The Cotton Club's Famous Bandleader Hawking a Famous Texas Beer

[African Americana]: [Pearl Beer]: Calloway, Cab:

[Large Advertising Display for Pearl Beer Featuring Legendary Swing Band Leader, Cab Calloway].

San Antonio: San Antonio Brewers Association, [ca. 1950s]. Seven-color lithograph including reproduced photographs of Calloway and a bottle of Pearl Beer, measuring 19.25 x 23.75 inches. Minor edge wear, faint dampstain along bottom edge, else a really nice example. Very good. Item #12678

An evocative piece of midcentury advertising art featuring Swing Band leader Cab Calloway pitching Pearl Beer of San Antonio, Texas. The text of the advertising piece reads: "Join the Swing to Pearl. Xtra Dry. Xtra Light. Xtra Mellow. The 3 X's of Texas - Swing Master Cab Calloway says 'Join the Swing to Pearl' Say...Bottle of Pearl, Please." The advertisement is artfully illustrated by a banner of piano keys, musical notes, a bottle of Pearl Beer, and a small outline of the state of Texas, with a half-length portrait of Calloway enjoying a tall glass of Pearl at right. Calloway is dressed in an all-white tuxedo and holds a baton in his other hand. The famous band leader’s career as a pitch man included, among others, Rheingold Extra Dry Beer around 1960, Hula Hoops crackers in the late-1980s, and Gap turtleneck sweaters as late as 1993, the year before he passed away. No examples of any Cab Calloway Pearl Beer-related material found in OCLC. A striking example of African American midcentury advertising in which the most famous band leader of Harlem’s Cotton Club hawks beer made in San Antonio, Texas.

Price: $850