GONZÁLEZ: It’s November 17th, 1973. The pluck of a bass guitar glides under an unmistakable disco string section as the last group on this week’s episode of Soul Train takes the stage. The camera dissolves from lights to the figures of five brothers in matching bell-bottoms, picked out afros, platform shoes, and jackets over bare chests and beaded necklaces. From left to right, Butch, Ralph, Chubby, Pooch, and Tiny Tavares are waiting for their cues. The music swells, and the camera pushes in on Chubby.

Music: “If you need a strong hand…”

This is Tavares’ first time on Soul Train, three years before they would sky-rocket to fame with the release of Saturday Night Fever. And as the brothers serenade this crowd of swaying Black bodies, they are at the center of Black American culture. But if you talk to the brothers today, they have a more complicated point of view.

TINY: I never considered myself to be a Black American. I don't want to be called that. That's not what I am. You know, so I would always say I was Black with Cape Verdean descent.

GONZÁLEZ: In this episode of Mosaic, we explore what it means to be Cape Verdean in a Black and white America through the story of New England’s most famous R&B family. I’m Ana González, and you’re listening to Mosaic.

Ralph Tavares is the oldest of the band of brothers. On this early fall day in 2020, he’s showing me photos on the walls of his home in Dartmouth.

RALPH: Oh, well that's my son Ralph and his wife, Kimmy. This is my grandson Maceo….

GONZÁLEZ: On the surface, Ralph seems like any other grandfather. He retired in 2017 after 30 years as a New Bedford court officer. With the pandemic, Ralph spends most of his days helping take care of his grandkids and going through memorabilia from his past. Only, unlike your grandfather, his memorabilia includes a Grammy, photos with Muhammed Ali, and gold records. There are boxes of posters and framed, chart-topping records like “Don’t Take Away The Music”, “Check it Out” and “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel”. On the coffee table, there are shoeboxes filled with family photographs.

RALPH: That's my uncle Peter. My father's brother. Now that's us. [ANA: OH!!]

GONZÁLEZ: Ralph just dug up a photo of him when he’s probably 13 years old, with all five of his younger brothers, the future members of Tavares. All together, there are 10 Tavares siblings, and Ralph is right in the middle, number five. They grew up split between two of the most Cape Verdean places in America: New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the Fox Point Neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island. That’s where this photo was taken, at the Fox Point Boys’ Club.

RALPH: My mother and father kept us pretty straight as far as growing up with all those kids. We belonged to the Boys’ Club. The Fox Point Boys’ Club. we used to go every night. And we would sing. RALPH: We started singing Cape Verdean songs, because that's all we knew. ...One was called ‘noite fincham’, ‘A mal de amor’.

GONZÁLEZ: Ralph’s parents, Feliciano and Albina, were both born in New England to Cape Verdean immigrant parents. Cape Verde is a set of islands off the West Coast of Africa that was colonized by Portugal until 1975. Still today, Cape Verdeans and their descendants are a mix of Portuguese and West African cultures. In the late 1800s, the whaling industry brought droves of Cape Verdean immigrants to New England port cities like New Bedford and Providence. When that industry died out, the cranberry bogs sustained Cape Verdean immigration. In the 1900s, families turned to the ports, the factories, or farms to find work.

Albina Gomes grew up in a farming family in Massachusetts, and Feliciano Vierra Tavares grew up in Fox Point, where his father worked as a longshoreman. Both the Gomes and Vierra Tavares families stayed close to their cultures by continuing to speak Kriolu, cooking Cape Verdean foods, and, especially in the Tavares family, playing Cape Verdean folk music.

RALPH: Now, my father was a musician. He played in a band called the Creole Sextet was the name of the band, and my Aunt Vicky sang.

GONZÁLEZ: The music you’re hearing now is actually Feliciano aka “Flash” Tavares, singing a folk song called “Lo lo”. During the ‘30s and ‘40s, Flash and Vicky tour throughout the Northeast performing modernized, jazz-inflected Cape Verdean music. Even as Flash marries Albina and starts having kids, he continues to tour. So, the Tavares children are all born into the music industry, literally.

