Transcript of interview with Jack Herst by Suzan DiFederico, March 1, 1976

UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst i An Interview with Jack Herst An Oral History Conducted by Suzan DiFederico Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2019 UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst iv Abstract On March 1st, 1976, Suzan DiFederico interviewed Jack Herst (born in 1943 in Las Vegas, Nevada) in his home on 3221 La Mirada Street, Las Vegas, Nevada. During the interview, DiFederico does not speak; rather, Herst appears to read and answer questions aloud from “DiFederico’s dossier.” Herst talks about the population growth in Nevada and emphasizes the significant changes Las Vegas has experienced from its origins as a small town. Herst also discusses his personal family history, his Jewish identity and community affiliations, as well as his employment history as a dealer and broker at different casinos. UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 1 Informant: Jack Herst. Date: March 1st, 1976. Place—what’s your address? 3221 La Mirada. 3221 La Mirada, Las Vegas, Nevada. Collector: Suzan DiFederico. 2001 Santa Paula. Project: Local History Project. (Audio cuts off and returns) Alright, my name is Jack Herst, H-E-R-S-T, formerly, Jack Herscovitz, H-E-R-S-C-O-V-I-T-Z. I was born and raised in the city of Las Vegas, I was actually born in the old Las Vegas hospital, which is located Downtown, and I believe as of today, it’s still a clinic. They just use—Dr. Allen, and a few doctors use it as a clinic. It probably should be foreclosed because it’s an old dilapidated building, but it’s still in operation. As far as some background, personal background on my family history, my grandparents came from Romania and Russia, and on the way over on the boat, at that time their name was Ryder, which was a nice-sounding name, and my grandfather, in order to become an American at that time, thought the greatest thing to do was to become an American in every way. So at that time, at the port of entry for Northern America was Montreal, you could not get into the states coming from Romania and those countries by coming through New York. You had to come through Montreal because of the quota system—so when they arrived in Montreal, he got off the plane, walked down the main street, and saw a place called “Herscovitz Lumber Company.” And at that time he changed his name from Ryder to Herscovitz thinking it was an American name, and went into the lumber business. And my family since that time basically been in the furniture business until my father moved to Las Vegas in 1941, and at that time, he went into the motel business and also went into the construction business in the late 1940s. Growing up in Las Vegas was, you could probably say memorable; wasn’t too much to do for a young person in Las Vegas at the time. We had just a UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 2 couple of grade schools, a junior high school, one high school, which was Las Vegas High School which is on about, Seventh and Bridger. The population was under twenty thousand at that time while I was growing up. Then later on in the forties and early fifties got up to over thirty thousand when the city started to grow. As far as industry goes, there was no industry in the city—the only industry at that time, as of this time really, was the gambling industry. There was no Strip as we know it today, it was just desert. There was a few clubs Downtown—basically the big clubs were the Westner Club, which was later changed to the Pioneer Club, the old Boulder Club, and the old Jackpot Club, and few clubs like that, but just small little places. They had gambling, they had good restaurants, and that’s about all there was to the Downtown area. As far as I remember the city, when I was oh, let’s say, 1946, ’47, and ’48, the town itself did not go past what is Huntridge today, which would be almost where Gormond High School is, but it would be this side of it, and probably Oakey was the farthest reach of the entire city. The—most of the people in the city either lived up on the streets on Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth, close to the Downtown area, or they lived in either what was called Huntridge or Crestwood, which were new developments in those days. And there were a few people living in North Las Vegas because of the air base. I would say population in North Las Vegas at that time was probably about between eight hundred and twelve hundred people. They didn’t have their own fire department, or their own police department. Everything was volunteer—a guy would be called out in the middle of night to be on the fire department or be on the police department. Strictly voluntary departments, as far as going to school, I attended the grade school at John S. Park, and at that time, they still didn’t have junior high schools, as we know ‘em, the grade schools went on through to high school and then you went to high school. I went to John S. Park and then from John S. Park we moved, and I went to Rancho High School, which was just being finished at that UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 3 time. They had no sophomore, or—they just had a sophomore class was as high as they went, then