I t wasn’t any ordinary day in the Frederick Douglass projects in Harlem in 1977. At least not for Dave Wooley. As residents peeped and craned their necks to see out of their windows, they screamed and clapped approvingly, as a 16-year-old Wooley collected his drums and equipment and slid into the backseat of a black limousine. Drummer, producer, and recording artist Norman Connors had sent the limo. Wooley had met Connors in Mikell’s, a jazz club on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan, as a teenager. Trying to be inconspicuous the young Wooley would draw on a mustache and sneak into the club. “There was something about him,” said Connors about Wooley. Connors had produced artists like Michael Henderson, Jean Carne, and Phyllis Hyman. “I just felt like he [Wooley] would do well. I can spot talent right away. He was more percussion than drummer. He played more dance, hand drumming, bongos, congas, things of that sort.” That evening Wooley and Connors traveled to Nashville to play a gig at the Exit/ I N club. For many years afterward,
they would go on to play prestigious venues together and gigs all around the country. “Norman showed me another world when he took me on the road. I would play songs like ‘Betcha By Golly, Wow,’ ‘This is Your Life,’ and ‘You are My Starship,’ and he would do the jazzier songs. I would play percussion. We would switch back and forth,” said Wooley. Connors, of course, was spot on about recognizing his talent. Wooley had already built a reputation around Harlem as a talented drummer. Both of his parents were musicians—though not working professionally in music; his mother Bettye Wooley St. John was a pianist, and his father Herman J. Wooley was a jazz singer. By the age of 6, he was taking drum lessons with virtuoso African drummer Babatunde Olatunji who’d given him his first conga drum. He took free music lessons, courtesy of the Jazzmobile, from Michael Carvin learning how to read music, how to swing, and play straight-ahead jazz and funk. Pioneering jazz drummer Max Roach selected Wooley as the drummer in an off-Broadway play. He would
go on to become a studio musician in New York and realized a life-long dream when he had the opportunity to perform alongside legendary drummer Buddy Rich in a battle of the drums. He’d also work with Cissy Houston recording her demos. Although he loved playing music in the New York scene, by the time he turned 20, Wooley had moved to Delaware and out of the big-city jazz and R&B scene in New York. He was starting to think more about the business side of music. He focused his attention on graduating from Wilmington University with a bachelor’s degree in business and later earned a MBA.
In 1985, Connors asked Wooley about getting a gig in Wilmington, Delaware.
He asked Wooley to find a promoter that would put up the money and advertise for the band.
Wooley told Connors that Wilmington was a small town, not like what he was accustomed to in New York and other big cities. It would be hard to find a promoter to bring the band to Delaware to do a concert.
"I JUST FELT LIKE HE [WOOLEY] WOULD DO WELL. I CAN SPOT TALENT RIGHT AWAY. HE WAS MORE PERCUSSION THAN DRUMMER. HE PLAYED MORE DANCE, HAND DRUMMING, BONGOS, CONGAS, THINGS OF THAT SORT." -NORMAN CONNORS
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