RALPH: And he and my aunt were driving back from, with my mother, from someplace that they were performing in New York. And, as they were getting close to Connecticut, I guess she went into labor. So I was born in Waterbury, but moved right away to Massachusetts.

GONZÁLEZ: Next comes Arthur, aka Pooch. Then Victor. Then Antone aka Chubby. Then Feliciano Jr, who they call Butch. And, finally, Perry Lee, who goes by Tiny.

TINY: My uncle...he told my mom and dad after they had nine...they came back to him and said, “We're having another one.” He said “Para li”, meaning ‘to stop here’ in Creole [laughs].

GONZÁLEZ: That’s Tiny, who’s ironically the tallest of all the brothers. And by the time he’s born in 1949, his older siblings are already performing.

TINY: I think we had like four or five groups at one time within the confines of the family. My brother Chubby was in a group, the group had a group. ...There was always different, you know, levels of artists and different acts going on at the same time.

GONZÁLEZ: At first, they’re singing Cape Verdean music, like their dad and mother and aunt. But then, they see another world. Here’s Ralph.

RALPH: But here's what happened: one day, we were at one of the Cape Verdean picnics they used to have back in those days. They’d have these outside picnics all the time. And my father and my aunt were playing at this – singing and playing in the band. And during one of the intermissions, there was a young kid that came up on stage, and he came up and he sang a song by Frankie Lymon. And all the girls in the crowd went crazy. And we looked at each other. And we said that's what we want to do.

So we went home, and we started singing like that. My father didn't want to play behind us anymore.

GONZÁLEZ: The Tavares brothers are used to singing Kriolu lyrics to the slow strum of their father's guitar in Cape Verdean folk songs. Here comes Rock and Roll, this fast, fun dance music in English. It’s exhilarating. And, at the time, Rock is a Black American music. The Tavares brothers see themselves in the young, Black crooner of Frankie Lymon. And they are beginning to realize that the rest of the world sees them that way, too.

RALPH: I remember I was going on with this girl, her name was Patricia...And while we were younger, it was fine. And as soon as we started going to school, her father stopped me from seeing her. And I couldn't understand why. It was because I was Black, and she was white.

GONZÁLEZ: Ralph knows he’s dark-skinned, but when he’s younger, he doesn’t realize this makes him another race from his white neighbors, especially the Portuguese ones whose culture is so similar to his. He and the rest of the Tavares siblings think of themselves as Cape Verdean first, and then Black.

TINY: I never considered myself to be a Black American. I don't want to be called that. That's not what I am. You know, so I would always say I was Black with Cape Verdean descent.

GONZÁLEZ: But that nuance of identity gets lost in American culture.

KHALIL: Regardless of how much you identify with being Cape Verdean culturally... one is always going to be positioned, most likely, as being Black.

GONZÁLEZ: This is Khalil Saucier, professor and director of the Africana Studies program at Bucknell and a Rhode Island native.

KHALIL: So are you willing to be black in the eyes of society? Not just and I'm not talking culturally, but how you're positioned? And are you willing to defend that position? So, that changes the script from “race creates racism” to actually “racism creates race”

GONZÁLEZ: Khalil argues that it doesn’t matter how you identify on the inside, it’s the outside that people and systems judge. And that’s exactly what happens to the Tavares brothers one night when they’re on their back porch in Fox Point, practicing harmonies.

RALPH: We got arrested one night singing. What they did, they called us was disturbing the peace. They took us downtown. My father had to come and get us out of jail, and all we were doing was singing on the back porch. And this police officer came by and said that he got a complaint that we were disturbing the peace.

KHALIL: The Cape Verdean from Pawtucket understands that he or she is Black when the hands are on the hood of the police car. It doesn't matter if they think they're black prior to or Cape Verdean. They're Black when the violence of racism is being enacted. That's when race is created.

GONZÁLEZ: It’s the 1950s. Even though Rhode Island and Massachusetts don’t operate under Jim Crow laws, society is still very much segregated. This protects the Tavares kids from knowing what kind of oppression sits on the other side of the color line. But once they realize the limitations society puts on them and their parents, it lights a fire in the brothers.

RALPH: All I know is that my mother and father struggled very hard to keep clothes on us and feed us. And that's how we got the inspiration about wanting to be something.

GONZÁLEZ: In 1962, the family moves to New Bedford permanently, and Ralph joins the Army. But the rest of the brothers are still home. They start trying to make their dreams a reality.

TINY: They actually did road work. They went from door to door, knocking on doors at record companies and stuff like that. That's the kind of stuff you see in the movies.

GONZÁLEZ: Tiny is still a kid when his older brothers Chubby and Pooch start trying to get signed with their singing group, Chubby and the Realities. He’s technically not in the group, but he and his underage brothers Victor and Butch still make it on stage.

TINY: We had to stay in the dressing room, because we weren't old enough to be in the club. So they'd hide us out in the dressing room. And then, if there was a point where they wanted us to come out and sing a part, they’d bring us out to sing our parts and get back in the dressing room.

GONZÁLEZ: The Tavareses are paying their dues, honing their act, and making some money in the local venues, but nothing pans out for years. The younger brothers are still playing clubs in New England when Ralphs returns from the Army in 1965.

RALPH: When I came home, I couldn't find any work. And then I saw my brothers singing. They were at the Blue Flame. And I was sitting there and I was and I had seen some of the groups that came through from Detroit. And I said, we were just as good as they were….That's what made me not reenlist and form the group.

GONZÁLEZ: This time it feels more serious. Ralph is back home, and Victor and Butch are finally old enough to get into clubs. They practice and refine their blend of Doo-Wop, Motown and Soul singing for two full years unde the name “Chubby and the Turnpikes.” In 1967, Ralph, Chubby, Pooch, Victor, and Butch get backing to cut a record.

But it’s not a record deal. They don’t get the national fame they are hoping for, but they are selling out clubs all over New England. Chubby and the Turnpikes have an electric act. They’re theatrical and impeccably dressed. They dance in unison, and their harmonies are unparalleled.

TINY: If an instrument could play it. We could sing it.

GONZÁLEZ: The band is also undeniably, visibly, and joyfully very Black. Like singing covers of the theme from ‘Shaft’ Black. There’s no hint of Cape Verdean music in their acts. And it’s working for them. But being Black in America and performing that Blackness to crowds in the late 60s/early 70s is not easy. Off stage, the brothers face the same sort of issues they experienced with white folks their whole lives.

TINY: Back in the day, South Boston was the most dangerous place to be if you were Black...They wanted us in their clubs. The club owner wasn’t prejudiced, but his friends were.

ANA: [OFF MIC] Ralph said somebody stole your car.

TINY: Stole my brother Chubby’s car. Yeah, yeah, one time they stole the car, took a for ride, brought it back, parked it, and says, “Hey. Car rides nice.” Yeah. What are you gonna do? You’re outnumbered, most cases, whenever they did that you were outnumbered

GONZÁLEZ: It’s not just white club owners and their friends. The Tavares brothers also get push back from other Black performers. That’s new to them.

RALPH: I remember – who was it that came up to us – Rick James... And he hadn't become famous yet. But he came to see us performing in the club that we were playing at. And he almost started a riot because they thought we were invading their territory. But then they saw we were dark skin. But they didn't know with the name what we were. Because we looked different than them…

We were black Americans, that's all we considered ourselves, you know. But being Cape Verdean, we didn't think there was a difference, we just thought there was just Black and white. I didn't know that there was a discrimination between the races as far as ethnicity, you know, where you were born, where your families are from. As a matter of fact, we used to tell them, “We're closer to Africa than you anybody over here in this group. ...the Cape Verde Islands is closer to Africa than anybody from the South.” So they kind of started accepting us then. They started understanding that just because the last name was different, and we were what we call Cape Verdeans, we're still black Americans, you know.

