BF,

think there's going to be a lot more info about Memphis than Nashville. Have you ever read about Robert Church? There's a book called Beale Street Dynasty. I'd put up a link to the book but I'm not sure if SC's post was a cryptic message to me to stop putting up external links.

But book is called Beale Street Dynasty by Preston Lauterbach.
I know Beale Street is synonymous with Blues music, so that area...and by extension that city (Mem) was probably where all the action happened. Robert Church.

Interesting thing that I noticed, and that the author of the book about Chi town numbers said in the interview. He said that there was a distinction between numbers kings versus gangsters. His quote was "there are racketeers and there are gangsters. Racketeer uses the gun to protect what he has/runs....the gangster uses the gun to get what he wants"

I wouldn't have worded it like that, but you could almost make the case that the numbers kings benefited the community when you read about how integral they were in the Black economies of the cities they operated in.