Both Roxie and Roosevelt had careers in the entertainment industry, Roxie a popular songwriter and Roosevelt a manager for the Dixie Hummingbirds. This made Peedie Lou’s both a retail business and the site of several music collaborations and industry gatherings. “In Philadelphia, they would go to the basement of their record shop and record demos. They’d make their demo tapes and stuff down there,” Ms.Robin once recalled. “So Patti Labelle, the Blue Belles, some of their first records were done there. Tammi [Terrell] made her demo records there. . . there was just everybody.” A meeting ground for Black artists of various genres, Peedie Lou’s became a space of micro-social encounters which fostered long-lasting friendships and artistic relationships. 

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Among those fostered friendships was that of Roxie and the world famous Clara Ward Singers who in1959 sent a postcard to Roxie Moore thanking Peedie Lou’s for being a “ground that sings his (God’s) praises.” Personal, political, and professional spheres often overlapped in the relationship between Roxie Moore and the Wards. “Aunt Clara. .babysat me a lot. Her and [Willa]. So I spent a lot of time with her. . .I spent a lot of time with both of them,” said Ms.Robin, “any time mama was working with them she would bring me . . . and of course, I’d have to go sit my butt down in a pew and just sit there all evening. Talk about boring.” Roxie collaborated with the Wards to both produce and distribute music from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. In 1957 Roxie penned the words and music for “I’ve Weathered the Storm,” a song performed and recorded by the Angelic Gospel Singers. Although her name does not appear on the vinyl record, sheet music held at the Chicago Public Library displays the name “R. Moore.” The bottom of the front page identifies the publisher as “Clara Ward Publications.” 

 

It is possible to look at Roxie’s composition as a simple transaction between her and Clara Ward Publications in which she was paid for a product. Roxie was just another songwriter receiving her $50 per original piece. However, I think deeper meaning comes from considering that “I’ve Weathered the Storm” was written for and placed in the hands of Roxie’s dear friends during a difficult period in her life. While writing this song, Roxie struggled with housing insecurity and unemployment after her husband left their family in the late 1950’s. With this backdrop in mind - as well as the songs lyrics which speak of life’s “stormy seas” and “shipwrecks”- it is important to consider that Roxie did not just give this song to anyone for publication, but to Black women to whom she was deeply bonded and who navigated similar experiences of raced, gendered, and classed oppression. 

 

This speaks to an underlying theme of this exhibit - the ways that Black women musicians in the early to mid-twentieth century found connection, community, and intimacy, in spite of the institutional barriers which confronted them, betrayed them, or excluded them. In this way the exhibit is connected to my larger project which highlights women who left husbands and churches, were misunderstood by major scenes of Black entertainment and sociality, and have been excluded from histories of American music, popular culture, and religion as a result. It was not the goal, nor narrative, of this exhibit to argue for their inclusion in histories that overlooked them; instead I hoped to portray through sound, film, documents, and interviews, the beauty of their collective existence in the interstices. By looking at the spaces where these women gathered - such as Peedie Lou’s - I highlighted the anti-institutional lives they curated for themselves through love, friendship, and performance.