Moving Stories: Videos from the American South
That Old Black Magic
David Williams Performing as Sammy Davis Jr.
Crew & Credits
The first day The Bitter Southerner crew visited Madame C.J. Walker’s Beauty Shoppe and Museum on Hilliard Street in Atlanta, we met David Williams, one of a wonderful assortment of “cats” (to call them anything else would just be wrong) who hang out at the shop — and who bring to life the South’s oddest shrine to jazz, the Civil Rights Movement and the vibrant center of African-American life that was Auburn Avenue was in the mid-1960’s. (edited)
Before we left, David began to perform — and before our eyes, he became, almost literally, the late Sammy Davis Jr. (edited)
In this brief video, director Zach Wolfe captures David, as Sammy, singing “That Old Black Music,” written in 1942 by Harold Arlen and the great Savannah lyricist Johnny Mercer.