the next year they had a junior class, and the year after that, they had a senior class. And I graduated from Rancho in 1959 and ’60, at that point, left Las Vegas to go to school at Weber State College in Utah, where I attended for three years, after that, I went one year to the University of Utah, finished up my schooling, came back to Las Vegas, and thought that the best thing for me to do, was at that time, to get into business. So I borrowed eight thousand from my father, got my car, drove to Denver, Colorado, and being a wise-guy anyway, decided that the best way to do it was to buy a bar. Well, at that time, I didn’t buy a bar, but I did decide that the next best thing to do would be to get up and eat breakfast in the morning, go to the racetrack in the afternoon, and play the races until about six o’clock, go eat dinner, and then go to the dog track at night, and then go to bed, and get up the next day and do the same thing over again. Well for the first three months, I won and won and won, and for the three months after that, I lost and lost and lost. So at that time, when I ran out of money the second time, and hadn’t really done anything profitable, I called my father, I said that I wanted to go back to school and get my Master’s degree. Well, he said, that sounds like a good idea, but come home, and sell the car first. It doesn’t look right going to school in a new Lincoln Continental, and then you can go back to school. At that time, I went back to Las Vegas, and needless to say, didn’t go back to school, but I went to work Downtown in a place that isn’t there any longer, the Golden Nugget has taken it up, it was called the Lucky Strike Club. I worked as a shill, and break-in dealer at that time. They paid ten dollars a day, and my first job was to go from there up the street to a place called the “Club Bingo,” and count how many people were playing bingo—a very important job. From there I left the Lucky Strike Club, I went to the old Salsega Club, which was on the corner of which is now the Golden Gate Club, and I learned how to deal craps and UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 4 roulette, and from there I went to the Golden Nugget and dealt all three games. And from there, I went to the Desert Inn, and I stayed there for a while, and then I went to the Aladdin. When they opened up the game of Baccarat, I broked and dealed-in the game of Baccarat, and from there I went to Caesar’s Palace just after the opening, where I’m at still, nine years later, in the Baccarat Pit. (Audio cuts off and returns) According to this dossier on different questions, that Ms. DiFederico is asking me, I’ll try and answer some of the specific questions in their order. As far as family history goes, I’ve already told you that basically Romanian and Russian ancestry, as far as ethnic and religious ancestry goes, my entire family is Jewish. As far as I know, they’ve always been Jewish, and they always will be Jewish. As far as education goes, I’ve gone through college; my wife isn’t—she’s a junior at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a housewife, which I don’t particularly agree on, but sometimes you have to give and take. As far as places of travel, I traveled to Spain, Portugal, Europe, basically. I’ve traveled all over the United States and all the cities. Mexico, I’ve traveled to—Canada—occupational history, I’ve already stated that I broke-in as a dealer and today I’m a shift-boss at Caesar’s palace in the Baccarat. As far as awards and honors go, I was—in high school, I was an all-state football player, I played on the basketball team, the baseball team, I ran track, I had numerous debate and speech scholarships also, which I didn’t take advantage of. I decided to go to school on a football scholarship, which was probably a big mistake, because at that time I went to college, I started out in pre-law and ended up in P.E., which isn’t a pretty good move. As far as history and illness in the family, my parents are both dead—my mother died from aneurism of the main artery to the brain and my father died of a heart attack. As far as property, wealth, and achievements, my biggest achievement I would have UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 5 to say is my family, anybody knowing exactly what Jewish heritage is, I’ve got a Jewish wife which is something different, if you’ve never had one, and very interesting. I don’t think we really have time to really get into the Jewish way of life, the Jewish wife, and the Jewish family, but maybe on a later program we can get together and talk about that. As far as special skills and interests, I go to almost every sporting event no matter where it’s at. I play paddleball and handball and tennis, I jog a lot. My interests are basically sporting interests, football probably being the main interest. Not always watching, but wagering and betting on the outcome. As far as organizations go, I’m a member of the Elks, in fact I was a member of the Elks from the day I turned twenty-one here locally, and I’ve been a member for fifteen years. I belong to the local chapter of the Jewish mafia which is the B’nai B’rith. And other organizations that are part of the synagogue. (Audio cuts off and returns) Question nineteen on this dossier, is a