The Rhythm House Rocks No More

Rhythm House Cafe
Hey, today's post is a brief obit to one of the region's rockin' venues that will be no more after tonight, Daryl Price's Rhythm House Cafe.

Located on 79 and 50 in Bridgeville (South Fayette, if you're picky), the club was a fifteen minute drive from Pittsburgh's South Hills and forty minutes from Wheeling.

The Rhythm House was about music all the time. It featured live bands six days a week.

Tuesday and Thursday saw acoustic players, Wednesday was Froggy's Country Night with karaoke and line dancing, and the weekend was a rock potpourri, from 80s pop to soul and funk with the odd name band like Soundgarden and Quiet Riot or local headliners like Billy Price thrown into the mix.

They greeted Sunday with jazz, and Monday was their time out evening, with no bands but a "dinner and a movie" theme.

And if the boogie fever hit you, there was a back room that spun out DJ jams all weekend long. The place was always packed, at least on weekends, and did a decent lunch business too, with an affordable bar menu and plenty of taps to draw.

They're going out with a bang tonight, closing with one last blast starring Donnie Iris, Joe Grushecky and the Iron City Houserockers, B.E. Taylor, Scott Blasey, Bill Deasy, and Rick Witkowski, hosted by DVE's Jimmy Krenn.

Now the place wasn't heaven; the parking was always iffy, the help often had trouble navigating through the crowds, and South Fayette's finest were regular visitors, but hey, that's part and parcel of the live rock and roll scene.

But come Sunday (the venue calls it "the night the music died"), all of that will come to an end. A GetGo is taking its place.

"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've lost 'til it's gone? They've paved paradise and put up a parking lot..."

The Hurricane

Jimmy Smith at his Hammond from Wikipedia
The Hurricane Lounge opened for business in 1954 on Centre Avenue, between Roberts and Miller Streets, after spending its first 15 years of life as a Hill District after-hours club.

Anna Simmons "Birdie" Dunlap, a striking woman who according to local lore was a descendant of Thomas Jefferson's mistress, Sally Hemings, and her husband Shine owned the Lounge.

She was a hard-nosed business woman, and ran a tight ship with an iron fist. No credit, no idlers, and no fooling around in her place. Frank Bolden, the late Pittsburgh Courier editor, remembered in a Pittsburgh Post Gazette interview that the "Girls were safer at the Hurricane than at the YMCA."

Small and cozy - it sat 120 people, max - the Hurricane was often packed. It drew an upscale crowd, unlike Gus Greenlee's more diverse Crawford Grill up the street. The patrons were surrounded by a faux tropical setting, enjoying dinner and drinks while they grooved to the latest acts jamming away on its raised stage tucked against the back wall.

Bobby Layne, the old Steeler quarterback and well-known nightcrawler (he also frequented Dantes in Brentwood), was a regular. The clubs and the bands loved seeing him stroll through the door, because he was a big spender and tipper. It's said that the Texan once stuffed two C-Notes in the bell of Big Jay McNeely's sax for a Lounge gig well done. And that was in 1960 money.

The Hurricane was renowned for its food, too, with its Brazilian shrimp and fried chicken topping the menu, but it was better known for its sizzling music.

The club featured performers such as Stanley Turrentine, Roy Eldridge, Sonny Stitt, Kenny Burrell, Bill Doggett, Jack McDuff, Ramsey Lewis, Nancy Wilson and Sarah Vaughan. It was an established stop on the "Chitlin' Circuit" of black entertainers, and was especially noted for bringing in hot organists.

"All the organ players at the time came through there - Jimmy Smith, Johnny Hammond Smith, Wild Bill Davis, Timmy McGriff. People would be crowded in this little club and it was a swinging little club. And everybody just had a ball there," recalled Pittsburgh jazz musician Kenny Fisher for WYEP.

In fact, it was at the Hurricane that Gene Ludwig heard Jimmy Smith making some magical sounds that turned him on to the Hammond B3 organ. Ludwig told All About Jazz that "I met Jimmy Smith (at the Hurricane) and heard the Hammond...and I knew that's what I wanted to be: a Hammond organ player”. That's one wish that came true.

But like the other clubs born in the Hill's glory years as Little Harlem, it met the same inescapable fate. First, it had to deal with the massive upheaval brought about by the Civic Arena construction in the fifties. Then, a decade later, the Martin Luther King Jr. riots in 1968 drove the last nail home in the shuttering of the Hill.

Over 8,000 residents were gone, whites were leery to roam Centre Avenue, and the Hill businesses that weren't barred and gated were boarded up. The Hurricane joined the list of victims, closing down in 1970 and ending another chapter of Pittsburgh's jazz legacy.

But it's not entirely forgotten. The Hill House runs an annual “Jazz Live at the Hurricane” series, begun in 2007. They trick out the Blakey Program Center, the multi-purpose room of House, and transform it into jazz club setting inspired by The Hurricane Lounge with a little help from some CMU architectural dudes. A five-piece band of Pittsburgh all-stars, led by Kenny Blakey and Roger Humphries, performed the concerts last year.

So the Hurricane still lives on, even if in spirit only. And a thing remembered is never gone.

