Apollo Theater Exhibit Opens Saturday

Apollo Theater tour director and ambassador Billy Mitchell in a 47-year career has seen all of the great performers who have played the legendary Harlem stage.

Mitchell on Thursday conducted tours at the for a preview audience viewing the "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing: How the Apollo Theater Shaped American Entertainment" exhibition, which opens Saturday.

Along the way, Mitchell told stories about show business legends from Paul McCartney to Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, James Brown and Michael Jackson. Mitchell said the exhibition, presented by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African-American History and Culture in partnership with the Apollo, captures the spirit of those magical nights at the theater, which has been at the center of black music, dance and comedy since the 1930s.

The winners of the Apollo's famed weekly amateur talent shows are a who's who of American black entertainment: Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Brown, Leslie Uggams and Wilson Pickett, among others.

Mitchell, who commands a wealth of stories, tells about how the teenaged Ella Fitzgerald won her talent contest in the 1930s. She first signed on as a dancer, but was intimidated by a dance group she saw backstage, and so told the manager she would sing instead. But she was so nervous that she forgot the lyrics and substituted nonsense sounds instead. "So scat singing began," Mitchell says.

Standing before a portrait of Jackson, Mitchell recalled when the late entertainer first performed at the Apollo as a child member of the Jackson 5. The group appeared in the talent show, but was so good that the theater managers invited them back week after week.

"There was no one, I mean no one, who could perform like Michael Jackson," Mitchell said.

Along with Jackson's fedora, the exhibition shows a captivating collection of memorabilia, such as James Brown's cape and jumpsuit, The Supremes' dress, Cab Calloway's baton and LL Cool J's jacket.

The Smithsonian's explanatory narratives are also impressive, said Gordon L. Jones, senior military historian and curator at the history center.

The exhibition's curators "matched a top-flight collection of artifacts with a historic contribution that really tells people what it's about," Jones said. "That's the mark of an outstanding exhibition."

The exhibition will be on display through March 4. The hours are 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5:30 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free for Atlanta History Center members. For others, it's $16.50 for adults, $13 for students and seniors over 65 and and $11 for youngsters 4-12.