[00:02:21] [TV Clip]: We're here with dancing star Peg Leg Bates, so let's welcome him back warmly with a really big hand.

[00:02:29] Brett Barry: Arts Mid-Hudson in Poughkeepsie recently hosted the exhibit "Peg Leg Bates: The Performance Years," and Elinor Levy was at the helm of that show. Elinor, welcome to "Kaatscast."

[00:03:09] Elinor Levy: Thank you.

[00:03:11] Brett Barry: How did you come to discover Peg Leg Bates?

[00:03:15] Elinor Levy: Well, I first have to say I grew up in Oakland, California, so I knew nothing. All I knew of the Catskills was, of course, "Dirty Dancing," and I did, although I did go to another resort once for a conference, and I certainly didn't know about Peg Leg Bates. I started work at Arts Mid-Hudson in 2016, and in September 2016, about a month or so later, I met Geoff Miller, who is the Ulster County Historian, and once we got to know each other, and he sort of got to know my work, he came to me and he said, "Look, there's this person I've really wanted to research and study, but I just don't know how to go about it, how to get started, and like, okay." He said, "It's a man named Clayton 'Peg Leg' Bates, who is a one-legged African-American tap dancer," and that's all he had to say to me, and I was in, and he had actually met Peg Leg Bates. Geoff had been a teacher in the school district around Kingston, so he had first encountered Peg Leg Bates during one of the shows that Peg Leg Bates would do in the schools, and that sort of sparked his interest, and that kept going, and once he told me about him and I did some more research, I was like, "We have to," and of course, I had no idea that there was anything, I mean, I didn't know there was anything with Jewish resorts up here in the Catskills, so it was first like finding out there were not Jewish resorts and then that there was this African-American interracial resort was really mind-boggling to me, and it took us a couple more years to sort of get going, and ultimately I was able to raise some money, and we were able to do the project, which took about two years and really isn't done yet.

[00:04:53] Brett Barry: Can you explain the exhibit and who else was involved in that project?

[00:04:57] Elinor Levy: We were very, like, so the other sort of impetus for the project is that we had an architectural student from, and I can't remember her name offhand unfortunately, who contacted us, who was at Ithaca at Cornell, and she was doing some work on vernacular architecture, which is architecture that you find in local communities. It's a build according to local traditions, and she had found out about the Peg Leg Bates Resort and wanted to actually go and measure the buildings, which is what vernacular architects do, and couldn't get access, and so she sort of found Geoff, and then Geoff put me in touch with her, and we all sort of gathered together. Unfortunately, we were never able to gain access to the property, although the property itself is really interesting. I'd love to talk about that, and then Dave Davidson came in. Dave Davidson of Hudson West Productions made the documentary called "Dancing Man" that [actually] we got to see last week at the Borscht Belt Film Festival about Peg Leg Bates and had known Peg Leg Bates sort of towards the end of his life, and that sort of got the ball rolling. We, you know, and Geoff and I talked. To be honest, we had some concerns of two nice Jewish white people doing this work on Peg Leg Bates, but talked it over with the Black community in Kingston, who was deep into the African burial ground that was found there, and they said, "We trust you," so we went on to do this work. I was able to bring in some interns, and the true product is the webpage. If you go to artsmidhudson.org and go to the "Folk Arts" page, you can link to the webpage about Peg Leg Bates, but I also was able to access many of the posters that featured him in the shows that he did around the world, and so that's what we did for the exhibit. We had copies of the posters. He actually performed with the Harlem Globetrotters, among other people. He performed in Australia. He performed before royalty in England. I mean, he really made it. You know, lots and lots of places before coming home to the U.S.

[00:06:59] Brett Barry: I read that he performed for the King and Queen in 1952.

[00:07:02] Elinor Levy: Yes, yeah, so that would have been around the beginning of Elizabeth's reign.

[00:07:08] Brett Barry: You mentioned Dave Davidson, who produced a documentary called "The Dancing Man," and he gave us permission to use this clip from his film, so I'm going to play that now.

[00:07:23] [Film Clip]: Don't look at me in sympathy. I'm glad that I'm this way. I feel good, and I'm knocking on wood as long as I can sing. I mix light fantastics up with hot gymnastics. I'm Peg Leg Bates, the one-legged dancing man.

