I am now 71 and live in Palm Desert, CA.  I went to Mizzou and spent my career in Los Angeles in the magazine publishing industry.

I grew up in St. Louis (Richmond Heights) and was a student at Clayton High School where I graduated in 1965.

I believe is was either the fall of 1964 or perhaps the spring of 1965 that a good friend of mine, John Laycob, had convinced all of his buddies that we HAD to go down to The Club Imperial to catch Ike and Tina Turner.  The album “Dynamite” was already a big hit among the Clayton students so it didn’t take much convincing.

None of us suburban white kids had been to this part of town before.  We didn’t have any qualms; it was just new to us.

We were of course blown away by the fantastic raw performance that Tina and the Ikettes put on as well as the superb musicianship of Ike.

If I’m not mistaken, we came back for a second helping shortly thereafter.

There is one anecdote that emanated from the club and about which my 71-year-old buddies and I still laugh to this day.

I’m sure it must have been a weekend night and I'm sure we were the only 17 and 18-year-old white kids in the club that night.  Halfway through the evening they announced there would be a “Snowball Dance.”  You remember the schtick…one couple starts dancing to the band and when the band stops, the woman chooses a new man and the man chooses a new woman.  And on and on….  Well as you might imagine, we were the last to be picked and none of the blacks would pick us.  We were so hurt!