The Crawford Grill

Photo Thanks to Katrencik at Flickr
Before the Civic Arena tore out its heart, the Hill District was one of the most vibrant African American neighborhoods in the country from the 1930s to the 1950s. Called "Little Harlem," the Hill drew bustling crowds both day and night. Its music scene rivaled any in America.

Pittsburgh was a jazz mecca then, and although it wasn't in Kansas City or New Orleans, Wylie Avenue often was the road that led musicians to New York and stardom.

In the Hill District, there were joints galore to keep things hopping: the Hurricane Lounge, Ritz, Showboat, Roosevelt Theater, Savoy Ballroom, Bamboola Club, Leondi Club, Green Front, Coobus Club, Little Paris, the Flamingo Hotel, Center Avenue Elks, Perry Bar, Granada Bar, Harlem Casino, Collins Inn, Bill Green's Casino and Terraced Gardens, Pythian Temple, Washington Club, and the Black Musicians Club, Local 471.

There were over 600 clubs in all, from one-man gin joints with a jukebox to opulent showcases with a band wailing on every floor. You couldn't take a step without hearing and breathing in the hot licks of jazz and soul wafting through the evening air.

The Hill's crown jewel was the Crawford Grill.

Six nights a week, the place was jumping and jiving. After it started the Friday and Saturday matinee performances, crowds were lined up outside the building both day and night.

Art Blakey, Mary Lou Williams, John Coltrane, Dakota Staton, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, George Benson, Dr. Nelson E. Harrison, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Oscar Peterson, Nat King Cole, Thelonius Monk, Sarah Vaughn, Erroll Garner, Walt Harper, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Stanley Turrentine, Chet Baker, and Max Roach where among those who performed on its 11'x11' stage that bisected a skinny building that was 120' long but only 20' wide.

The club was founded by North Carolina native William "Gus" Greenlee, a giant in Pittsburgh's African-American community.

Greenlee owned the Pittsburgh Crawfords, named after his night club, and dominated the city's African-American sports, entertainment, and gambling scenes. The source of his wealth, according to local lore, was hijacking beer trucks during prohibition and running a lucrative numbers operation.

He was simply the king of the Hill bookies. And in the African-American community, that made him a high-powered businessman and the local banker, too. Greenlee was both the man and an institution.

His original club, the first Crawford Grill (known as the Leader House before Greenlee took over), opened in 1931 at the corner of Wylie Avenue and Crawford Street in the Hill District, where Crawford Square sits today, across from the Civic Arena.

It was nearly a full city block in length. In the main room on the second floor, the audience surrounded a revolving stage and bought their drinks at a glass-topped bar. The third floor was where the real action took place. It was home to "Club Crawford", a sort of VIP Lounge for the glitterati of the era. It was papa of several Crawford grills to pop up in the City.

By 1943, Greenlee had a booming business and his numbers partner Joseph Robinson opened Crawford Grill No. 2 on Wylie Avenue, a companion spot to the original a few short blocks up the street.

After Greenlee's death in 1952, Robinson and his son Buzzy had the only Crawford in town. One story said the original succumbed to flames after Greenlee's death, while others say it fell to the wrecker's ball in 1956 during the Arena construction. (Our guess is the fire closed it and it was eventually demolished.)

Crawford Grill No. 3 opened in 1948 in Manchester, at the corner of Bidwell Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. It was shuttered in 1955, never generating the buzz of its Hill namesakes. "Crawford Grill on the Square" opened in 2003 in the Freight House Shops at Station Square. It fizzled, too, and closed in January, 2006.

But while it may not have been much of a franchise, The Grill on Wylie packed them in. Pittsburgh's steel economy helped local clubs boom.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the mills ran 24/7, and so did the city. Steel workers were shift workers with an irregular, rotating schedule, and their weekend consisted of whatever two days they happened to have off. As a result, the mill hands were looking for weekend entertainment every night of the week. The Crawford gave it to them. And everyone was welcome, black and white, the rich and the working man.

The Crawford Grill beacame a Pittsburgh landmark. Celebrities and politicians of all stripes would stop in, like Ethel Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. In the evenings, the music drew an audience that included Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, the Rooneys, Kaufmanns, Frank Sinatra and Saichel Paige, all rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi in the tightly packed structure.

White musicians who played downtown clubs would head uptown to The Grill after their gigs to jam into the night with black musicians. You could run across just about anyone at the Crawford, and you couldn't beat the music that never seemed to stop.

The Grill was immortalized by Hill District native August Wilson, who included it in his 1985 play "Fences," part of his Pittsburgh Cycle of works and a Pulitzer prize winner.

Now, the Hill wasn't a exactly a slice of heaven, even then. It was still segregated to a large degree, many of the homes were shacks, and a lot of the spots were for locals only. But at night, it was another world, as close to Broadway as Pittsburgh would ever get. The streets were filled with people, and nobody worried too much about their backs.

All good things come to an end, and in this case, the Crawford Grill suffered the common fate of its home, the Hill. The first blow was struck when the City demolished the Hill District in the late 50s, and the MLK riots of 1968 sealed the deal. The Hill looked like a war zone with shuttered buildings and vacant lots, and the clubs - and more importantly, the sense of community - were gone.

After the death of Joseph Robinson in 1982, the club was passed on to his son, William "Buzzy" