Nat D. Williams

[5] Williams was also Master of Ceremonies for Amateur Night on Beale Street, officiating at a raucous roundup in 1935 at the Old Palace Theater.

Ransom Q. Venson of the Cotton Makers Jubilee[8] and is credited with naming the celebration on a historical plaque on Beale st.[9] The depression era cotillion was Black-organized, with its Kings and Queens and Krewes, and continued thru the '90s, steadily losing the parades down Beale Street,[10] the grand Memphis balls, the fireworks and the hurley burley of the midway, itself a bygone celebration of when the city was epicenter of the cotton crop.

[13] The audience was harsh, reducing many in stature; if you could survive the unsympathetic crowds, your star would rise.

Before that there was still no such thing as a Black disc jockey openly promoted south of the Mason-Dixon line.

The advent of shellac records had begun to push out the live performances on the radio, as a market teens and young adults preferred the music of the jukeboxes.

[18] At WDIA, he was a gatekeeper who watched for lyrics that were obscene to the station's audience and detrimental to Black radio.

[19] His influence in 'jive' talk radio extended to WERD, which ran with the format under 'Jockey Jack' when the first Black-owned station made its debut in 1949.

Elvis, Bobby Blue Bland, Rufus Thomas and Riley King all got their start on amateur night.

[21] Well, yes-siree, it's Nat Dee on the Jamboree, coming at thee on seventy-three (on the dial), WDIA.