Q:What path led you to found GCE?

S: In the late 70’s my husband Sanford was restoring and revitalizing homes and businesses in the Heights and especially along Washington Avenue.  The most significant building and project was the old Citizens (later Heights) State Bank Building which was restored and repurposed as a showcase nightclub we called Rockefeller’s.  We had hoped to find a savvy operator to lease the operation, but finding none, decided to figure out the business on our own.  I suggested we go to LA and have a big cocktail party for all the agents, managers, and artists we could round up and tell them about our beautiful music room. Some did come for the free food and drinks and we met among others, BB King’s manager Sid Seidenberg and Jose Feliciano’s manager who believed in us and offered their artists to get us started.

In the next few years we presented Tina Turner, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Ray Charles, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and many others.  One night a customer asked if I could also book the Four Tops for his daughter’s debutante party.  Of course I said yes, and I have been booking music for social and private parties ever since. My business was first called The Party Company and I think I was the original Event Coordinator in town. But after designing invitations, managing flowers, décor, valet, and catering out of my kitchen with 2 little girls, I soon decided that the music part of the event was what I was passionate about and good at, so I incorporated my company and became Gulf Coast Entertainment.