[00:08:50] Brett Barry: So what does that say about the man? He lost a leg and decided, "I'm going to dance."

[00:09:01] Elinor Levy: It's pretty amazing, and for those of you who are going to listen to this later and can't see what happened, [a] you can go to the web page and see the clip, but his signature move was actually landing on the peg leg, which was really hard on his leg, harder than that, like, and he, you know, no two-legged tap dancer can emulate what he does because of the particular syncopation of, you know, the tapping with the foot and then with the peg leg, although there is a one-legged tap dancer Evan Ruggiero who dances now known as Lord Peg Leg, but the other, it was the other leg, and I don't even think he's tried to replicate that move. You can correct me if I'm wrong, Evan, but it just... It says, "It's so much about resilience that he didn't want to give up," and in a sense, proving to his mother because he was born to sharecroppers and he really wanted to bring in money and work in the cotton gin, and his mother said, "No, no, no," and she prayed on it, and she said, "Yes," which of course she immediately regretted. When he lost his leg, which, by the way, they operated on his kitchen table because, of course, he wasn't allowed in the hospital, and I think just from that early age, he's like, I'm going to make something of myself. I'm going to do what I need to do, and he did, and not only did he perform around the country, he also, you know, it was really hard on Black performers then, you know, there was a specific booking agent that they could use, and of course the green laws were in effect about where they could stay, and Black performers were not only not paid better, paid as well as white performers. They were often scammed out of their money, and he was scammed, I think, twice and made a decision that that wasn't going to happen. You know, he had to... at least once, he had to call his mother for money, and he was like, "I can't do that again," and she said, "You can't do that again," so he really figured out how to save money, and so he was a shrewd businessperson on top of that. In a time, I mean, still today, you know, we hear that it's hard for people of color in the music industry to get fair pay, and certainly back then it was a lot harder than that, and you know, where they could stay. I think they were probably treated better in Europe and around the world than they were in their own home country. You know, the places they could stay where they could perform were always up for grabs, and you know, having to leave town fast if necessary, and one of the most significant things to me that I'm still trying to research and having not a lot of luck is he went to perform in Washington, D.C., but Blacks were not allowed to perform on the stage, so he had to wear blackface to cover the fact that he was Black on a stage in Washington, D.C., which, of course, this week feels very significant, so again, if anybody has more information about that, please let me know because we're dying to get a little more to the bottom of that.

[00:12:02] Brett Barry: That's amazing. I read that he had performed in blackface, and I was scratching my head on that one, so...

[00:12:06] Elinor Levy: Yeah, it was because he wasn't allowed on the stages, so...

[00:12:12] Brett Barry: Talk a little bit about how he was a pioneer in other ways, either for Black entertainers or disabled entertainers, or just as a Black businessman in that time period.

[00:12:21] Elinor Levy: Well, I think certainly for Black entertainers, and him taking control of his finances in that way and making sure that, you know, he didn't get rooked a second or third time, which was kind of significant, and he was a pretty strong character, you know, and certainly there weren't many disabled entertainers at that time, let alone a one-legged tap dancer, so that was pretty significant in itself, and then the decision to be an entrepreneur and the story that goes with that is that he was performing at Grossinger's and he was standing with another Black performer or his brother. I can't quite remember that part, but he looks out at the audience, and he turns to him and says, "Where are we basically? Where are we in this? And there weren't." There was Father Divine, who's another character in this area... did have some sort of resort, but it's a little hazy on exactly what that was, and he decided he wanted Peg Leg Bates decided he wanted to open an interracial resort where anyone could come, and what's interesting is he opened this resort in what used to be a chicken farm or a turkey farm, and they renovated the buildings into cabins and things like that where people could stay, and at that point he was already performing in the schools for the children, and they would go home and tell Mom and Dad, and then the next thing you know there would be carpenters and electricians and plumbers showing up the site saying, "What can we do? How can we get this off the ground?" And so, you know, he already... I think he's not just a good businessman, but he was a communitarian. I mean, that's what his true cachet is—that he wanted to give back to the community in any way that he could, so he performed in the schools as fundraisers. He would perform for veterans groups. He would talk with people who had disabilities or were even suffering from some sort of addiction and say, "If I can do it, you can do it," and I think that's the true attitude and just what appears to be a completely sunny nature that he was always able to look at the positive side and the ability to offer people this space. There were three ways to stay at the resort. You could come up for the week and stay all week, and apparently the food was really good, and you could come up for like a weekend, but I think the most significant thing, which did happen at some of the other resorts, is that dozens of buses would leave New York, I think Philadelphia, on Saturday and Sunday morning, and you would come up for the day, and for a small fee you had the run of the place. I think there were trail rides, and there was... I don't think there were horses, but there were bikes, and there was hiking and the pool, and people would party on the bus all the way up, and they would come out with their big coolers of food and stuff, and Peg Leg would come and come up in like his golf cart, and the women would line up. He was also very, very handsome, as you can see, and very, very confident, and the women would just line up to get pictures taken with him, and then at the end of the day, at like 5:00-5:30, he would do a floor show, and then they would get back on the buses and go back to the city, and I think that's incredibly significant that you could find a way for one day to be up in this beautiful area and get to see, meet, and see Peg Leg Bates perform.

[00:16:03] Brett Barry: You mentioned Grossinger's. Did the Borscht Belt inspire him to create this resort for the Black community?

[00:16:10] Elinor Levy: I think so. I think it was very much that, you know, in the same way that the Jewish resorts came up, and there were also Latino resorts too [Italian, Latino, and Irish], but one of the ways you knew what type of resort it was and whether you were welcome [especially if you were not Christian] was if the sign said, "Sunday Services," you knew that that wasn't the resort for you, that, you know, very subtle, but you knew it wasn't for you, and you would go to one of the, you know, Grossinger's or one of the other ones, which I thought was very interesting sort of how to figure out where you belonged.

[00:16:48] Brett Barry: So let's talk about his resort a little bit more. He established it in 1951 in Kerhonkson, right here in the Catskills, and at the Peg Leg Bates Country Club, guests were told, "You will not be robbed, you will not be mugged," and signs were posted, and they warned, "We have karate experts on the premises."

[00:17:07] Elinor Levy: I don't think they did, but yeah, it was a safe place. It was a safe place, not just for people from New York City, because during the off-season he and the band and Ms. René Bailey would travel down south to drum up business so people came from all over because it was a safe place to be and there just weren't that many of them for the Black community, and then there was the nightclub, and it went through a number of name changes because every time he tried to settle on a name, oh, you can't use resort, you can't use casino, you can't use this, you can't use that. He also... You could just come up for the night and just go to the nightclub, and you also... It's really great because there's another place you never knew who was going to be there who might show up because he knew everyone, and people would come up from the city and perform sort of off the cuff.

[00:17:55] Brett Barry: The resort had a swimming pool, a roller disco rink, all-you-can-eat buffets, a bike path, the Broadway floor show... They got to hobnob with Peg Leg himself, and he would come out theatrically on Saturday, I think, Saturday morning. The guests would anticipate this, so, you know, it's kind of nice that the—or, you know, interesting—the Catskills have long welcomed visitors seeking respite in one way or another in the Borscht Belt, and as you said, "The Latina resorts, and this first Black resort of the Catskills, may be the only one I don't know."

[00:18:27] Elinor Levy: It wasn't the only one, but it was certainly the one that was most proud. I would say most famous.

[00:18:32] Brett Barry: Did you get to meet guests or employees of that resort in your research, and what were some of the stories that came out of that?

[00:18:38] Elinor Levy: Well, it was really funny because I've been, I was doing this research, and I was actually on a, I'm trying to remember where we were. Oh, we were on our way to Syracuse, I think, for a meeting every year [the folklorists of New York], we'd get together for what we called the Roundtable, and I was on the train, and I knew there were two other women on the train from New York, Baritha Reddy and Sandra, I can't remember Sandra's last name, who are African-American, and I went back to chat with them, and I said, and they said, "Oh, what are you working on these days at Peg Leg Bates?" And Baritha said, "I spent a summer working there," and so she... It was her second job ever, and she had seen an advertisement. She was living in one of the boroughs, and she'd seen an advertisement, and she came up for at least one summer, lived in one of the cabins, and worked at the resort. She said it was a lot of fun, you know, to work at the resort. I think he was a good employer, and so a lot of young Black people did come up to work at the resort during the summer.