description of the informant. And the only thing I can say about my description is, I got out of high school, at a hundred and five pounds soaking wet, at that time, my life-time ambition was not to go ahead with speech and debate, but to go ahead with a football career and at that time, I decided the best thing for me to do was to gain a little weight, so I went from my senior year in high school, at Rancho High School at a hundred and sixty-five pounds, to my junior year in college, and at that time I weighed three hundred and five pounds, which shows you, if somebody puts their mind into doing something, that they can definitely do it. And from that point on, in my life, I’ve always tried to become skinny again. And in doing so, may have lost and gained maybe a thousand pounds back and forth. And at this time I’m on my way down again. I was two hundred sixty-four, I’m not about two hundred thirty-seven, and I hope to tip out at about two hundred. As far as any of the other questions go, I UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 6 think one of the most interesting aspects that I can describe, as far as my life has gone in Las Vegas, naturally, would be the main industry, which would be gambling. When I started in the business, all the gambling houses were privately owned, they were owned—they were owned by people such as J.K Houssels, Moe Dalitz, who represented a syndicate of people, a lot of these hotels had not been built yet. The big corporations didn’t exist at that time, colorful people were in the business such as Beldon Katleman, who owned the old El Rancho, Bugsy Siegel who, he was the first owner of a group of people who owned the Flamingo, Benny Binion who had at one time, a drunk came in and said he was ‘gonna shoot him and he went out and got a gun and told him he was ‘gonna kill him, and before he could kill Benny, Benny killed him. Needless to say, Benny got off on a misdemeanor, but the clubs at that time, the gambling industry were basically small. We didn’t have games such as Chemin-de-fer, and Baccarat there was usually two or three crap games, a couple of Twenty-One games, a few slot machines, at that time, we didn’t have Keno, it was just being introduced. And the gambling industry as we know it was basically small, club type of action. I don’t know—if you were to walk into the MGM today, you would see over fifty Twenty-One games, you would see twelve crap games, you would see five or six roulette games, you would see three baccarat tables, and you would see over a thousand slot machines. So as far as the industry goes, as far as the city has gone, everything has progressed to a point where things are massive, even the small clubs have many more slot machines, many more Twenty-One games than they used to have, and by doing this, things became a little bit more organized in the way of corporations. The first real big corporation to step into Las Vegas naturally was Howard Hughes, at that time, he took the Sands Hotel and the Desert Inn hotel, the castaways, the old landmarks, the Silver Slipper, and he made a conglomerate out of those clubs. And one of the funny things about the organizations of corporations, I won’t name the name of UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 7 the club, but one of the clubs that Mr. Hughes took over at the time, before he took it over—the year before he took it over, they netted, which means the net-profit, the bottom line, was two and a half million dollars for the entire year. And the first year that Howard Hughes had the hotel, the net profit line was four and a half million. So by introducing big corporations into Las Vegas has not only bolstered the economy, but it put everything that was going to be done in the future, on a legal basis, taxes would naturally, more revenues for the entire state would be begotten, and everything that had gone in the past, whether legal or illegal, would at that time become more legal and more progressive in the eyes of not only the people that lived in the city, but the politicians who at that time incorporated a much stronger gaming control board, they made it tougher to become a licensed—a person like Bugsy Siegel in the future could never own or participate in the gambling centers that we have today. And it became not only to own but to work in these hotels. Felons, ex-felons, had became very hard for them to get jobs in Las Vegas, where before that, just anybody could work in the gambling industry. And by bringing big corporations into Las Vegas, it’s naturally had its good effects, and its naturally had its bad effects, it—as far as the state goes, much more revenue, much more taxes, much more honest approach to business as far as the negative issue goes, any time you deal with big corporations, you get away from actually dealing with the individual and when you do that, its not as wholesome, its not as warm, people don’t feel as friendly towards other people when they’re working for a corporation. So naturally, a pit-boss or an owner, or somebody that’s in these places doesn’t spend the time with the individual customer that they would do in a place that would individually owned by someone, say Benny Binion, that’s still owns the Horseshoe, or somebody of this caliber that can get down to