Rhythms & Roast: The Connection Between Coffee & Music

Coffee and a guitar

Coffee shops are often married with musical experiences and memories. Many HistoryMakers recount stories of music and coffee together.

Coffee Shop Union Square Manhattan, NY 2018

Emil Wilbekin, journalist and executive who worked for magazines like Essence and Vibe recounts how coffee shops helped artists get discovered, “Yeah, he [R&B singer Maxwell] used to work at Coffee Shop [in Manhattan, New York]…Coffee Shop has been really great for models and…for a lot of entertainment people. Basically, people went there and waited tables and bused tables and things like that, but it was a place where people kind of went to find beautiful people and talent, so a lotta models came from there, a lot of actors and actresses came from there, and Maxwell used to wait tables there.”

Danny Glover, acclaimed actor and activist, discusses discovering music and poetry, “And the other thing about it, for me, and I tend to say--because after the beat generation, which is North Beach [San Francisco, California], most of these clubs and, and…coffee houses began to open up around…my neighborhood [Western Addition, San Francisco, California]. So, at sixteen or seventeen years old, I used to wander in there and sit there and listen to poetry. So, I'd listen to people like Bob Dylan, you know, or the Stones [Rolling Stones] or something (laughter), you know what I'm saying.”

Journalist Clarence Waldron worked at Jet magazine for twenty-nine years, he describes interviewing Dionne Warwick, “I was ten minutes late for the interview…and I was just afraid. What if she's not what I think? I'm a--I'm a young kid at this point--oh, my god. And so I was--I'm scared. So I got there and I [apologized]- , "I'm so sorry that I'm running a few minutes late, Ms. Warwick." "Call me Dionne." "Ms. Warwick," you know. And then she said, "Do you want some coffee?" I said, "Yes, please." So then she ordered the coffee and all that stuff, and I saw how they bring it in and she signed her name. So I never saw that before. See, my world was not that big. I said, "Oh, I like that." So the minute I get to the hotel--you know, years later at my Johnson days [Johnson Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois], "Room service, please," (laughter). "I want my breakfast served in my room please, yeah, and charge it--charge it to my--to my room, thank you." I learned that--learned that from her.”

Folk Singer Ella Jenkins playing and singing, then holding a cup of coffee

Folk singer Ella Jenkins discusses the methods of singing in coffee houses, “People, you know, oftentimes call me and ask me, they say "Well, Ella we want you 'cause you are a storyteller. I said, but, I said, "I am a singer, I am a folk singer, I'm a…children's entertainer," and he said, "But, Ella, before you ever sing any song, you tell all kinds of stories prior to the song." And, that is true, and, because I always feel--well, it's the kind of thing you learn when you are singing in folk clubs, and at coffee houses, you always added a little something about your song that you are going to sing. If you were singing about chain gangs, you talked about 'Leadbelly' and all kinds of people like that. And then I am always talking about, you know, I try to keep the history of black people alive”

Percussionist Famoudou Don Moye describes how he discovered percussion in the coffee house, “I was fifteen or sixteen I use to go over to the coffee house on the campus…they had like a jam session there--so I and that professor that played drums there--so that was my earliest contact with the drum set. Percussion…I always had those bongos cause…I remember I had them all through high school and everything.”

Eileen Tate Cline (1935-2023) served as the dean of the Peabody Conservatory of Music at the Johns Hopkins University. She tells a story her teacher told her, “And he also told the story of how he was sitting in Washington Park [Chicago, Illinois], I think it was, one day, a while before that. And this bum had come up to him, and asked him if he could--I guess take him for a cup of coffee or something. And he said he was impressed that the guy didn't just ask him for a dime for a cup of coffee, you know, would, and then go off and spend it on something else. And so, he said he took him--they started chatting. Well, it ended up being up Nat King Cole. You know, so it was just those kinds of things that, that connected us so much.”

Something as simple as a cup of coffee or a coffee shop connects people through music and art, establishing a common experience

Citations

Emil Wilbekin (The HistoryMakers A2014.204), interviewed by Harriette Cole, August 12, 2014, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 2, tape 8, story 3, Emil Wilbekin talks about the Coffee Shop eatery in Union Square and discovering new talent as editor of the Vibe column "Next"

Danny Glover (The HistoryMakers A2015.014), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, December 20, 2015, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 7, Danny Glover describes the popular music of his youth

Clarence Waldron (The HistoryMakers A2014.022), interviewed by Larry Crowe, January 25, 2014, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 11, Clarence Waldron describes the success of his interview with Dionne Warwick

Ella Jenkins (The HistoryMakers A2002.133), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 5, 2002, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 10, Ella Jenkins explains how she mixes story and song

Famoudou Don Moye (The HistoryMakers A2002.075), interviewed by Larry Crowe, June 4, 2002, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 1, Famoudou Don Moye recalls his developing interest in percussion instruments

Eileen Tate Cline (The HistoryMakers A2006.081), interviewed by Shawn Wilson, April 20, 2006, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 2, Eileen Cline describes her exposure to music in elementary school