Capturing Moments: Rose Marie McCoy Music's Journey Through Music
We grew cotton and corn and raised chickens and cows on a 40 acre piece of land my parents rented. Our home was a tin-topped shack. The walls were papered with newspapers, newspapers people threw out. You were rich if you had a nickel for a newspaper. The only way we knew there was some place where people lived nice, is when we got to see a magazine.
Had this dream that I was gonna make it big as a singer. so II left Arkansas and took a bus to New York City. Wrote a song about that too. It’s in the musical Called Five Guys Named Moe. Louis Jordan recorded it. It’s called If I Had Any Sense (I’d Go Back Home.”
It was rough that first year, During the day I worked in a hand laundry ironing shirts. Worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a welder on the big battle ships. At night I'd go to clubs and sing for free, hoping I'd get noticed. And eventually I a booking agent noticed me and got me jobs on the Chitlin' Circuit.
A lot of the singing jobs a had were in night clubs, where I had to mix with the customers.
I got some pretty good jobs early on, opening for some of the biggest acts on on the Chitlin’ Circuit, Moms Mabley and Pigmeat Markham. I’d be on the road for weeks at a time. To make extra money, I’d go find a hand laundry and iron shirts to make extra money.
My first hit was called “Gabbin’ Blues”. I wrote it like a game we called the dozens, where two people go back and forth insulting each other. It was my first big hit and Big Mayelle's too. That was 1953, and by 1955 I had a house, a green Cadillac, and muy own office in the Brill Building.