05/24/2023
Keep rollin’ sweet Tina ✨💔
The incomparable Tina Turner, preforming at The Skyliner Ballroom, Jacksboro Hwy, 1964 ✨
And having the time of her life in Fort Worth!
The “Live! The Ike & Tina Turner Show” album was recorded at The Skyliner, featuring performances by the Ikettes and Kings of Rhythm. It is was their first album to reach the Billboard charts, peaking at number 126 on Billboard Top LPs and number 8 on Hot R&B LPs.
As for the Skyliner Ballroom, it was one of the wildest and most colorful clubs on the strip, was established in the late 1930 on the 3½-mile stretch of the Jacksboro Highway.
During the lucrative and burgeoning entertainment days on the north side of Fort Worth, the strip sported eighteen restaurants, six liquor stores, seven nightclubs, and ten motels.
The Skyliner Ballroom was by far the largest dance hall in Fort Worth, playing host to as many as 500 of the city's upper-income couples. The white stucco building held 2,500 square feet of maroon plastic dance floor, surrounded by blue carpeting, furnished with wine and rose colored couches and armchairs, all reflected by numerous mirrors, and decorated with a mural of the Fort Worth skyline at the entrance. Prominent national acts, such as Louis Armstrong, Sally Rand, Rudy Vallee, and Delbert McClinton also performed at the club.
In the 1950s, opened the Annex Club, a small gambling room run by gangsters Tincy Eggleston, Nelson Harris, and Howard Stripling. In addition to gambling, the Annex Club offered X-***ed movies, strip shows, and other illegal activities. By 1954 the club was sold to Jimmy Levens and his partner, Emmett Spinks.
After Levens died in 1966, the club closed and stood abandoned for three years. In April 1969, condemned by city inspectors, it was demolished.
📸 Photographer unknown, via Pinterest
#1964