[00:19:36] Brett Barry: And not only was it a safe place for Black people, but it was also a place where they could escape the city heat, and it was, for many people, their first experience, you know, enjoying nature and seeing trees like that.

[00:19:49] Elinor Levy: Probably, yeah.

[00:19:50] Brett Barry: According to some of the reports I read.

[00:19:51] Elinor Levy: The guests, you know, I've met guests, mostly who have been locals who stayed and, you know, would go up for the day or go up for an evening at the nightclub, and they said, "It was just fun." It was a lot of fun, and he was such a consummate performer, and the music was always good, and Ms. René was his singer for over 20 years, and her voice—I'm sorry she couldn't be here tonight. Her voice is still as powerful as it was then. You know, I sort of joke that she sits down to sing now, which a lot of people don't do, but you would never... Her voice is as powerful sitting as mine will ever be standing, and you know she tells some wonderful stories about being with him and about traveling with him. You know what it was like to travel under the Green Book in the South, you know, even with this extremely famous person and his involvement in the community? I think the other thing that's so important is that he gave back to the community by doing these charity events where he would raise money, but also there's the Samsonville Methodist United Church, which is just a little church up the street [tiny little church], and maybe we'll talk about it more, but he helped. He would let them, the ladies, sell crocheted items and other things at the resort to raise money for the church and to build their social hall, which is bigger than the church itself, and I did have a wonderful Sunday afternoon after church with some of the church members about two or three years ago, where they sat and told the stories and showed me pictures because they really took him in, and one of the last pictures of him alive is actually at his birthday party with a cake [wonderful cake in front of him], but he really supported the church. Ms. René was also their choir leader, and on Sundays my understanding is that he would go to church, and anyone who was at the resort was welcome to come with him, so this little church during the season was probably full to the brim, and Ms. René recalls she knew exactly when he entered, and she knew exactly when he was ready to start singing because his voice was so, so crystal clear, and I love that about who he was and how he related to people.

[00:22:13] Brett Barry: We actually have someone in the audience who has a firsthand experience with Peg Leg Bates, and Purdy Halstead tells me that Peg Leg was at his wedding, so Purdy, can you tell us a little bit about that experience?

[00:22:26] Audience: Yes, he was at the wedding. He's... I'm a member of that church in Samsonville. Married there and everything, and René Bailey is a member also, so I was... I'd sing in the choir too with René, but we moved up in 2000-2001, and Peg wasn't as active in the church at that time, but he donated things. He donated the organ, a Baldwin organ, for the church. He donated a carpet for the church. The carpet has since worn out. We've had to replace it, but he donated those things. I remember also, I was, I worked for the state, and I was at SUNY New Paltz. There was some sort of a, had tables, and you had a, well, I don't know if it was a transportation bond issue or something, but I was supposed to be representing the state on the other side of the curtain. There was a seminar going on, and I heard Peg Leg Bates' voice. I poked my head around it. Yeah. Hey, let's start talking to the students at SUNY New Paltz, so when I had a break in the action, I went over and introduced myself and said, "He was there for a lot of roles if it was an inclusion or something, but he was active in the community as well, not just in the local community but through SUNY New Paltz." One time the church had some financial difficulties, you see. I'll do a benefit, so he did a benefit at the Peg Leg Bates Country Club. The proceeds went to help offset the expenses of the church. He was very active in the community.

[00:24:03] Brett Barry: How did he come to be at your wedding, Purdy?

[00:24:06] Audience: He was active in the church. My parents [my wife's parents] knew him and were active in the church, and they said, "Well, when we're inviting people to the wedding, let's invite Peg Leg Bates, and so I'm gonna came. It was good.

[00:24:24] Brett Barry: Did he perform, or was he just there to enjoy?

[00:24:26] Audience: He just enjoyed... He was at that stage of his life where enjoying was good.

[00:24:31] Brett Barry: What year was that, Purdy?

[00:24:32] Audience: 1964. I can remember in 1963, I think, or '62, they had the benefit. I can remember buses coming up with people going to the country club and going back after the weekend, yeah.

