Spectrum and Wes winters were honored during Entertainment Consumers Exchange, Inc’s, Spring 2009 Awards Luncheon. Spectrum received the Sweet Louie Living Legend Awards. Cushney Roberts in accepting the award said, “This award from your organization is great in itself but being the Sweet Louie Award makes it extra special because of the legacy Sweet Louie & Sonny Charles of the Checkmates. They were the first of their type to grace the lounges and showrooms in Las Vegas. They established an excellence of standards of performance. If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have been able to play in Vegas.” Spectrum members are Cushney Roberts, Darryl Grand, David Prescott and Pierre Jovan

Wes Winters received the Tribute Artist of the Year for his incredible performance and tribute of Liberace. During the Panel Discussion Wes Winter told how he decided to become an entertainer. He said, I saw Liberace on television when I was five. It was on a CBS Sunday night special; I couldn’t get over the guys hands flying on the keys. We had a big upright piano in the garage. It was about a 100year old piano. It was so big it wouldn’t f it into the house. The next day I brought my record player out. It wasn’t a 78 but it open up and hand the arm that would drop the record. I carried it into the garage and plug it in. and we had one Liberace record and I started playing along with it. I would do that about seven hours a day and did that for about seven years and that’s how I learned to play. I knew I was going to be an entertainer when I grew up.

One of Rosen’s early favorite places to find records was the” Radio Shack” in Harlem. He relates his early explorations, “I have pictures of it that shows me laying on thousands and thousands of records. Since then I’ve been to the Grill Building, 1650 Broadway and I bought out a lot of these world music publishers. One time I recall walking up to this place and saying I’m here to buy your records, even though I had no appointment. The guy said we’ve been waiting for you. He had three rooms of maybe 200,000 records; all of the Beach Boys, all the Beatles, all of the Kings, Federal and Deluxe stuff, meaning Billy Ward and the Dominos”.

The rarest record in the world Is “Stormy Weather” Number 5104 by the Five Sharps on Jubilee. Rosen related the story of that find, “I remember one day in a little black record shop in New Jersey where you would have to go through a trap door into the basement and they would give you a miner’s cap with a light because there were no lights down there. I was standing there shining the light on the records and all of a sudden I see that down there is a stove and refrigerator. But the stove is not against the wall. So I thought that was kind of peculiar so I put my hand down there and thought I would get bitten by a rat but instead picked up the acetate of t he rarest record of the world, “ Stormy Weather” That was really fine to find something like that. Until that day no one ever sees a 45 on it, it only had two or three 78’s have surfaced. So I had that acetate”.

Rosen eventually moved his family to Stroudsburg, Pa. Then they moved to Las Vegas because his wife didn’t want to deal any more with the black ice weather. He said, “I said don’t bother me, you want to move to Vegas buy something for my store and buy something for yourself and I will come to Vegas. So we bought this store, Wax Trax, from a video, not knowing if it would work, but for 10 years its doing fine. I also have a radio show on KLAV 1230 on the AM every Monday Nights at 9 PM. It has been on radio for 10 years already anybody who finds us never leaves us. It’s called Just Oldies. I play oldies you really never heard. Say that you heard Gloria by the Cadillacs I would play Gloria by other groups. Or I would play other songs by the Cadillacs. That is what my specialties are rock and roll and doo-wop.

Next he recalled some of his interesting stories about his time in Vegas. He said, I have guys coming over from England all the time looking for older soul records. Like you would look for Sonny Turner records like “Only You” and that is what you remember but the guys in England ask for different records by him, some of which we don’t even know he did. Also by Sonny Turner again is his North Carolina Beach music. He’s recorded things out in North Carolina that I never even knew Sonny Turner recorded.

“Last Sunday somebody came in from California with a record collection and there were four Elvis recordings on Sun. They are very rare because you don’t see anything by Elvis on Sun you see them on RCA. Also just came in was “ The Still of the Night by the Five Satins on Standard; Usually when you get “ Still of the Night” its on Ember Standard is the original label they did in New Haven. That’s pretty rare. That is what I enjoy getting some of the rarities.

“Here is a funny story that just happened last week. In the collection that I bought the four Elvis’ on Sun, there was one Sun 78 which is very rare. They are even rarer than the 45s. It was framed with “That’s All right Mama”, by Elvis on Sun. So for some reason the guy who sold it to me had the wrong side facing up. It was annoying me because you had to have “That’s All Right Mama” facing up. I called in a framer here in Vegas that I knew and he was going into the hospital. He couldn’t come down but he sent someone else. So the guy takes it out of the frame to flip it and cracks it in three places. To show you how rare it is my customer is still buying it with the cracks. I don’t know if he could ever play it but he wants the record”.

Then when asked about advice for those who want to do this, he said, “You got to know what you’re doing and you got to have lots of every genre. You can’t just have say just Doo-Wop because some one is going to come in for an Everly Brothers record or someone is going to come in for a Johnny Mathis record You have to cover the gamut. You have to be there. You got to be there nurturing the business and you have keep on getting new merchandise. If you don’t get new merchandise their not going to come in and be excited. I am saying this serious, nobody I know and I know everybody out there has a better record shop out there. What I am saying if you’re a collector out there and you want it, you’ve got to come to Wax Trax.”

