As he walked towards the stage, Randall "RT" Taylor smiled and gave himself a pat on the back.
Just a few months before, his record label told him he was committing career suicide with his concept album, "Real Rock & Roll." The 26-year-old Grammy-winning R & B singer came up with the idea of an album imagining how 1950s music would sound unconstrained by a sexually repressed culture--and being made by African-American artists if segregation had never existed. The executives thought he had lost his mind, and would lose his fanbase too.
Yet the gamble paid off--"Real Rock & Roll" became a massive hit, his fourth consecutive #1 album worldwide, and a recipient of rave reviews even from critics who hated his earlier work. The suits didn't know shit, he thought to himself.
Randall promoted "Real Rock & Roll" with a series of videos mocking the segregated culture of 1950s America--showing neighbors freaking out as he moved into a wealthy neighborhood, moviegoers being stunned by seeing him as the lead in a major Hollywood motion picture, fellow bus riders being disgusted by his refusal to move to the back. He was careful to make sure the videos weren't considered "militant"--the theme was always to emphasize the stupidity of segregation, and to subtly note how much easier things would be for everyone if racial lines had never been drawn.
Tonight would be the first televised live performance of the album's newest single, "Baby Don't Break My Heart." Randall wanted to make fun of another notorious example of 1950s racial paranoia--the 1957 incident where Frankie Lymon began dancing with a white woman while singing on Alan Freed's live TV show, "The Big Beat," causing viewers in the Deep South to go ballistic, and ultimately causing Freed's show to get canceled. Randall had obtained the footage of the original incident, and had hired Maddison Warner, a 22-year-old model from Australia's Gold Coast, to play his dance partner. They spent two weeks rehearsing the dance routine, and Randall was impressed by Maddison's skill and flexibility.
Randall was introduced and made his way towards the microphone. He wore a bright blue jacket, a black tie, black pants and old-school two-tone shoes. He pulled out a comb to fix his hair--he had even styled it in the conk pompadour style popular among African-American men in the 1950s--and began singing to the swoons of the women in the audience.
"Oh, baby, you know I love you /
But you don't cut your man no slack /
You just won't let me see that pink /
And I don't mean a Cadillac /
Oh, baby /
Baby don't break my heart..."
Randall flashed a brief smile, and continued.
"Oh, baby, you know I need you /
But you don't treat your man fair /
I wanna take a walk through your back door /
But you won't let me in there /
Oh, baby /
Baby don't break my heart..."
