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Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

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April 27, 2006 issue

Getting That Old-Time Feeling

P.B. Scott’s Reunion Party At Canyons May 6

Story by David Brewer

Nearly 27 years after the final notes rang through the wooden geodesic dome over the custom-made Bose sound system, the myths, legends and tall tales surrounding the legendary P.B. Scott’s Music Hall are still passed among High Country music fans like some rare foreign currency.

Did you hear the one about how about a thousand people would be out in the parking lot between P.B. Scott’s and former Blowing Rock watering holes Coffey’s and Clyde’s during happy hour while the band for the night played an early set inside? That one is true.

Did you hear the one about how famed folkie Harry Chapin once stopped in mid-song to invite the rather rowdy audience to be quiet and listen, using some extremely colorful language? That one is true too.

Did you hear the one about how Linda Ronstadt played at P.B. Scott’s? According to former P.B. Scott’s manager/owner Randy Kelly, all the people who claimed to have seen her there are fibbing. It’s not true.

Like any other you-had-to-be-there kind of place, the stories grow more legendary each year. For those of us who missed out on the golden era of P.B. Scott’s by a couple of decades, it’s hard to believe that Gregg Allman, B.B. King, John Prine, Leon Russell, R.E.M., Hank Williams Jr., Bonnie Raitt and Muddy Waters, among many others, once traveled hundreds of miles to play a venue in Blowing Rock.

During the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, P.B. Scott’s became the prime location for touring acts to stop on their way from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. People came in droves from surrounding towns to hang out at the venue, catch up with friends, see live music and soak up the happening Blowing Rock scene.

Bart Conway, one of a number of silent partners in P.B. Scott’s and current owner of Canyons fondly remembers his brief association with the King of the Blues when he came to town.

“I picked up B.B. King from the airport,” Conway related. “And when we got to the club, I carried Lucille [King’s guitar] in for him.”

An even harder aspect to understand about the P.B. Scott’s scene for those of us far removed was the importance of the stable of raging party bands that kept patrons packed in between appearances by national acts. Bands like Cruis-O-Matic, Choice, Subway, Brice Street, Super Grit, Sidewinder, Snuff and The Spongetones came back month after month on the southern club circuit to keep the P.B. Scott’s faithful piling in.

Those same party bands would also be the ones who, according to Kelly, had hundreds of scantily clad people lined up in near-freezing temperatures around the outside of the building for the venue’s legendary Halloween parties.

“What Mardi Gras is to New Orleans and St. Patrick’s Day is to Savannah, that’s what Halloween was to Blowing Rock,” said Kelly.

Thanks to the building’s oddball wooden dome design, crowds were afforded the opportunity to give bands and performers a thunderous addition to mere applause by stomping their feet in unison on the floor. A relatively new company at the time, Bose designed the custom surround-sound system that became synonymous with the P.B. Scott’s logo.

With its untimely demise in 1983 due to an ongoing feud with the town of Blowing Rock, P.B. Scott’s closed its doors forever after only seven years, the building supposedly dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere. Though national acts have since made stops in various area venues, the void left by P.B. Scott’s has never been filled.

With the recent return trips made by Leon Russell, nostalgia for the defunct club seems to be at an all-time high. People who were club regulars have made their way back to Blowing Rock to Russell’s shows at Canyons and have been reminded of the days when the town truly used to rock.

Conway and Kelly are hoping to help music fans “relive some of that history.” Both have been digging through their basements and closets to find some of the original memorabilia from the club to bring out to the P.B. Scott’s reunion party taking place on May 6 at Canyons.

Featuring reunited and reinvigorated party band extraordinaires Cruis-O-Matic, Canyon’s P.B. Scott’s reunion party will be a chance for folks to party and remember the days before the Internet, cable television and beer in Boone. Members of The Spongetones are also rumored to possibly be making an appearance before the night is over.

Another reveler of days gone by is none other than High Country News publisher Ken Ketchie. While celebrating the club’s storied history, the P.B. Scott’s reunion party is also a celebration of the first anniversary of the High Country News. An area resident since the early ‘70s, Ketchie also recalls nights spent at the club and hopes that the party will conjure the spirit of that magical time and place.

“We just all hope that lots of folks will come out to Canyons to have a cut loose with Cruis-O-Matic just like they did in the old days,” said Ketchie.

The festivities will also include a P.B. Scott’s T-shirt contest. Prizes will be awarded in a number of categories including most tattered but wearable, best-preserved original shirt; worst fitting shirt; best female wearing shirt; best male wearing shirt; and most-loved P.B. Scott’s T-shirt. The overall winner will take the grand prize of $100.

The party, which will have a $5 cover charge, will get rolling around 10:00 p.m. For more info, call Canyons at 828-295-7661 or click to www.canyonsbr.com.