[00:24:48] Brett Barry: Wow, thank you. So the resort closes in 1987... The dwindling crowd was attributed to a very good problem integration... Blacks and whites vacationing in the same resorts, there wasn't quite the need for a Black resort, so what happened to the property, Elinor?

[00:25:13] Elinor Levy: He actually, well, it was after his wife Alice passed away because she was really the business side of the equation. I think he lost a little bit of interest, a little bit of oomph, because Alice was gone, and he did sell it to another couple. I think they were Jamaican, and they tried to run it, and it didn't quite work, and I think he took it back for a little while. Then ultimately it was sold to a woman who, unfortunately, was killed on the property during Hurricane Sandy when a tree fell on her. Then I think it lay fallow for a long, long time. Most recently, it's been bought by someone who is supposed to be opening some sort of equestrian center, but we don't know the state of that because I was going up there every six months or so... I never went on the property because that's trespassing, and I didn't want to do that. We did fly a drone over it. Stephen Blauweiss and his wife, Karen Berelowitz, did because I found out legally you can fly a drone over. Unfortunately, it was a really sunny day, so we didn't get a lot, but it's pretty dilapidated, and I don't know where this woman was waiting for everything just to fall in. I know that when I started doing this work, I just happened to meet a tap dancer named Joel Hanna, who used to dance with, now I can't remember, you know, the group up here.

[00:26:34] Brett Barry: Oh.

[00:26:37] Elinor Levy: Vanaver Caravan, that's it, and I just happened to be at a performance they were doing, and he was dancing, and I went up to him and said, "Look, I'm doing this work on Peg Leg Bates," and he's like, "What are you doing?" Let's get this, and we had hoped to put together some sort of tap dance extravaganza, but he really wanted to see if he could buy the property back, and a number of other tap dancers really would like to purchase the property if they could and bring it, you know, to some sort of life as a dance center or something that, unfortunately, hasn't happened, and then as things happen with research, I moved on, but more recently I was giving a talk at the Ellenville Library, and I met a woman named Tanya Williams who's from this city. She's a retired police officer, and she has a building in Kerhonkson that... It was either her father's or her uncle's tavern, and she's been talking to me for the past year about wanting to open a Peg Leg Bates Museum up here. There's a small one down in Fountain Hill, where he's from South Carolina, that she really wants to open that, and maybe alongside with a community center, so you know I've been trying to put her in touch with people, and just the other... Last night, I was like, I forgot about Joel, and so I put them in touch with each other today because after the resort closed and Alice passed away, he did a lot of work in the city with tap dancing with performances and things, working with Aimee Mann and Toes Tiranoff, who did give us an interview, and doing performances like that well into, you know, before he passed away.

[00:28:17] Brett Barry: He retired, so to speak, from show business in 1989 but continued to perform for audiences of children [the elderly, the disabled, and advocating].

[00:28:28] Elinor Levy: Advocating that you can do anything you put your mind to...

[00:28:30] Brett Barry: Yeah.

[00:28:31] Elinor Levy: ...which is just amazing, and one of my favorite stories that I heard from one of the gentlemen from... At the church was, actually, it's like a secondhand story, but he had a friend whose father lost his leg in, I believe, World War II or maybe a little later in Korea or Vietnam, and Peg Leg would go visit him, and this young man, the son, would sit on the steps, and he would listen to the two men talk, and then they would get up and dance, and that's the vision I always think of, you know, of Peg Leg Bates and this other gentleman, each with their one leg and their peg legs dancing, you know, and the other story I love is he did try a prosthetic leg, and he wore it during a tour in Europe. I don't think he wore it dancing, and when he came home—and this, of course, is when you still took a ship to Europe and back—he got off the boat, and he was wearing the prosthetic leg, and he walked right past his mother. His mother didn't recognize him, and he was like, "Nope, gotta start." Another great story is he, of course, knew like Jerry Lewis and that whole crowd, and at one time Jerry Lewis noticed he only had one peg leg or maybe two, maybe a backup, and so we talked to at least Melody. Melody told me the story of his daughter, that they somehow were able to get the leg, you know, get one of the legs, and Jerry Lewis had five more made for him. I mean, that's, you know, that's the type of man he was that you wanted to do these things for, and I think the command that he [the respect that he commanded], you know, was on par with Sammy Davis Jr.