GONZÁLEZ: Chubby and the Turnpikes make their way up and down the East Coast, to the Caribbean and Europe. All along the way, they encounter different perceptions of their race and identity. When they’re in Italy, they realize nobody knows what a “turnpike” is in Europe, so they decide to change their name to something more international. They go with the one thing they all have in common, their last name: TAVARES. Months later in 1973, Capitol Records gives them a shot: Tavares can record one single as a test. However the single does on the charts will determine whether or not Tavares gets that coveted multi-record recording contract.

With a little help from an appearance on Soul Train, ”Check It Out” makes it to number 20 on the R&B charts. Tavares lands the deal.

RALPH: Oh, it was unbelievable. Anything that was happening to us then felt like a dream. Because we had been waiting for so long. We have been singing all the different local clubs...But nothing was materializing. So, you know, we were making a living as far as taking care of ourselves, but not being able to take care of our families or anything. And then when we finally started making records, it opened up for us, you know.

GONZÁLEZ: “Check it Out” is the first hit of many for Tavares. They put out their first full-length record through Capitol records in 1974. Their second, Hard Core Poetry, comes out later that year and charts even higher. Their touring schedule becomes more international and instead of clubs, they’re playing stadiums. The Tavares brothers are becoming stars.

RALPH: People started hearing about how good we were. And we had a great show, you know, not only just getting up there just doing one song we could do two hours worth of music. And it was just the way we were used to working.

GONZÁLEZ: They open for Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson, Barry White, Nancy Wilson, the Jackson Five.

RALPH: We toured with the Jacksons, you know. It was a Family tour. So that was fun. We would play basketball. They cheated. But anyway, was fun, though.

GONZÁLEZ: They go on the Johnny Carson Show, American Bandstand, Soul Train a couple more times. And finally, they tour with The Beegees. It’s the 70s after all. And it’s through the Australian disco legends that the Tavares brothers get their biggest break.

RALPH: We were at Madison Square Garden when they first told us that they were doing this movie, Saturday Night Fever. And they wanted to write a song for us. You know? That's how we got “More Than A Woman”.

GONZÁLEZ: If you’re saying, “but that’s a Beegees song!” You’re right. Tavares is touring when the production of Saturday Night Fever changes hands and demands the track sooner than the brothers could record it. So, the Beegees record a demo of the song. That demo makes it into the big dance contest scene in the film instead of Tavares’s version. Tavares returns to the States and records the version you’re hearing, but they’re told it doesn’t fit the scene. The movie says they’re not going to use it, but Tavares has a contract.

RALPH: So Capitol Records said, we're going to sue you. There was going to be a big lawsuit. The movie hadn’t even been released yet. .So they didn't want to go to all of that. So what happened was that, whoever was the director of the movie went in and did another special scene where him and the girl danced in studio. That was never made for the movie. They had to make up that whole scene to fit to the song that we sang. So there wouldn't be no lawsuit. That's why there's two versions of “More Than a Woman.

GONZÁLEZ: Aside from that being a really juicy bit of Hollywood trivia, it shows that Tavares has made it, in a sense, into this upper echelon of the music business. And they’re realizing who holds the power. It’s not the artists, and it’s certainly not Black artists.

TINY: I always felt that there was still things that you know, that we weren't entitled to. There, it was always about entitlement. And I think being Black, you don't get the advantage that if you are if you're white. If you're white doing it, you had more opportunity, I don't care what field you were in.

GONZÁLEZ: In 1979, Reverend Jesse Jackson organizes a tour of American pop groups in South Africa. He invites Tavares. And the trip makes it clear how the world sees the band.

RALPH: The only reason why they let us go to South African and perform was because we were able to sing in front of mixed audiences. Maybe the third week we were there that we found out and our passport says that's when they gave us our passports back, that we were there as ‘honorary whites’. Can you imagine? That's the only way they would let us into the country on our passport was stamped ‘honorary whites.’ Who knows what that means? Because we were still dark, you know? What does that mean?

GONZÁLEZ: After this trip, Tavares' success slows down. The music industry in general is flailing in the recession of the early 1980s. And disco music is on its deathbed. The band is able to tour and put out records, but everything feels more and more impersonal. Tiny says, after being with Capitol Records for 10 years, nobody at the label even knows that they’re from New Bedford instead of Boston, let alone Cape Verdean instead of Black. Some people don’t even know they’re brothers. With record sales slowing down and bills and family obligations piling up, it doesn’t feel worth it anymore, at least for the oldest brother.

