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Mister Lucky's

Michael Jackson (From his book Moonwalk)

“[My mother] was even less thrilled when Dad told her he had booked us as a regular act at Mr. Lucky's, a Gary nightspot. We were being forced to spend our weekends in Chicago and other places trying to win an ever-increasing number of amateur shows, and these trips were expensive, so the job at Mr. Lucky's was a way to make it all possible. Mom was surprised at the response we were getting and she was very pleased with the awards and the attention, but she worried about us a lot. She worried about me because of my age. ‘This is quite a life for a nine-year-old,’ she would say, staring intently at my father.

I don't know what my brothers and I expected, but the nightclub crowds weren't the same as the Roosevelt High crowds. We were playing between bad comedians, cocktail organists, and strippers. With my Witness upbringing, Mom was concerned that I was hanging out with the wrong people and getting introduced to things I'd be better off learning much later in life. She didn't have to worry; just one look at some of those strippers wasn't going to get me that interested in trouble - certainly not at nine years old! That was an awful way to live, though, and it made us all the more determined to move on up the circuit and as far away from that life as we could go.

Being at Mr. Lucky's meant that for the first time in our lives we had a whole show to do - five sets a night, six nights a week - and if Dad could get us something out of town for the seventh night, he was going to do it. We were working hard, but the bar crowds weren't bad to us. They liked James Brown and Sam and Dave just as much as we did and, besides, we were something extra that came free with the drinking and the carrying on, so they were surprised and cheerful. We even had some fun with them on one number, the Joe Tex song “Skinny Legs and All." We'd start the song and somewhere in the middle I'd go out into the audience, crawl under the tables, and pull up the ladies' skirts to look under. People would throw money as I scurried by, and when I began to dance, I'd scoop up all the dollars and coins that had hit the floor earlier and push them into the pockets of my jacket.

I wasn't really nervous when we began playing in because of all the experience I'd had with talent show audiences. I was always ready to go out and perform, you know, just do it - sing and dance and have some fun.”