Berro’s

Parish: Acadia

Location: Eunice

LouisianaDancehalls.com reader comment by Steve Picou: “My grandfather, Albert Robert “Berro” Picou Sr. was a colorful character and proprietor of Eunice’s first pharmacy (Picou’s, still in business under Robbie Chachere). After WWll, my father, Eugene D. “Coonie” Picou rushed through pharmacy school at Loyola and in 1949 returned to take-over the drug store because Berro had a health scare, possibly a small stroke. Upon my father’s return, Berro disappeared for weeks at a time. After a few months he announced that he’d built a fine nightclub on the Basile Highway. Sure enough, he built a spacious, tin-roofed wooden building large enough to hold more than 800 patrons. It had a kitchen, a bandstand, a large bar and even a room on the side for gambling. It opened around 1950 and became a busy community resource, hosting meetings, bingo games, events, and lots of concerts and dances. Big bands were the main attraction. Being on Hwy 190, the interstate of its day between Houston and New Orleans, lots of famous acts used the club to fill dates. The Ink Spots, the Platters, and most famously, Louis Armstrong and his All Stars, played Berro’s. But, these were black bands playing a white club during the Jim Crow years, and the family was not popular in some circles. When Armstrong was booked, the drug store received threatening phone calls that they reported to the FBI. Armstrong’s band had a white piano player, Marty Napoleon (who just died a few weeks ago, much to my chagrin, I didn’t know he was alive or I’d have tried to interview him), and this mixed band was evidently particularly disturbing to racists sensibilities. The show went off without a hitch and is a fading legend as there are few living patrons. I have a few pics of the Armstrong show, but no others or of the club thanks to the flood waters of Katrina. But I suspect there are pics out there among family and others. Herman Fusilier collaborated with me many years ago and ran a story in the Daily World that I hoped would connect with people who wanted to tell their stories about that night, and he even found a small ad in the archives. I’d be happy to share more about this and to contact cousins to see if we can find pictures. The club closed on New Year’s Eve 1954-55 after Berro died at the young age of 59 from having lived life a little too well. His wife, Wille Mae Ramsey Picou, died the following year, at the same age, for the same reasons. I was born in 1956 and only know them by the colorful stories I heard from family and friends.”