[00:30:16] Brett Barry: Peg Leg died in 1998, and two years later, Governor George Pataki signed into law a bill: the renaming of a 35-mile stretch of U.S. Route 209 in Ulster County [The Peg Leg Bates Memorial Highway], so I think we've come full circle. I hope that answered your question, Kathleen, on who Peg Leg Bates is. I had to go through all of this just to satisfy that. Elinor, can we open this up for some Q&A?

[00:30:46] Elinor Levy: Absolutely.

[00:30:47] Brett Barry: Great! If anyone has a question, raise your hand, and Olivia will come over with a microphone.

[00:30:51] Audience (2): My question is... He had this prosthetic leg. Did he have the same prosthetic leg throughout his entire lifetime? Because it looks very primitive, and you know he's been dancing, you know, into the '60s and '70s, correct?

[00:31:08] Elinor Levy: His first peg leg was made by his uncle, but as he, you know, grew in age—and this is not my understanding of him, but sort of my understanding of people who've lost limbs, the shape changes, and of course because he was dancing, there were times when he would leave a dent in the floor, so I think there had to be a continuing shift of peg legs, but I think that's the style he just preferred that was the easiest for him to dance in.

[00:31:34] Audience (2): It worked for him.

[00:31:34] Elinor Levy: It worked for him.

[00:31:36] Brett Barry: And when he talked about a prosthetic leg, it wouldn't have the same effect acoustically.

[00:31:40] Elinor Levy: No.

[00:31:40] Brett Barry: He knew how to work that.

[00:31:41] Elinor Levy: Yeah, I don't think he could dance in it. I think he just thought he might wear it around the town sort of thing but realized that wasn't him.

[00:31:48] Brett Barry: But dancing, it had like a percussive quality that he knew how to capture that and harmonize with the other foot.

[00:31:54] Elinor Levy: Right, exactly, in a way that no one, you know, two-legged tap dance cannot replicate, and I don't think even Evan Ruggiero has managed to capture quite that.

[00:32:07] Audience (3): Did he give himself the name of Peg Leg Bates, or was that, I mean, as an entertainer, was that?

[00:32:12] Elinor Levy: You know, I honestly don't know the answer to that. I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, I could say 50/50 he gave it to himself and 50/50 that was the gimmick that was used. I mean, who's not going to hire a one-legged...

[00:32:26] Audience (3): Right, right, because I only ever knew him as—I didn't even know his first name, and I passed by that sign all the time, and I just never, I just, Clayton just kind of, just never... It was always just Peg Leg Bates. That was his name.

[00:32:37] Elinor Levy: Yeah, I'll have to ask Ms. René if she knows the next time I talk with her.

[00:32:41] Audience (3): It's interesting because Ms. René, I actually met her. She sang at the funeral of my best friend in Olivebridge, and so she, as she does... She has this amazing, an amazing voice, just an amazing voice.

[00:32:54] Brett Barry: We'll put a link in the show notes to Ms. René Bailey.

[00:32:56] Elinor Levy: Yeah, and she does have a CD out with a variety of songs on it that she did a couple of years ago. I had the opportunity to sit down and do a Zoom with her, and I brought in a young singer, Rosa María Reynoso, who's a Taino Dominican Republic singer. Check her out. She's amazing, and I had her do the interview because I really loved the old and the new, and at one point they both, they didn't sing together, which was sad, but they, you know, they sang for each other. It was really beautiful to hear her and to have a young singer interview her, like, "This is what I want, you know? How did you, how did you get here? It was really wonderful."

[00:33:39] Kathleen McNenny: I came in a little late. I just want to know. You said something about the family working [in] some crops?

[00:33:45] Elinor Levy: His father, well, his father was pretty absent. His mother was a sharecropper.

[00:33:51] Kathleen McNenny: And they were not New Yorkers?

[00:33:53] Elinor Levy: No, they were in South Carolina [Fountain Hills, South Carolina].

[00:33:56] Kathleen McNenny: And how did they then finally settle here?

