Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
May 1, 2008 issue
Story by David Brewer
A favorite word of High Country Press and High Country Magazine publisher Ken Ketchie is celebrate. A resident of the High Country for more than 30 years, he loves to celebrate the colorful people and places that make our mountain community a unique place to live and work by featuring them in his publications, as well as bringing them together once in a while to remember the good old days.
No one place symbolizes Ketchie’s nostalgic tendencies better than former Blowing Rock live music spot P.B. Scott’s Music Hall. The geodesic wooden dome with the custom Bose sound system put the small town on the musical map and provided locals a unique place to party until its closing in 1983.
On Friday, May 16, High Country Press will sponsor the 3rd Annual P.B. Scott’s Reunion Party at Canyons in Blowing Rock. The annual soiree will again feature the pop mastery of the one-and-only veteran quartet The SpongeTones, P.B. Scott’s most popular act.
During the band’s heyday when they were regularly packing P.B. Scott’s to the rafters, Rolling Stone had nothing but glowing words for the band: “The SpongeTones are aglow with a forward-thrusting musical abandon that recalls the glory days of many of the most familiar British Invasion front-liners, including The Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, The Zombies and The Who...but the SpongeTones’ music has little of the rote, dogmatic obeisance of mere revivalism; instead, it sounds like the soundtrack to a party so good it could never happen in real life.”
Goldmine Magazine had this to say about the band in 2006: “The SpongeTones are without a doubt the finest example of pure, unadulterated Beatlesque joy to emanate from the indie pop underground.”
A story cannot be written about P.B. Scott’s without nameing some of the big guns who played in the club as they travel between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. Acts such as Emmylou Harris, Gregg Allman, B.B. King, John Prine, Leon Russell, R.E.M., Hank Williams Jr., Bonnie Raitt, Harry Chapin and Muddy Waters gave local music fans a taste of the big time. However, it was acts like The SpongeTones, Cruise-O-Matic, Choice, Subway, Brice Street, Super Grit, Sidewinder and Snuff that piled the fans in with multi-show weekend runs.
Because of an ongoing feud with the town of Blowing Rock, P.B. Scott’s closed its doors forever after only seven years. Though national acts have made stops in various area venues, the void left by P.B. Scott’s has never been filled. Fortunately, some locals who remember the inimitable space refuse to let the club’s spirit die.
Along with Ketchie, former club owner/manager Randy Kelly and former owner Bart Conway have been instrumental in the P.B. Scott’s revival of the past few years, encouraging folks who frequented the club in the late 1970s and early 1980s to come together and relive those magical experiences from the High Country’s musical golden era.
Along with the famed P.B. Scott’s t-shirt contest, Ketchie, Kelly and Conway are hosting a memorabilia contest. Bring your classic P.B. Scott’s hats, jackets, mugs, posters or any souvenir that features the club’s logo and a great story about the item to be eligible for cash prizes.
There will be a $5 cover charge and the party will start at 10:00 p.m. For more info, call Canyons at 828-295-7661 or click to www.canyonsbr.com.