12/25/2023 0 Comments Whiskey a go go historyAt the time, the Whisky and the Troubadour were the local hot spots for pop/rock/folk acts while local hard rockers kept Gazzarri’s jumping, and touring country acts stopped at the Palomino in North Hollywood. The Whisky was a flashpoint for the 1966 Sunset Strip riots which inspired Steven Stills of the Buffalo Springfield to write “For What It’s Worth.”Īlas, by the time I moved to WeHo in 1971, Rivers had moved on but I did start visiting the club frequently, seeing acts like pioneering all-female group Fanny and my longtime favorite Little Richard, who was enjoying a comeback on a new label. In the late sixties, the Whisky became the go-to place for checking out the hottest new bands like the Byrds, Love, Buffalo Springfield, and the Doors, who got fired for the racy content of one of their songs. On the inside, the Whiskey is just a big, dark room with a capacity of 500 and a narrow staircase leading to the dressing rooms upstairs but no other club is so steeped in musical history. Celebrities like Jayne Mansfield flocked to hear driving sets by Johnny Rivers and his band and ogle the hip-shaking go-go dancers that performed in cages overhead during breaks, moving to records spun by a female DJ. and Clark Street in January 1964 and was an instant hit. The club opened in an old Bank of America building on the corner of Sunset Blvd. The Whisky-a-Go-Go was the brainchild of Elmer Valentine, Shelly Davis, Phil Tanzini, and Theodore Flier, inspired by the discotheques trending in Paris in the early sixties. As I listened to this album and the ones that followed, I vowed that someday I would move to L.A. This is where I found the 1964 album “Johnny Rivers Live at the Whisky-a-Go-Go,” which was my introduction to the singer’s unique brand of updated rockabilly. My Montgomery, Alabama, high school was conveniently located next door to a Sears store where I regularly shopped for vinyl records.
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