[00:33:59] Elinor Levy: Well, he settled here.

[00:34:00] Kathleen McNenny: He settled.

[00:34:01] Elinor Levy: He settled here. I'm sure he came up with... Because he performed in the Catskills and, of course, performed in New York many times, and I think between that, you know, he was looking for land, and this was the land he could afford.

[00:34:14] Kathleen McNenny: And, Ms. René, how old is she now?

[00:34:17] Elinor Levy: I think she's 90-something.

[00:34:19] Kathleen McNenny: Yeah, I saw her at that church about five years ago, and I didn't realize who she was now that you say it. I realize now she was in conjunction with, thank you, Brett.

[00:34:31] Brett Barry: We tried to get Ms. René here tonight, but her health wouldn't allow it.

[00:34:37] Elinor Levy: Oh, I'm sorry, so Ms. René was his singer, his lead singer, for about 20 years at the resort. Well, and with the band when they toured, and after that she then... When she sings around here, she often sings with the Saints of Swing, which is a band led by David Winograd, and David, I want to say a shout-out to David Winograd, who was also a tremendous help because he knew Peg Leg Bates [and he's a musician] in doing the research as well and getting us people, and it was amazing. I would just, I would, anybody I met, you know, what do you work in? Peg Leg Bates. Oh, I know this person. I know that person, or my uncle did this, and sort of tracking some of those things down has been kind of fascinating.

[00:35:20] Kathleen McNenny: So I just want to clarify again, so Ms. René met Peg Leg here in the Catskills.

[00:35:26] Elinor Levy: Here, yes, she moved up here with her husband to work, and he heard her sing, and sort of the story goes, he brought her in to sing for a night, and he goes, "Well, why don't you come back next week?" And he did that a couple of times, and he finally said, "You know, why don't you just stay?"

[00:35:44] Kathleen McNenny: So she was part of the band that was part of the resort.

[00:35:48] Elinor Levy: Yes, exactly.

[00:35:49] Kathleen McNenny: Oh, I see. She didn't tour with him.

[00:35:51] Elinor Levy: She did.

[00:35:52] Kathleen McNenny: Oh, and then she actually went on the road with him as well.

[00:35:54] Elinor Levy: And yeah, when they went on the, so once the season closed, they would go on the road down south to drum up base business, and you know she talked about that and what it was like to tour the Green Book laws and Jim Crow and how they would modify what they sang for the audience. They would really sort of riff off the audience.

[00:36:15] Kathleen McNenny: Great, great. I hope we'll hear a little of her singing in this podcast.

[00:36:19] Brett Barry: Well, now I have to make that happen.

[00:36:22] Kathleen McNenny: Did he have children?

[00:36:23] Elinor Levy: Yes, he had one daughter, Melody, who worked at the resort in, I believe, the souvenir shop. Melody actually lives next door to where the resort was, and the house was given to her by Moms Mabley as, I believe, a wedding present for her and Preston.

[00:36:41] Audience (2): So he had his own orchestra?

[00:36:44] Elinor Levy: Yes, he did.

[00:36:44] Audience (2): And was it a large orchestra?

[00:36:46] Elinor Levy: It was, it doesn't look to have been a large orchestra when you look at the stage. I mean, probably the band is a better representation. It probably had the usual drummer, piano, bass guitar...

[00:36:57] Audience (2): Right, right, and they traveled with him.

[00:36:59] Elinor Levy: ...and they traveled with him.

[00:37:01] Audience (2): Thank you.

[00:37:03] Female Speaker: Has there been any biography written of him?

[00:37:06] Elinor Levy: There is a children's book.

[00:37:08] Brett Barry: It's called "Knockin' on Wood," I think.

