I’ve been interviewing folks lately and stopped by to see my friend Samuel C. Lathan when I was recently at home. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed our visit and, also per usual, learned lots of new things to research further. Here’s a 23 February 2008 Wilson Daily Times feature on Mr. Lathan, who is now 96.
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By Keith Barnes | Daily Times Photojournalist
Sam Lathan’s life has always been about the music.
Whether it was keeping rhythm as a child while banging on cardboard boxes on his grandmother’s porch or performing in later years with big-name musical groups, it has always been that way.
Most of his performing now involves playing drums with The Monitors, a local group, but Lathan, 78, reminisced recently about the early days of his long musical career, recalling the many people and groups who have influenced him.
He said beating on the boxes helped him develop rhythm, which led to his fascination with the drums.
When he was about 12 years old, he remembers, a group called “Winston’s [Winstead’s] Mighty Minstrels” came to Wilson and paraded through the streets to draw an audience for the group’s midnight shows.
Lathan got his first chance to perform in front of people when the Minstrels let him play the drums with them during one of the parades.
Following that early experience, he later played the cymbals for the Darden High School marching band in the 1940s and while at Darden also helped form a swing music band called “The Fourteen Flames of Rhythm.”
The group played at Wilson locales such as the Cherry Hotel, Briggs Hotel and the teenage center at the corner of Pine and Broad streets.
“We only made about 75 cents apiece, but we were just happy to be playing,” he said.
While with the group, Lathan met Steve Coleman, who was part of another Wilson group called the “Carolina Stompers.”
The Stompers had a drummer named Dank Dunn, and Dunn allowed Lathan some playing time at the drums during the group’s rehearsals.
By the time he was 17 years old, Lathan was playing on weekends in another group of Steve Coleman’s, and it was there he met Wallace Kemp, who greatly influenced his musical style and taught him a different, better way of playing.
“I learned from him not to beat the drums, but instead to play the drums,” Lathan said.
Playing gigs whenever he could find them, Lathan continued to hone his musical skills in several groups over the next few years including an eastern North Carolina tour with the Lloyd Price Orchestra.
In 1955, Lathan was offered a job to play in a Jacksonville band called “Jimmy Hines & The Four Dukes.”
He took it and was paid $75 a week, which was “more money than I had ever seen,” said Lathan.
When that group broke up, he stayed in Jacksonville, playing with another band called the “Jazzeroos,” a name taken from the club called Jazz Land where it performed.
“We filled the place up every night, mostly with Marines,” he said.
Lathan stayed with that group until 1959 when he went to Washington, D.C., to join a band called the “Billy Clark Trio” which had a bass guitar player named Sam Thomas.
After being there about a year Lathan returned to Wilson and got a job at Burlington Mills.
Then, one day he got the type of break most musicians dream of when he received a telegram from Sam Thomas telling him to call James Brown in New Orleans.
Lathan made the call and spoke with the legendary performer who had heard about his drum-playing through Thomas.
“They tell me you can play,” Brown said.
“Yes sir, I can,” said Lathan.
Brown and his band, The Famous Flames, were scheduled perform in Wilson two weeks later at Reid Street Community Center, and Lathan auditioned for him before the show.
Brown liked what he saw, and Lathan joined the group as its drummer, traveling and performing with them for two years.
Shortly thereafter, in 1963, Lathan joined The Monitors and has been playing with the group ever since.
“Music has been my life,” Lathan said. “I’ve never wanted to do anything else. But, I’ve always been fascinated with writing music, and if I had it to do over again I would like to have written more.”