Even before this, professional wrestling had been in existence for decades. It was available to spectators in regional live and TV markets, known as territories. But until the 1980s, there had been no real widespread wrestling promotion available for fans to take in. The markets would, however, start experimenting with using theme music for wrestlers to make their entrances to the ring. Of the promoters at the time, Vince McMahon, chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment, was making a path toward wider exposure with his roster growing from acquiring wrestlers from other places. He would also experiment with the forerunner of pay-per-view technology known as closed-circuit television as a way to broadcast his major events. To bolster his first major event, he would bring in others from sports and entertainment to further tease potential viewers. Among his special guests at the first Wrestlemania were boxer Muhammad Ali, baseball manager Billy Martin, entertainer Liberace with the World Renowned Rockettes. Singer Cyndi Lauper, to an extent representing fledging music video network MTV, was involved as a manager to female wrestler Wendi Richter. Mr. T from "The A-Team” TV show joined the action in the main event match.

The music used for the event included the instrumental portion of the Phil Collins/Phillip Bailey tune "Easy Lover", the Harold Faltermeyer instrumental movie hit "Axel F", Rick Derringer's "Real American" (Hulk Hogan's entrance theme), Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" (tag team US Express's entrance theme), and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" (Wendi Richter's entrance theme with entertainers, music, and TV involved, the first Wrestlemania kicked off "The Rock And Wrestling Era". As the Wrestlemania events progressed over the years, they would bring in the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Joan Rivers, Aretha Franklin, talk show host Morton Downey Jr.,Mary Hart, Vanna White, Bob Uecker, Salt N Pepa, Jenny McCarthy, and Pamela Anderson, among others, to be a part of wrestling's equivalent to football's Super Bowl. WWE, formerly known as World Wrestling Federation, found a door open to become a major entertainment venue via its sports premise. And some of its own talent found success in entertainment: Stone Cold Steve Austin in TV and movies; The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), Hulk Hogan in movies; John Cena in TV, music, and movies; and Jesse Ventura in movies and government (Minnesota Governor, 1999-2003).

Prom night 2007 in Charleston, Mississippi was still a segregated event. Charleston High School held two proms one for black students and One for White Students. That changed somewhat in 2008 when Morgan Freeman, Oscar winning actor and Charleston resident’s second offer to pay for an integrated prom was accepted. Noted filmmaker and photographer, Paul Saltzman made a film “Prom Night in Mississippi” to document about this history making event. I did a phone interview about the film that was shown at the Las Vegas Film Festival.

How did you and Morgan Freeman connect to do this film?

PS: "I met Morgan through a mutual friend Morgan didn’t actually tell us. We met a young woman at a gas station who was a student and told us about the prom being segregated and that Morgan had offered to pay for it and no one took him up on it. I called Morgan the next morning and asked is this true, He said yes, 10 years ago which was 1997. Then I asked him if the offer was still good. He said ok. The process started again and this time people accepted his offer."

What were the factors that made them accept this second offer?

PS: "Truly, I think it was a combination of things. It was every thing from there being a different school board than 1997 to times are a changing factor. Part of the times changing of course was that the Obama campaign was on but I don’t think there was a direct relationship. I think these were all factors. Morgan made the offer and maybe even the film being made. We had people say that they caved because you were going to make the movie."

How much did Morgan Freeman have in the film effectiveness?

PS: "Morgan being involved gives it a certain bonafide, but I think that in truth the effectiveness of the film is even more the young people courage to talk to us. So I think if Morgan hadn’t been in the film the film would still have the intimacy and courage of those young people, which ultimately touches people."

What was the biggest challenge?

PS: "The biggest challenge in doing the film was partly getting the white people who are still in favor of the racist past of segregated proms to talk to us. As you saw in the film we couldn’t get them to do. That was probably the most frustrating thing. The white prom by the way was held last night (April 10) it was even smaller than last year. The integrated prom is going to happen again on April the 18th. So the tradition has been broken and there is now an integrated prom. The white parents still won’t let their kids go so they held their small private white prom."

How was the film made?

PS: "They are still together. In fact at the Mississippi premiere of the film which was at the Oxford Film Festival in February, Jeremy and Heather came along with some of the other kids. Heather call me a couple of times the day before and the day of asking what was in the film about her dad because she was very worried that Jeremy would feel very hurt something her father might of said. Then we were very reassuring to her, After the screening Heather and Jeremy came over and were holding hands. I asked Heather what she thought. She said I it was good. I turned to Jeremy and said what do you feel, he put his hand over his heart in a very dear gesture, he said her dad’s comment kind of moved me. In a way the film can be healing. That was a moment of healing to hear the father of the women he loved doesn’t approve of the relationship but will stand by his daughter no matter what.

PS: "In fact the first sale of the film was to HBO. The first Premiere showing on HBO is on July 20. HBO and we are actually going to go back and film again the Integrated Prom and also talk to the main kids.
So there will be an extra piece probably down the line that shows where the kids are now. And also show the Integrated Prom 09."

If you look at the billboards around Las Vegas, you will see many of them that say, “GEORGE WALLACE, The Best 10 O’clock Show in Las Vegas”. Actually, that statement is not totally correct. The George Wallace show is one, if not, the BEST show in Las Vegas regardless of time.

The opening act is the group MOSAIC, a truly unique performing acappella group. They perform for about 15-20 mins and then introduce George Wallace. George and Mosaic have some banter between them for about another 15-20 mins.

The cinematography of the opera film was very well done. If nothing else, Aida is spectacle; remember this was before movies or TV. This production was done at "La Scala" the big kahuna of Italian Opera. My only criticism was that the film should have concentrated more on the opera itself rather than showing the audience, conductor, and the surroundings no matter how lovely.