From the NYT Metropolitan Diary today:
At the Cookery
Dear Diary:
I was visiting New York City for the first time in 1981.
One place I wanted to go was the Greenwich Village restaurant the Cookery to see the blues singer Alberta Hunter perform. I had discovered her music in the movie “Remember My Name” and had then fallen in love with her album “Amtrak Blues.”
I was a scruffy 23-year-old, so I was seated way at the back of the restaurant. I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu.
Ms. Hunter was sitting alone at a banquette nearby, sizing up the audience before her set. She was a tiny woman in her 80s, wearing a glittery dress and big dangly earrings that looked like they weighed more than she did.
At one point, as I was looking for the rest room, Ms. Hunter saw me looking confused and pointed the way.
On my way back to my seat, I impulsively sat down across from her at her banquette and gushed like a fool.
I asked whether she would be singing “I’ve Got a Mind to Ramble,” my favorite song from the movie.
“Oh, dearie,” she said. “I’m afraid not.”
Later, toward the end of her set, she turned away from the microphone and said something to the band. Then she looked out to the audience and right at me.
“Son,” she said, “what song did you want me to sing?”
Everyone in the place turned around to see whom she had asked.
“‘I’ve Got a Mind to Ramble,’” I said.
“OK, boys,” she said to the band, “Let’s do that one.”
— Jeffrey Rotin