RALPH: If you don't have hit records, you're not in demand. And if you're not in demand, there's not that much work out there for you. So I had to raise a family. I had to take care of a house. ...And so it wasn't coming in like it used to. So I said I gotta do something.

GONZÁLEZ: Ralph leaves the group in 1984 to move back to New Bedford full time and be with his family. He gets the job at the courts through a friend and starts working a 9-5. Tavares continues touring in Europe, where they’re still huge. Each brother experiments with some solo records and other bands. Over the next 30 years, each Tavares brother incorporates other streams of income to make ends meet. In 2014, Pooch has a stroke, and Ralph returns to the group. They tour with other older legends like The Four Tops and The Temptations across the US and Europe up until the beginning of this year, when the pandemic canceled everything.

RALPH: And I don't think I'll ever hit the stage again, the way things are going as far as the pandemic and all that.

GONZÁLEZ: 2020 has also brought a season of civil rights protests and uprisings unlike anything our nation has seen since the movements in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It’s forcing the Tavares brothers to return to conversations they thought were over and done with.

TINY: We we worked in the South when we were younger, and we went through, “You couldn't, you know, sit in this restaurant. You couldn't sit at that table, you had to sit at this table. You couldn't come into the front end, you had come to the back, we went through all of that... It shouldn't be there. We shouldn't be back at that plateau again, but here we are.

GONZÁLEZ: Still, there isn’t a consensus among the brothers about their racial identity or political position. Here’s Ralph.

RALPH: I understand the situation that they we’re talking about. But all lives matter. It's not just Black lives, it's all lives, every heritage, every nationality, no matter where you are, all lives matter.

GONZÁLEZ: Tiny disagrees.

TINY: So for Ralph to say that, that's Ralph's perspective, you know, and I don't, I don't know, begrudge anybody their perspective, but don't begrudge me mine. Because I'd be the first one to say, oh, Black lives do matter. And no, not all lives matter. All lives matter, but the lives of those who are being jeopardized are black. So therefore, those are the lives that matter more to me right now, especially with the fact that I got to raise them. I’m raising Black children.

GONZÁLEZ: This conversation feels particularly important today because, as I’m writing this, there are protests in Providence over a young man, Jhamal Gonsalves, who lies in a coma after witnesses say a police cruiser struck him while driving his moped in South Providence. Jhamal Gonsalves is Cape Verdean. But to the police and the media, he’s just another Black kid. And even though the Tavares brothers experienced discrimination in their lifetimes, they also recognize that their careers in the limelight afforded them some protection.

TINY: Fortunately, for us music did give us a better way and more respect to extent that people who may be prejudice weren't as prejudiced because of what we did for a living. So, that kind of kind of gets you through some of the rough spots. But when I think to the people who didn't have that privilege, that advantage. Imagine what they went through, you know. And it's proven. Look at all the people who've died to get us where we are today.

GONZÁLEZ: In many ways, music has been a gift to the Tavares brothers, one that helps them acknowledge their Cape Verdean roots and yet adapt to a racialized America. It all makes me think of another famous Ralph, Ralph Ellison, who wrote: “Perhaps in the swift change of American society in which the meanings of one’s origin are so quickly lost, one of the chief values of living with music lies in its power to give us an orientation in time. In doing so, it gives significance to all those indefinable aspects of experience which nevertheless help to make us what we are.”

Mosaic is a production of The Public’s Radio. Edited by Sally Eisele. With production help from Aaron Selbig and James Baumgartner. Thanks to the Rhode Island Historical Society for use of their archives in this episode. Our theme music is by Bryn Bliska. Our intern is Michelle Liu. Torey Malatia is the general manager of The Public’s Radio. I’m Ana González: thank you for listening. If you want to learn more about the stories in Mosaic, visit thepublicsradio.org/mosaic. And, as always, subscribe to Mosaic wherever you get your podcasts.