We’re interviewing Ronnie Pierce in the foyer between the Whisky Bar (where Ronnie plays every Wednesday night) and the Buenos Aires Grill (where Alberto promises us a free dinner for a shout-out). Ronnie is resplendent in a loud plaid jacket, a wild pink/black patterned tie, and an American flag baseball cap perched atop his silver hair. My sidekick David Midbon is videotaping.

EB: What’s your name at this place?
RP: Sam Sausage, “The Man who made Hitler Cry.” (We crack up)

EB: When did you first start playing the saxophone?
RP: You mean professionally, for money? I was fourteen years old and it was at the Green Lake Field House and the famous non-union band called the Noteworthies. We were all about fourteen and we played every field house and high-school sock hop … That was in 1942.

EB: I read that the reason the kids all played was because of all the men, the grown ups, were all in the war and the kids had to step in and take over.
RP: That’s how I got my break. All the pros were overseas. I was the clarinet player in the high school band. I didn’t even think about the saxophone and the bandleader said, “do you have a saxophone.” He took me to Johnny Jessup at Sherman Clay and right away he transferred me to the saxophone. So I showed up at the Green Lake Field House. They gave me a coat, probably not as swanky as this one, but five dollars and the jacket and there were girls in their bobby sox and I thought this is a good way to go, so that’s been my entire life playing saxophone.

EB: See that’s what I like, the idea of the artist that can’t do anything else that becomes what you do and that’s your whole life. After the Noteworthies, let’s go on to the fifties, you played all over town.
RP: I got in a college band that were all older than me so I had to join the musicians union. Let’s see, I’m definitely a lifer in that outfit. I think it was called the Chevaliers, a very popular college band. The guy who played leader part was named Stanton Patty who ended up for 35 years as a writer for the Seattle Times of where to go. He played trumpet out of the side of his mouth very sweetly like Charlie Spieback he had a Glenn Miller type saxophone section and a three trumpets and three trombones and a girl singer, he fronted the band. We played all over the state. Very, very popular college band. Now I was making 35 dollars a night and that was like 1944.

EB: Let’s jump. You’ve been documented in De Barros’ book (Jackson Street After Hours) about playing all over in the bebop era with all the big bands in town, and you played for, what was the stripper—Gypsy Rose Lee.
RP: Yeah I played for Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous international star, at the Showbox with a 15-piece band. It was six nights a week for one week; that was a bigtime show. The Showbox was a very fancy place in those days.

She had six girls on stage when she finished her act. The six girls would be on the floor of the stage. Gypsy Rose Lee would come and stand up in back of the six girls with this beautiful black velvet cape tied at the neck. They separated and she stepped out in the middle. She pulled the cord of the cape, and there she was stark naked, and then the lights went out. So for all the money you spent to see this world famous stripper, you probably got 30 seconds. That was the end of the show.

EB: You played all the major clubs in town.
RP: Spanish Castle on Highway 99; that was a very big place, 2000 people, fireplaces on each end, and name of that band was Morton Green. That was the best job in town.

EB: Let’s get to the World’s Fair.
RP: I’m playing drums out in the Rainier Valley with this Hammond organ player and some guy every night stood against the wall. So, one day I get a phone call about 9 in the morning saying, “You would be perfect to open up a night club on Second Avenue ’cause the World’s Fair is coming.” I says, “Man I got a car, nice furniture, a new house, man I don’t need a night club.” I didn’t want to be rude so I said, “OK, I’ll meet you in front of Second and Union,” which is Beneroya Hall now.

I drive up in my black 1946 Plymouth and this guy that had been watching me was hanging in front of the door. Just like the Beatles, you went down 18 stairs; it was an underground club. There was a gold piano, a white leatherette bandstand, and a bar with 20 seats. It was a professional club. In the ’30s, it was called the Spinning Wheel. Somehow, I ended up from 1962-1974 owning the Vault. I never went broke. I would also play clarinet with two banjos and drums.

EB: What was that band called?
RP: “The Bistro Boys.” They kept adding banjos. After three banjos my ears went out, and I quit. About six months later he called me back and says ,“I’ll double your money if you come back. I want you to wear yellow spats and I’m gonna call you “Skinny Malone and His Hot Bananas—Music with Appeal.” For that kinda money, I don’t care what you call me.

He made a show out of this which I would have never thought of myself. I didn’t think like this, I was into Charlie Parker. Our theme song was (Ronnie sings and claps along) “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”

An NBC-TV unit from the Today show was sitting in front of me, and they stood up and said, “We want you on the Today show.” So I told ’em, “The bartender’s got a better band than I have,” so I went home.
The next morning I get a call from KING-TV. “Is your name Skinny Malone—oh yeah, well they want you to sign a contract for national television.” No one from Seattle had ever played for national television. We had to call New York to find out what union scale was for national television and it was very high.

Then Harold Shaw, who booked all the major acts for the World’s Fair, saw the TV show. “I want you to open up the Food Circus from 3 in the afternoon to 8 at night seven nights a week, throughout the fair,” six months I think. They gave me a beautiful girl singer. He got a stage where you push a button and the lower stage comes out, she sings “Am I Blue.” She became a movie star.

The whole show was very successful. I’m playing from 3 in the afternoon until 8 at the Food Circus, catch a cab and play 9-1:30 at Louie’s from Chicago. The doorman had a bowler hat on, white gloves, black suit, and he had a casket. It was supposed to be a speakeasy. I played a lot of speakeasies in my life. I played for Russian John. He wouldn’t pay the sheriff off so they came in and beat up the people. He finally paid Sheriff Callahan off and that was OK.
EB: When you had the Vault you paid the cops off.

RP: Yes I had to pay a cop, plainclothes and a woman matron; she worked for me for 12 years. It was during the Vietnam War; all these people were from New Jersey, New York, Florida. No one came (to the Vault) from Seattle; they were scared to death. We had nine go-go girls and four bands, five nights a week. And it was just hucklebuck.

EB: You said that the thing you liked about The Vault was the fact all of those people from the boats had a home where they felt safe. It was fun and beautiful girls.
RP: The girls made it. We had the Green Berets, the Red Berets, the Marines, the Army, and the Navy. Five thousand people on the USS Enterprise headed to Vietnam had eight months in Bremerton, so these guys would have a four-piece band and knew every Beatles song recorded, memorized from eight months at sea. The people from the boat followed that band, came to the club. There was always an aircraft carrier headed for Vietnam. This was their last live entertainment before they went to get their brains blown out.

EB: It was a non-alcohol club, right? It was safe, there were no bar fights?
RP: The kids would bring in bottles of booze, mini bottles. As long as I was paying off the police, I could get away with anything. I think I’m godfather to 50 children.

EB: What are all the instruments you play?
RP: I’m an educated drummer with all the Latin beats, samba, mambo, cha cha. I played the Magic Inn—Pete Blue, me and Milo Hall. For years, it was trumpet, tenor, piano, bass and drums.