Obituary
Mike Quashie, ‘The Limbo King,’ dies at 88
BY PATRICK SHIELDS
Matthew “Mike” Quashie, who gained renown
as “The Limbo King” and whose South Village
home was a frequent crash pad for Jimi
Hendrix, died Jan. 30 in the Bronx. He was 88.
Quashie had resided since 2008 at a Kingsbridgearea
facility, Plaza Rehabilitation and Nursing Center,
formerly a nonprofi t known as Jewish Home Lifecare.
Ongoing health problems and a need for managed
care combined to lead to his eviction from his Bedford
St. apartment, which he had occupied since the mid-
1960s.
Quashie was long known to his friends and fellow
performers as “Mike,” a shorthand for his middle
name, Michael. He was a native of Trinidad and Tobago,
where his father was also a performer known as
“Lefthand Cornelius.” Quashie was one of Cornelius’s
28 children.
Quashie emigrated to the United States fi rst in 1958.
He then returned permanently in 1959. In between,
he spent a brief time in Jamaica working and studying
as a dancer, and beginning to craft the limbo act for
which he would become most widely associated.
He had various stage personas throughout the
1960s and ’70s, from limbo man to early glam-rock
voodoo fi re-breather to calypso singer. But he was
known most popularly as “The Limbo King” or “King
of the Limbo.”
In an April 1961 episode of “I’ve Got a Secret,” he
told host Garry Moore, “I’m the world’s champion
limbo dancer. I can dance under that bar without
touching it.”
He continued to help popularize this latest dance
craze in the States, appearing frequently at what he
referred to as “cafe society” events in New York City,
referencing the Greenwich Village nightclub. During
this era, Life magazine printed a photograph of him
performing at an event with featured guest Senator
Jacob Javits.
He perfected his act, and was a regular at various
Village and Midtown venues, including The Cheetah,
The African Room, The Peppermint Lounge and Cafe
Wha.
He co-programmed the outrageous “Fantasies of
the Age of Decadence Ball” at the Mercer Arts Center,
which included some of the era’s earliest and best
drag contests. At the famed Salvation nightclub, he
held court with the late co-owner (and later Reverend)
Bradley Pierce.
Quashie was perhaps best known as a stalwart
friend to Lou Reed and an early friend and supporter
of Jimi Hendrix. He championed the young Hendrix
and often hosted him at his Bedford St. apartment,
which became known as “Jimi’s Hideaway” after Hendrix’s
death.
Many rock-and-roll friends from that era credit
Quashie with encouraging voodoo and fi re aspects of
Hendrix’s persona.
Others credit Quashie with being the earliest
“glam” performer, suggesting that his “Spider King”
and “King Tarantula” and other personas, as well as
face makeup and glitter, were later adopted by acts of
later and greater renown.
His good friend drummer Tony Mann recalled that
in 1975 Quashie performed a fi re-breathing and gong
presentation onstage with Led Zeppelin at Madison
Square Garden.
Mann said Quashie remained friends with Jimmy
Mike Quashie in one ne of his professional profes
head shots.
Mike Quashie, who is said to have been an
originator of the glam look, sporting a fur
coat.
Page, who donated a signed guitar to Quashie to be
used for auction at a health-costs fundraiser for him
in 2003.
Many other musicians and bands credit him with
introductions that furthered their careers or altered
and enhanced their acts.
Quashie continued to perform calypso late into his
60s, with, most prominently, his band Mike Q and
The Arawaks.
His act was not a big moneymaker, though. So he
went to work for the New York City Department of
Buildings, until health issues forced him into retirement.
He continued to host friends old and new at his
South Village apartment, regaling them with tales of
his rock-and-roll days, and being interviewed often
about his friendship with guitar legend Hendrix.
His famed Caribbean noodles were staple sustenance
for many young, broke Greenwich Village aspirants,
Mike Quashie proclaimed himself “the world’s
champion limbo dancer.”
continuing the grand tradition of Max’s Kansas
City’s chickpeas in his own home.
Mike Quashie is survived by a younger brother,
Rennison, of Trinidad and Tobago.
A memorial for Quashie was held March 3 at Crestwood
Funeral Home, 445 W. 43rd St.
30 March 7, 2019 TVG Schneps Media