earth with the customer, get down to earth with the UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 8 people that he works with, and makes the type of atmosphere which is not only beneficial to the hotel, but beneficial to the individual. (Audio cuts off and returns) Well that’s about the extent of my ups and downs as far as giving a little background according to Las Vegas, I can talk a little bit on Las Vegas as a child, as a kid, at that time, some of the real big land-marks since I was growing up were the ENT Drugstore in North Las Vegas, which was a real biggie. It was about the only place in the entire city of North Las Vegas where all the kids would gather, beside Arctic Circle, which they had one of, at that time, that was truly the big landmark of North Las Vegas. As far as Las Vegas goes, junior high school and high school life I don’t think has really changed that much. Where we used to drive from in our old ’56 Chevy, from the tip-top, which is now a steak-house up on Las Vegas Boulevard and Charleston, down to the Blue Onion which is closed at this time. Cruise through the Blue Onion to Fremont Street, up Fremont Street, just like the kids do today, all the way to the top where the old Union Pacific railroad was, go around the Union Pacific railroad, and go from there, back down to the Blue Onion, from the Blue Onion, back up to the tip-top, and from the tip-top, if you were really in at that time, you could go to a place which was in back of the tip-top, about a block, which was called the Tell n’ Tote, where usually the rougher class of students hung out. It was usually two or three fights there at night, the cops were there all the time, cruising back and forth. As far as athletics goes, as far as school life goes, there wasn’t there much rivalry at that time because the only high school you had was Las Vegas High School, and then came along Rancho, which in those early days was no—was nothing for Las Vegas High School to beat because when they first started out, they had no junior class, they had no senior class, and by the time they had a junior and senior class, they still didn’t have the amount of students that Las Vegas High School UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 9 had, so things were, as far as school rivalry goes, we didn’t have the Valley and the Western, and any of those schools, and we did have Gormond High School at that time, but the population of the school was much smaller than it is now. And there wasn’t much rivalry there between that high school and anything else. I would have to say the biggest rivalry that we had, when I was a kid, who was tougher between Las Vegas and Basic—and I don’t mean in a sporting event, that would have to be in a fight. It was counted just like a county line, going across the county line between going to Henderson and Las Vegas, they didn’t come here, and we didn’t go there, except for one thing, which was to fight, and to the victor went the spoils, and to this day, nobody knows what the spoils was, but they just kept fightin’ and fightin’ and—I would say the biggest thing in high school life was to be a member of a card club or a coke club. We had various card clubs and coke clubs such as the gents, and the gestures, the julips, the mint julips, it was just a status thing to be in any of these groups. Naturally, the—there was a—there was not as many black people in the community, they were not as I would say, organized, as they are today. At that time, believe it or not, we had a big Indian population which lived down on Las—Main Street at that time, behind the old Review Journal building was a reservation where the Indians lived, and we had a ‘lotta tough Indians in Las Vegas at that time. Today there’s nothing there, in fact, there’s very few Indians in the entire town, they were just swallowed up with the large amount of humanity which we have in Las Vegas at this time. But each group that was organized was supposedly tougher than the next group, and the real proud moment in every high school male’s life, was to wear his card coat or his club coat, and at that time, it was to be called out by somebody of another gang, and be able to beat whoever it was in the other gang. I know it sounds like a big city, like the ghetto, but in the early days of Las Vegas, that’s where—that’s what kids did. They ran in groups, it was the only safe way to run around, because if somebody UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 10 saw you with your coat on, or with somebody a member of another club, they knew that if they fooled around with you, they had to fool around with the entire club. And nobody was that big that they wanted to mess with nine, ten, fifteen, twenty guys. So peace was basically within the city because everybody was afraid of fighting with everybody else, but there was always outside interest, such as Basic, the people of North Las Vegas finally got a big enough population where there were a ‘lotta guys that got into card clubs and jacket clubs down there. And they would go back and forth and then when we got Rancho High School, it became even more of a status symbol. It belonged to whatever group you belonged to, and the theme of the day was fights. Believe it or not, it didn’t matter how you played the game, as long as you fought in those days. Most of the kids growing up in this area at that time, either did a lot of fighting, saw a lot of fighting, or stayed out of a lot of fighting. Because one of the three things had to happen—you had to be involved in it because it was an everyday occurrence, there wasn’t a conflict between blacks and whites, between blacks and reds, between any real ethnic group at that time, it was just a conflict between kids that were growing up that thought that they needed something such as a car club or a jacket club for protection, and they joined ‘em, and by joining in ‘em, they fought a lot. And as far as athletics, we only had a few athletic programs in Las Vegas, we didn’t have a Dula Recreation center at that time—Dula hadn’t been killed yet, he was a policeman that was driving his motorcycle that got hit by a car they named the recreation center after him. We didn’t have that, we didn’t have basically any gymnasiums. When Rancho High School was built they put a gymnasium there and then we had a gym at Las Vegas High School, there was football, and basketball, and baseball, and track, but as far as Pop-Warner leagues go, and things of this sort, there was no athletic programs for the young individual. As far as dances go, there was one place in North Las Vegas, which was called the Fun Center. And there used to be dances UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 11 there, and there used to be dances at the schools, and that was basically about all the social life that there was in Las Vegas other than maybe your proms and different organizational things that they had in the schools. School was a tough place and education standards were basically low in those days, we didn’t have a great teacher group as a nucleus, most people that came from out of state at that time would be much more advanced that the people who were in the state taking classes at that time. We had no advanced chemistry, or English, or anything of that sort in any of the high schools. And the educational standards at that time were basically minimal. (Tape one ends) (Audio begins mid-conversation) Now I’d like to talk about a little of the background of Las Vegas of when I was a kid. Growing up in Las Vegas, when I grew up here, the town was approximately 20-25,000 people, very small, little burrow. There was a fairly large Indian population at that time, and it was just a small, small town. Gambling was centered almost—all of it was centered on the Main Street, which was Fremont Street. Henderson was very small, North Las Vegas was very small, and most of the people that lived in Las Vegas lived in the Downtown area, in the fringe areas of the city where Huntridge and Cresswood, which were just being built at that time, that’s the area. Just on the other side of Charleston. The rest of the city was just desert. There was a lot of artesian wells—when we were kids, we used to take an all-day hike out to Jones’ Ranch, which is now on Fifteenth and Sahara. It was an artesian well, you could go craw-dad fishing, you could go swimming, you could drink the water from the artesian wells, and as far as other places of interest to go, if you wanted to go hunting at that time, the best place to go hunting is where the old Elk’s lodge is now, where Cashman’s field is, that was all swamp. You could go duck hunting out there, mutt head hunting, that was all artesian wells and swamps, all the way down to UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 12 where Rancho High School is today, was all swamps. They did have a few mines around—the old Frenchman mine at the foot of Sunrise Mountain was open at that time, then they closed it. You could still go in it, and when we were kids, one of the kids went in and never came out, so they blasted the mine because of the death of the child. And we had, at that time, a very small police department. Naturally, being a small city, didn’t need that big of a police department. The biggest thing in Nevada at that time was probably Pat McCarran, who was our big representative for government. He’s the man that the airport is named after, and he was one of the real landmarks of politics for Nevada. He actually put Nevada on the map at that time. We had Mayor Baker at the time when I was a kid, and then after that in 1960, for sixteen years, Oren Gragson was the mayor. And politics in those times were very low-key, really nothing too exciting ever happened in Las Vegas, until they decided to go with a few places out on the Strip. A few big hotels, and from that time on, the city grew, the town grew, we got more people and it went from a little tiny 20,000 person city, to the big city it is today—anywhere from 250 – 350,000 people in the Valley, that’s counting Henderson and its surrounding areas. When I grew up, I grew up in Huntridge, which is the old John S. Park area, just across Charleston. And that area was basically middle-class people lived there. Houses ran anywhere from 12,000-19,000, which was a fairly nice house. The schools in the area was John S. Park, was the grade school. Las Vegas High was the high school. Gormond was just being built, the Catholic parochial school. As far as school life went, naturally, athletics were probably very important, that was one