Who Is Tony Lawrence?
Tony Lawrence was a singer from the West Indies who made a name for himself in 1960s New York as the man responsible for The Harlem Cultural Festival.
The 1969 Festival has recently found itself back in the spotlight thanks to the documentary film Summer of Soul which is streaming and showing in select cinemas around the world. But before 1969, Lawrence had released a handful of 7” singles, toured the world, and become celebrated for his work around the Harlem community.
Still, Tony Lawrence remains a mystery for the most part, with much remaining unknown about his life.
Born around 1936 in Saint Kitts, Tony Lawrence’s family moved when he was two years old and settled in Portsmouth, Virginia. At Crestwood high school, Lawrence sang with his school band, and won an athletic scholarship to Morgan State College in Baltimore, where he was said to be popular for his “good looks and pleasant singing voice”.
After college, Lawrence spent two and a half years with the US Army’s Special Services, and refined his singing voice providing entertainment for the troops. Upon leaving the army in 1955 he won a scholarship to the American Theater Wing where he appeared in Shakespearean roles, and graduated with honours in 1960, telling The Indianapolis Recorder that his acting experience “was of tremendous value to me because it helped me properly dramatize a song when I sing.”
Following appearances in several Broadway and off-Broadway shows, Lawrence began receiving press in 1961, when the 26-year-old released You Got To Show Me on Silver Bid. The song made the US Hot 100 Bubbling Under chart, reaching #114, and is the only time Tony Lawrence appeared in a Billboard chart.
But this wasn’t his debut, as Lawrence had already released Put De Money Where De Mouth Is on Mala in 1959, before it was picked up and re-released by Jude the following year. Three earlier releases have also been mentioned in the press, but remain largely unknown. In October 1956 it was reported Lawrence made his first recording for Beech Records, though a title was not given. Then in 1957 he was said to have recorded I’m Much Too Young and St. Louis Blues, while in 1958 his recording Confessin’ was said to be making the DJ and jukebox rounds.
Similarly an album titled The Continental Album was advertised as being released June 1, 1961, but much like his early singles, it remains a mystery to collectors outside of being mentioned in press clippings.
Dubbed the “continental dreamboat”, in the early 1960s Lawrence was noted for his stylish clothing and good looks, which lead to him getting mobbed by fans during his singing appearances.
Touring the country, Lawrence made appearances on TV programs such as The Joe Franklin Show, Dick Clark Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show, before he secured his own daily 15-minute program, to air in New York during the fall of 1962.
That year he got another big break when Princess Margaret personally picked Tony Lawrence to sing at several parties in Jamaica, celebrating the country gaining their independence. His performances were so well received Lawrence not only was invited back to Jamaica, but was also booked to perform in Trinidad as part of their own independence celebrations.
Lawrence was a rising star, and he had his sights set on the movies. Looking back in 1969 he said, “My best part was in The Pawnbroker when I played a black cop and had a whole scene written around me.” But although he made uncredited appearances in Dr No (1962), The Pawnbroker(1964), and The Detective (unknown), and was “hard at work on a new movie called Labrinthia” in 1963, by the late 1960s these remained his only known credits.
Instead, Tony Lawrence began to make a name for himself around Harlem for helping his community, and through his work as director of the Christ Community Church Recreation Center, and youth director for the JFK Youth Foundation in New York City, Lawrence led fundraising projects in support of new playgrounds around Harlem.
He told The Pittsburgh Courier in 1964, “The welfare of the children in Harlem, not only lies in the hands of their parents but also in the hands of the merchants of Harlem, who take out millions of dollars each year and never contribute anything to the welfare of that section. I’m appealing to [them]…to support me in this campaign.”
Thanks to his efforts, the church was able to purchase city-owned vacant lots which were converted into small parks for the community, using money raised from concerts and events hosted by Lawrence. The opening of each park also saw block party events in celebration, and The New York Times were among the press to commend Lawrence for his work.
In 1966 Tony Lawrence held a series of summer block parties across three of the new parks he had helped open. Lawrence performed at several of the shows himself, which included a calypso carnival, gospel and folk concert, and a Latin American and Boogaloo party. There was no stage, as Lawrence later recalled, “The piano and the musicians were on the sidewalk. I didn’t know if it would work.”
It worked, and Lawrence repeated the feat the following year in May before he ran a new series of events in July which he called The Harlem Cultural Festival.
Inspired by his previous block parties, Tony Lawrence teamed with the New York City Department of Parks and the Park Association of New York City to present The 1967 Harlem Cultural Festival, with nine events held across Harlem, including in Morningside Park and Mt. Morris Park.
The free events were open to everyone, and included a Harlem Hollywood Night, boxing demonstrations, a fashion show, go-kart grand prix, the first Miss Harlem contest, and concerts featuring soul, gospel, calypso, and Puerto Rican music. “The Festival is a showcase for Harlem, but talent and audience will come from all over New York, all over the Americas, and all over the world”, Lawrence said at the time.
In 1968 the festival returned bigger than before, and for the first time was recorded. Lawrence hired Harold “Hal” Tulchin to film the concerts, which were broadcast in colour as a series of five one-hour specials on New York’s WNEW-TV. The footage was later donated to New York’s Museum of Broadcasting.
That year’s festival featured performances from Count Basie, Herbie Mann, Mahalia Jackson, The Olatunji African Drummers and Dancers, and the Tito Puente Band, and Lawrence took his own Soul Brothers Band on a tour around New York, with free shows in Coney Island, Manhattan, Bronx, and Queens held to promote the main event.
