Hugh ‘Peanuts’ Whalum brings a world of experience to his steady local gigs
By Roscoe Crenshaw
For the St. Louis American
Longevity is of itself admirable, but a consistently excellent and often spectacular long-term record of performance demands public celebration. For vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Hugh “Peanuts” Whalum, his life has been a saga of musical triumphs. At age 76, Peanuts is still very active on the local scene.
At eight years old, his father bought him a violin. “I took six lessons. I didn’t like the violin. I told him it was broke,” Peanuts said. His dad, having played trumpet in a WWI band, subsequently bought him a cornet. Whalum recalls, “That was the beginning of my real musical interest.” That interest led him to play a trumpet duet at age 15 with the legendary W.C. Handy at Booker T. Washington High School in his hometown of Memphis.
He has since mastered many instruments. “I would say that I’m most comfortable on tenor,” he said, “after that, the keyboard.” He mostly uses electric piano nowadays. He has also played alto sax, cornet and, for three years, the upright bass.
Music runs deep in his family. His second and third brothers, Harold and Wendell, were students at Morehouse College in Atlanta, where they were classmates of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Wendell became a beloved head of the music department, and brother Ken, the father of popular saxophonist Kirk Whalum, is a retired minister in Memphis. Nephew Kirk guests on Peanuts’ self-titled CD, which is currently available.
In 1945, while a 16-year-old freshman at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Whalum heard Nat “King” Cole’s recording of “Sentimental Reasons,” an experience that profoundly impressed him. His tenure at Howard was shortened to one year, in fact, because he spent too much time playing music. So, his father shipped him off to Wilberforce University (later Central State University) in Ohio.
In college, Whalum lived in a dorm (a converted Army barracks) with saxophonist Frank Foster. He remembers seeing Foster “sit on a cot and write the damndest arrangement, including a reed chorus – no piano, nothing but paper and pen.” Peanuts’ nickname – relating, most likely, to Whalum’s stature – came from another college classmate, Kenneth Glover.
Whalum earned a B.S. in chemistry from Central State University and also became a licensed pilot in 1947, paying for his own instructions from Lewis Jackson, who had taught the Tuskegee Airmen during WWII.
Instead of pursuing graduate studies at Meharry Medical College, Whalum hit the road, playing tenor sax with Lionel Hampton’s band. He ended up staying with an uncle, Henry Twigg, in Sacramento, California. This uncle brought Peanuts to St. Louis in September 1949, when he moved here to finish his training in law.
Peanuts’ first local gig was sitting in at the Show Bar, at the corner of Delmar and Taylor. His rise to local prominence was steady. He charmed audiences on Gaslight Square at the Islander with pianist Marion Miller, and at the Red Carpet. He also played the Spanish Door in the Mansion House, the Cheshire Inn in Clayton, Hilary’s on the South Side, Henry VIII on North Lindbergh, Al Baker’s, the Adam’s Mark Hotel and Boucair’s in Le Chateau Village in Frontenac. He gave drummer Ed Thigpen his first gig when Thigpen came to St. Louis.
Many old heads will recall the tragic auto accident that killed drummer Oscar Oldham on May 1, 1953. Peanuts’ group – Whalum on tenor, bassist Johnny Mixon, pianist John “Albino Red” Chapman and Oldham – was driving away from the Barrell on Delmar (at Clara). They had just dropped Chapman off at Cote Brillante; Mixon was driving north on Euclid when someone exiting Highland struck them, throwing Whalum from the car. Oscar died the next morning.
Whalum’s fascinating career spans much of St. Louis and far beyond, including jobs at the Champagne Room, featuring Marion Miller, Bob Ragan or Doug Thornton; on the road with Nat “King” Cole; at the Apollo Theater three times; with the George Hudson Orchestra; performing on shows with Harry Belafonte and George Shearing; and with Count Basie.
“The only reason I was with Basie,” Peanuts said, “was because he needed a replacement for Wardell Gray, and Clark Terry had him call me.”
He even has played Carnegie Hall in New York City with his Central State Collegians in 1947, which enabled them to perform with Woody Herman, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Eckstine.
“There’s no way I should still be in St. Louis,” Whalum says, reflecting on his past.
“In 1971, I went out to L.A., and this one night I was sitting at a table at Shelly’s Manhole with Oliver Nelson, Leonard Feather (of Downbeat magazine) and Quincy Jones. My sole and very primary purpose was to determine the possibilities.”
He had witnessed the ominous rubble from an earthquake a week before, and that devastation reversed his plans for relocation. St. Louis should be enternally grateful.
In July, Hugh “Peanuts” Whalum performs at Brandt’s in the Delmar Loop July 7, the Daniele Hotel on Meramec in Clayton July 15 and 16, and the Chase July 29 and 30.