of the few entertainments in the city at that time. (Audio cuts off and returns) As far as Las Vegas being changed and going back and forth with different environments, it was growing up in Las Vegas, as I said, it was a very low-key, very slow-play type community. Most UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 13 everybody in the city knew everybody else, everybody was your friend, everybody knew you on a first name basis. Now that it’s a big city, there’s a big difference. There’s—you have a very—few friends, close knit friends, and that’s like it is in any big city. As far as my environment, as a child goes, compared to my environment as I now have it, I lived in Las Vegas and watched it progress from a little town to a thriving metropolis, in fact, probably one of the most talked about towns in the world today is Las Vegas. My neighborhood was—all the people that lived there were basically your middle-class people. Compared to the neighborhood I live in today, which is way out in the Valley, its actually what you would call the (unintelligible), which means that everybody that lives in this area, just about everybody, has horses. You cannot build on the property in Paradise Valley past Russel, unless you’re on at least a half-acre of ground. It’s zoned half-acre estates, so everybody who lives out in this area where I live, which is off of Sunset Boulevard, and the Sunset Park area, basically has horses. It’s a slow, more slow-moving type of environment than it would be living in the city. The people naturally live out in this area are looking to stay away from the majority of great masses of people. And it’s a ranch-type life, a slower life, and I enjoy it very much. It’s—I consider it a lot healthier, a lot cleaner for my children to grow up in this type of environment. It’s about ten degrees cooler out in the far extents of the Valley than it is in the City. So in the summertime it’s cooler and in the wintertime its cooler. There are a lot of things for the kids to do, naturally, there’s not as many kids in this area as there would be, because it’s mostly an adult population. But they have things—horseback riding, and the parks, and the things like this that they just don’t have in the city itself. The crime rate is way lower in this area than it would be in the city. Where your crime rate is high in the city, you just don’t have that type of crime rate in a loosely populated area. There’s a lot of entertainers that live out in this area, Wayne Newton has his ranch out here, he raises Arabian UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 14 horses. Cody Fields is the resident fat-farm out here, Jerry Vale lives out in this area. And these people are basically just regular people when you get to know them. They live their lives and you live your lives, and they don’t bother you and you don’t bother them. So they’re not too hard to get along with, it’s not like living in Beverley Hills, or one of those areas. These people are here, they’re working, they work nights, they sleep days, you don’t see them, they don’t see you, so there’s really not too much of a problem. As far as other, oh— (Audio cuts off and returns) While we’re talking about the people that are my neighbors, which are basically show-business people, I would like to say that, as far as I’m concerned, the entertainment policies, which, when I was growing up as a child, were not very much. We had—the stars of the days in those days, performed in Las Vegas, Judy Garland, performed at the old Thunderbird, Liberace performed here, (unintelligible) performed, many of these people performed but the pay scale they received in those days, in comparison to what they got today, was in comparison to what a baseball player got in 1906 to what he gets in—what Jonny Bench gets today. It looks like to me, that the entertainment end of the hotels have completely outpriced themselves, as far as getting people to stay in their hotel and perform in their hotel. To give you an example of this, at Caesar’s Palace, for the last four years, Paul Anka’s played at Caesar’s Palace, and he’s received approximately a 150,000 a year. Now, starting next—his next time he comes to town, he won’t be at Caesar’s Palace anymore, he’ll be at the MGM Grand for 225,000 dollars a week. Now I don’t know how the hotels can justify paying these people that kind of money and still make money for the hotel, make money for the stockholders, it seems impossible to me, I don’t know where they’re going to make the money, they’re just completely outpricing themselves. Also in the early days of entertainment in Las Vegas, we had a lot of piano bars, a lot of places where you could actually UNLV University Libraries Jack Herst 15 call them lounges, where today we have like, all the hotels put together, I think we have two different places where they have actually a lounge where you can go and sit and relax, listen to somebody play the piano, or a group sing. One of the real hoppin’ joints when I was young was the Thunderbird—we had a lot of rock n’ roll people at that time, and they had a guy by the name of Teddy Randazzo, that played at the Thunderbird. He did a lot of composing himself, was very good. A real big group was Candy Johnson and the Exciters, these types of gro