During the year Lawrence split his time between performing in the fall and winter, and working out of an office in the Parks Department. From there in March each year he would begin planning the festival and received a stipend from the Department for any expenses, explaining, “I do all right during the year [and] I don’t have to hustle off the festival or the community.”
As he began to plan the festival for 1969, a major partner was brought in, with General Foods’ Maxwell House Coffee agreeing to sponsor the entire festival which was held over six Sundays. Olatunji and Mahalia Jackson returned, as did Hal Tulchin who once again filmed the festival for Lawrence.
The documentary film Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) features footage from the 1969 festival, but while the film’s title would have you believe the show was not televised, it actually was.
Two programs hosted by Tony Lawrence aired with footage from the shows, with CBS premiering a one-hour special on July 28, 1969 featuring The Fifth Dimension, The Chambers Brothers, and Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln. The ad breaks also featured performers from the festival, with Tony Lawrence, Olatunji, Max Roach, and Abbey Lincoln in commercials for Maxwell House Coffee. It was said to be the first time in US TV history an hour-long network TV special had featured four commercials with only black talent.
A second hour-long special followed on September 16 on ABC. Recorded during the festival’s gospel show, it featured Mahalia Jackson, The Staple Singers, and Reverend Jesse Jackson. A further five specials were announced as forthcoming, and NBC snapped up the rights to the next concert, The Tony Lawrence Love Festival. Filmed in Newark, New Jersey on October 5, the free concert was recorded by Hal Tulchin and aired nationally on November 14, 1969.
1969 also saw the final known music release from Tony Lawrence, with a single titled Harlem Cultural Festival released on Lo Lo Records to promote that year’s festival. It’s a very funky instrumental, which features audiences cheering as a guitarist goes wild soloing alongside a piano riff. It’s like nothing else from Tony Lawrence’s discography, and while the price to own the single has skyrocketed since Summer of Soul came out, the song was also included on a 2001 compilation released in Australia titled Funkaphonix, Vol. 5: Raw & Uncut Funk 1968–1975.
Two further releases were announced, but much like his pre-60s singles, no mention of these exists outside of the music press from the time. First, an advertisement for 1969s ABC TV special mentions “Tony Lawrence’s newest recording: “Love Power” and The Harlem Festival Theme Song on Uganda Records”. Then another advertisement in 1970 mentions Tony Lawrence’s Harlem Cultural Festival TV Record Album, but gives no further details. It’s unclear what this was exactly, though it was likely a compilation of songs from the 1969 festival which had appeared in one of the TV specials.
For Lawrence, he not only wanted to put on a good show, but to also help local communities, and ahead of the festival in 1969 he explained his ethos to New York’s Daily News. “If we make any extra money from TV and the sponsors, I’m talking to a lawyer about creating a trust without any overhead so we can feed the kids breakfast and maybe supper in the winters. A lot of their mothers work. Many people helped me and prayed with me to make this possible. It isn’t going to get commercial.”
But following 1969s festival, Lawrence noticed discrepancies in the festival’s financial accounts, and he spent the next two years accusing various parties of ripping him off. This included his business partner Jerrold Kusnick, and the shows sponsors Major Foods, who Lawrence accused of trying to kill him with a car bomb. He also accused Hal Tulchin of stealing the video recordings which had been made of Lawrence’s festivals, with Lawrence claiming he alone owned the tapes, which were being withheld from him by Tulchin.
Ahead of the 1970 Harlem Cultural Festival, Lawrence announced neither Tulchin nor Kusnick would be working with him, and that his own company Uganda Productions would oversee the recording of future concerts. But the 1970 festival finished after only one day, after money ran out and the remaining four planned concerts were cancelled.
There had been momentum building from 1967 through to 1970, but when the Harlem Cultural Festival returned in 1972 it was barely mentioned by the usual publications who had supported Lawrence in previous years. Perhaps his earlier accusations of corruption had burnt some bridges, but the Parks Department still believed in him, and the Harlem Cultural Festival returned to Mt. Morris Park again in 1973 and 1974.
Unfortunately, the festival received hardly any press at all outside of their announcements in local New York newspapers, and post-1974 Tony Lawrence’s name stopped appearing in the press at all. That is, until now.
This year, there has understandably been renewed interest in Tony Lawrence thanks to the release of Summer of Soul, which used footage of 1969’s festival. Notably the footage had remained in the possession of Harold Tulchin, who said he had long hoped to see it made into a film.
In the early 2000s he licensed the footage to Joe Lauro at New York’s Historic Films Archives who had it digitised, allowing for some to be released over the years. But although Tulchin and Lauro tried to get a film made, they couldn’t come to an amicable understanding before their agreement expired, and the footage was returned to Tulchin’s basement.
It was only upon his death in 2017 an announcement was made that a film using Tulchin’s footage would finally happen, and while Summer of Soul celebrates the work of Tony Lawrence, it doesn’t reveal anything about his life.
This is simply because so little is known, and even those who knew Tony Lawrence aren’t sure what happened to him. Instead, we have his music, and his festivals, which were thankfully recorded and preserved so the Harlem Cultural Festival can once again be seen all around the world. •
This article was originally published in The Shadow Knows Issue #2, December 2021. Buy the fanzine here or read more at our website.
Correction: This article previously referred to Maxwell House Coffee’s owner as Major Foods. It should read General Foods.
