Amateur Night In New York: Triumph and Terror at the Apollo

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Among the agents who roam the communal dressing room, talk of Cooper is couched in terms of awe. "He's a saint. The world will never know how many big names owe everything to him," says Bobby Robinson, a producer who has prowled the performers' room for 30 years.

Upstairs, where he is searching for a pink tie that will do justice to his natty brown suit, Cooper is a picture of tranquillity. In a few minutes, he'll saunter into the spotlight. As always, the crowd will treat him like a favorite uncle, respectfully silent while he explains the rules.

"If you love 'em, let 'em know. Stand up and cheer and dance and tell 'em they're terrific," he'll say. "But if you don't like 'em, if you think they deserve to be sent back to the woodshed, you should let 'em know that too."

Swapping greetings with the regulars who drift in and out at will, Cooper has to be prodded before he'll explain just how he does it. "The Apollo is a very sophisticated audience, but that doesn't mean they're fair, least not all the time. If I wasn't here to keep control, it wouldn't matter how good some kid was. They'd just tear the act to pieces, never give the ones who deserve it a chance. But you know what? The ones that are going to make it, they'll always be back. If they've got what it takes, they'll stick to it till they make it."

For most of nine sad years, up until 1985, the Apollo was a shuttered reminder of Harlem's faded grandeur. The problem was simple economics. By the mid-'70s, big-name acts wanted so much money that it was impossible to squeeze a worthwhile profit out of the "small" 1,500-seat auditorium. Until the theater's closing, Cooper's amateurs still packed 'em in, but on most other evenings, the place was dead and empty.

Thanks to an in-house video complex that captures the star turns -- George Benson, the Whispers and others -- for television syndication, the Apollo is back in the black. As for amateur night, that has always been cheap entertainment, with the best seats going for $15 and most costing just $5. Cooper is proud that Wednesday is still a family night.

He is in fine form tonight, even if the same thing cannot be said for some of his would-be stars. At times he's a campy wonder, flouncing a hip to announce, "Honeee, I've had my fun. I've been uptown at the Apollo, don't you know?" At other moments he seems to share the crowd's delight at the ineptitude of the worst performers. "So that's how they sing in Georgia," he sniffs, after a young man who'd driven all the way from Atlanta falls to pieces at center stage.

It was precisely the sort of thing that Apollo crowds love to see, the ritual of public humiliation that also awaited Arthur Johnson. He tried, he gave it everything. "You and I together/ The dream seemed so real . . .," he sang, embellishing the slinky lyrics with pelvic thrusts and a swaying imitation of sensuality. But the song, Keith Sweat's soul hit I Want Her, doomed him. Some classic Motown would have given him a fighting chance: the familiar opening chords might have warmed the crowd before he even opened his mouth. But Sweat's ode to funky frustration was fraught with peril. Topping Billboard's soul chart, it was so hot that even the most gifted mimic could not have carried it off, at least not here.