SENIORS
“I told you that you would have a church. I just didn’t know it would be in a casino.” Adopted hometown In 1964, Wade headed to Cleveland and took a job as a baggage handler for Greyhound. It was steady work. But the music would not stay in the background for long. He had already recorded a song titled You Don’t Understand Me. While performing live on the Big Five Show, a local version of American Bandstand, he sang along with the recording. Mid-song, the record began to skip. Wade didn’t flinch. He imitated the stammer and finished the performance. Syd Friedman, a promoter and booking agent, saw the show that night. He looked Wade up in the Yellow Pages and reached out. When they finally met, Friedman said, “I’ve been looking for you. I saw you on TV. You’re a funny guy.” That led to a two-week stint as a master of ceremonies, comedian and singer at the French Quarters, a Cleveland burlesque club. Down the street sat the Theatrical Grill, a reported hangout for local gangsters. The leader of a jazz trio performing there offered Wade a second job, replacing a departing singer.
Bobby Wade stands beside framed records and photographs chronicling his decades-long music career.
Smooth sounds Little Anthony and the Imperials’ Bobby Wade waltzes down memory lane
and her family were in Oberlin, Ohio, roughly 30 miles south of Cleveland. The 85-mile gap between them disappeared in 1958. “Her parents moved to Meadville, across the street from Pomona Park, which is where we all would hang out. My cousin said, ‘You’ve got to meet this new family that moved in.’ She was 12 and I was 14. We’ve been together since that moment.” Family has always been woven into Wade’s story. As a teenager, he and his friends got some early coaching from his Aunt Mabel. When the group needed a name, they took her suggestion: The Orientals. Only later did anyone pause to consider the irony of that moniker for an all-Black ensemble. Years later, Wade’s grandmother made the trip to Las Vegas to see him perform at the Tropicana Hotel. It was the same grandmother who, long before the bright lights and showrooms, had told him he would one day have his own church. The lively show closed with This Little Light of Mine. That night, famed blind piano player George Shearing proclaimed, “This young man, this group, has made me see the light.” Afterward, Wade spoke with his grandmother about Shearing’s comment. She didn’t miss a beat.
BY TOM SCHUMAN
U
Imperials and Bobby Wade’s Emperors, along with a variety of entertainment roles in Las Vegas and beyond. When he stepped onto the stage in January for a special performance at a community mic night in Province — his home in Maricopa since 2021 — it marked his first time in the spotlight in nearly a quarter of a century. That night was just one of many stories Wade enthusiastically shared recently. Through the ups and downs of his many years in show business, he added, “God has always taken care of us.” Family affair “Us” for Wade begins with his wife, Ruth. The couple will celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary this year, though their story stretches back even further. In the late 1950s, Wade and his family lived in Meadville, Pa., about 40 miles south of Erie in the northwestern corner of the state. Ruth
NLIKE MANY PEOPLE, BOBBY Wade never struggled to find the right occupation. He knew at an early age — 5 to be exact — what
he would be doing with his career. Then he went out and did it for the next five-plus decades. Growing up in the Bronx in New York, Wade said his parents worked different shifts. For a short time each day, he had the house to himself, and music filled the space. “The radio was always on. I listened to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole. I knew then what I wanted to do,” he said. Two years later, a trip to the famed Apollo Theater sealed it. Watching a popular entertainer of the day take the stage, Wade told himself, “I can do that. That was my inspiration to become a performer.” He went on to enjoy rhythm and blues and doo-wop stardom as part of Little Anthony and the Imperials. Later came Bobby Wade’s
Bobby Wade and his wife, Ruth, will celebrate 65 years of marriage this year.
InMaricopa.com | March 2026
March 2026 | InMaricopa.com
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