Have Mercy

Abstract In early June 1939, Webb and his band started on a big East Coast tour, with stops in Baltimore and Washington, DC. The band traveled with drummer Kaiser Marshall to sub for Webb if he needed to rest. On Monday, June 5, 1939, Chick Webb went back into Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was treated by Dr. Young. Webb’s music director Teddy McRae caught up with the band back in DC, and they resumed their tour with stops in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama. This was the longest period Webb was absent, but his musicians thought he would recover, like he had before. Webb died at Johns Hopkins on June 16, 1939, of intestinal obstruction and uremia. Fitzgerald and the band had been on the road all day and were about to play for a dance in Montgomery, Alabama. During intermission, the hall’s manager told them that Chick Webb had just died. They played a few more numbers, then canceled the rest of the dance and boarded the bus to go back to Baltimore. Webb’s family in Baltimore prepared their home for the viewing of Webb’s body, and hundreds of people came to pay their respect. The funeral was held on June 20, 1939, at Waters AME Church. It was the biggest funeral the city had ever witnessed, and thousands of people thronged the streets surrounding the church and the cortege to Arbutus Memorial Park, where Webb was buried.