"Today, the Troubadour on Santa Monica Boulevard is just one of a dozen clubs in Los Angeles presenting name pop-rock talent. But there was a time in the late '60s and early '70s when every young singer-songwriter dreamed of performing in the West Hollywood room's spotlight."-Robert Hilburn
The Troubadour is a musical landmark. It is truly one of the most legendary clubs in Los Angeles, if not the nation.
It was created in 1957 by Doug Weston as a small coffee house located 364 N. La Cienega Boulevard. It was next door to the Coronet Theater at 366 N. La Cienega. It originally was called the Troubadour Cafe-Theatre. The small club primarily presented literary readings and plays. West Hollywood nightclub by the late 1970's, having been instrumental in launching the careers of alt-country soft rockers like The Byrds, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and The Eagles
The Troubadour is a
nightclub located in
West Hollywood, California, USA, at 9081 Santa Monica Boulevard just east of Doheny Drive and the border of
Beverly Hills.
The club opened in 1957, named after the
Troubadour Club in
London, England, which was already showcasing rising
folk musicians[1]. It was a major center for
folk music in the 1960s, and subsequently
singer-songwriters and
rock.
The Troubadour played an important role in the careers of
Elton John,
Linda Ronstadt,
Hoyt Axton,
The Eagles,
The Byrds,
Joni Mitchell and other prominent and successful performers, who played performances there establishing their future fame. On
August 25,
1970,
Neil Diamond introduced Elton John, who performed his first show in the
United States at the Troubadour. In 1974,
John Lennon and his friend,
Harry Nilsson, were ejected from the club for drunkenly
heckling the
Smothers Brothers.
Randy Newman started out at the club and comics
Cheech & Chong were discovered there. In 1975, Elton John returned to do a series of special anniversary concerts. In November 2007,
James Taylor and
Carole King played a series of concerts commemorating the nightclub's 50th anniversary and reuniting the two from their 1970 performance.
[2]
Other alumni include
Damien Rice,
Lenny Bruce,
Neil Diamond,
Leo Kottke,
James Taylor,
Bruce Springsteen, the
Pointer Sisters,
Sheryl Crow,
George Carlin,
Tom Waits,
Pavement,
Rickie Lee Jones and too many more to name. The Troubadour was also home to folk legends such as
Bob Dylan,
Ramblin' Jack Elliot and
Arlo Guthrie.
In the late 70's and 80's it was a venue for Punk rock and heavy metal groups.
Some say there is no other club in the country that can compare to its infamous long standing Rock N Roll history.In 1998 Doug Weston died from natural causes. There was a memorial held at the Troubadour with performances and dedications from famous musicians spanning four decades of Rock N Roll as a tribute to Doug Weston for his role in the success in so many musician's careers.
Today it is well known for presenting emerging UK artists (Radiohead, Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys), punk/hardcore acts, such bands as Billy Talent & Rise Against, the latter filming five nights in a row for a DVD,
Generation Lost. It is also still a popular venue to showcase singer-songwriters: Ray Lamontagne, Joanna Newsom, Fiona Apple.
Who I remember seeing at the Troubadour in the audience or on stage during the mid 1960's to early 1970's.
Monday nights were a showcase of aspiring singer songwriters. Jackson Brown describes these Mondays in this way: "..." Jackson Browne: "You went there on Mondays just to try and get a job. You signed on to this list at 4 p.m. and if you were lucky you might get to sing three or four songs that night. Monday nights also happened to be industry nights at the bar, so you had a lot of actors and agents and record executives and beautiful women around. It was a teeming scene, and people like Crosby were always flying in and out with girls."
This was a casual night. I'm not sure how they lined up who was going to perform. Maybe the singers drew numbers. Sometimes in between amateurs someone famous would just surprise you getting up from a table in a corner and coming on stage to perform. This was common. Also common was that famous singers and their group of friends would be sitting at tables in this small dark club. It would not be surprising at all to share a table with Neil Young who sat there listening to the music while eating a steak. It would have been extremely uncool to seem impressed by a star. We just sat there, trying to be cool, absorbing every bit of this candlelit bohemiam atmosphere and enjoying each act. This was a hang out for the popular musicians of the time. We'd be there every Monday, stood in line for the doors to open around 7:30, paid a cheap admission maybe a dollar or two and bought our two drink minimum cokes or hot spiced cider with cinnamon sticks. (They must have sold liquer but we were just teens out of high school.) If we wanted to splurge we ordered a fruit plate that came with some slices of date nut bread and cream cheese. Every table had candles...that seemed to be the only light there was except for the stage lighting. Doug Weston would always be around, tall lanky blond. I remember during sets the performers would often make remarks about the small amount of money they'd get paid. I remember a very young pig-tailed Linda Ronstadt singing barefoot on stage. Steve Martin was just a goofy kid with a banjo and black hair. He did the same act over and over again and no one laughed. It seemed like he did that for years and sometimes was the warm up act for bigger names. He wore an arrow head band on his head. The kind of joke store gimmick they sold which was supposed to look like someone shot you in the head. He'd wear that and do stupid balloon animal tricks. Somehow he was endearing and it got to where we knew all his jokes. Years later he would become famous and we would see him on t.v. or in some recorded concert doing the same banjo, routine with the same jokes only now everyone was laughing hysterically. Things like this happened...you'd see someone and then years later those people would be famous. Kenny Rogers was with a group called "The First Edition" dark black hair then. Eveyone was young in the 60's I guess. One night this small very clean cut group got up to sing. They didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the hippie looking audience. The girl had a sweet face, long brown hair, doe eyes. The guys had very short, hair. Such a clean all American look. The girls had on matching pajama like caftans. I remember bumping into one of them, the pretty one with brown hair in the bathroom. She smiled at me and looked really sweet. I kept thinking what are they going to do? They just didn't seem to fit the scene. When they got on stage everyone was talking. No one seemed to really want to hear them. Then they started to sing. The girl had a beautiful voice but what blew everyone away was the way she played the drums. She stole the show. When they finished their song everyone clapped so loud. It was as if they had earned the approval of the audience. That group a few years later became "The Carpenters" and the girl in the bathroom? Well her name was Karen Carpenter.
During the week I would try to go to the Troubadour at least one night a week, maybe more if there was someone performing that I loved. I think there were at least two sets during the week and maybe three on the weekends. Sitting upstairs in the balcony (remember this is a small club) was very cool. I remember listening to Ritchie Havens sing one stormy winter night and the rain pounded on the rooftop. With his voice, the candlelight and the sound of rain falling it was perfection. I loved a singer named Tim Buckley. We'd go there almost every night when he'd play. His voice and his presence was haunting. We loved "The Nitty Gritty DirtBand" and followed them where ever they'd play. There were a few clubs that all the singers made the rounds at and so did we. They were "The AshGrove" on Melrose and "The Golden Bear" in Huntington Beach. I'm sure there were other clubs but these were the ones we went to.
Penny Nichols, Jimmy Spheris , Jackson Browne, Steve Martin, Brewer and Shipley, Linda Ronstadt, Laura Nyro, Cheech and Chong, Arlo Guthrie, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Gordon Lightfoot, Rita Coolidge, Kris Kristofferson, Randy Newman, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Carol King, Riki Lee Jones, Buffalo Springfield, Tim Hardin. Arlo Guthrie
Dan Tana's restaurant, La Masia, Propinquity, Figaro's Cafe Melrose