[00:37:10] Elinor Levy: Yeah, "Knockin' on Wood," and it's a very nice, it's actually a really nice book. I don't know. There's so much information out there on websites and stuff, I don't, a book just about him would be kind of short, but I think placing him within the context of the civil rights movement and Black entrepreneurship would be more, would be interesting, and there's at least one story about the, not just the civil rights movement and people coming up here, but, you know, he also was very aware that once you, once Blacks and people of color could go anywhere they wanted, that it was going to end, and it was sort of a bittersweet ending. When we opened the exhibit, these two wonderful people, who I will give a shout-out to in Kingston, who run... They run Seasoned Delicious, a really wonderful Jamaican restaurant, and they own Seasoned Giving. They run Seasoned Giving, which is a charitable organization, but Tamika and Dominique... Martin, excuse me. Tamika and Martin Dunkley: They also run the Caribbean festival every year, but they are training Black entrepreneurs. That's their goal, so I had them come and talk about the importance of Black entrepreneurship in the context of Peg Leg Bates, so I think that's where a really good discussion can happen: "What happened to Black entrepreneurship?" Post-civil rights, which unfortunately led to the demise of Black entrepreneurship because you could suddenly go and shop anywhere.

[00:38:40] Brett Barry: Is that discussion available?

[00:38:42] Elinor Levy: I don't think we taped it. I don't remember.

[00:38:44] Brett Barry: But there are quite a few others that are available on the site.

[00:38:46] Elinor Levy: Right.

[00:38:46] Brett Barry: Can you tell us what that site is?

[00:38:47] Elinor Levy: Oh, the site, so if you go to artsmidhudson.org and then follow to the "Folklore" page, you'll find a link to the Peg Leg Bates project among some other things that we do at Arts Mid-Hudson in the folk arts program, but also you can access Martinique and Tamika through Seasoned Giving because they continue to do projects around... They do one every year called "Circulation of the Black Dollar," which circulates faster within a community than other dollars do, and so there is a... I see them as sort of continuing work. They're not entertainers necessarily, but they're doing this work that he started in entrepreneurship.

[00:39:25] Brett Barry: Nice.

[00:39:27] Audience (4): So you mentioned the Ed Sullivan performances. Was he also in films?

[00:39:33] Elinor Levy: He did. He played a pirate. I again, I can't remember the name of the film, but he played a pirate in a film and danced and sang, so yeah, he did a little bit of film, but I think being on "The Ed Sullivan Show," I think he's the performer who was on "The Ed Sullivan Show" the most, more than 21 times.

[00:39:54] Kathleen McNenny: I was going to ask about... You were talking about entrepreneurship. I would think all of this would be very expensive to start a resort and to pay for a band and the singers, and did he have investors or how did he? Because you said they also weren't making a lot of money on the circuit.

[00:40:09] Elinor Levy: I think he saved up, and I think the land was cheap because it had been a turkey farm, and I think there was pretty, you know, the minute they opened, people were coming up, and it wasn't that expensive, as far as we could tell. The Borscht Belt Museum actually has a brochure of, you know, of the, and how much it costs, and so I think most of the money was his. I don't think he had any investors. The other thing we're searching for [in addition to trying to find out more about these performances in Washington, D.C.] is we haven't been able to find the business records for the resort, and we really would love to access them somehow, so again, anyone out there who knows someone who knows someone, you know, we'd like to see the guest book and those things.

[00:40:54] Kathleen McNenny: And did you research? Maybe the daughter would have the financial records?

[00:40:58] Elinor Levy: We've asked, and she hasn't gotten back to us, so I think they probably passed on to the next business owners.

[00:41:06] Brett Barry: Alright, well, I want to thank you, Elinor Levy, so much. Thank you all for joining us for a "Kaatscast" special live recording of our tribute to Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates. Many thanks to Elinor Levy from Arts Mid-Hudson and thanks to the Emerson Resort & Spa for hosting us. Our production assistant is Olivia Sippel. "Kaatscast" is a biweekly production of Silver Hollow Audio. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to search the entire archive, or to get in touch, please visit kaatscast.com. I'm Brett Barry. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.

[00:41:55] Campbell Brown: "Kaatscast" is supported by the Mountain Eagle, covering Delaware, Greene, and Schoharie counties, including brands for the local region such as the Windham Weekly, Schoharie News, Cobleskill Herald, and Catskills Chronicle. For more information, call (518) 763-6854 or email mountaineaglenews@gmail.com; and by Briars & Brambles Books, the go-to independent book and gift store in the Catskills, located in Windham, New York, right next to the pharmacy, just steps away from the Windham Path. Open daily! For more information, visit briarsandbramblesbooks.com or call (518) 750-8599.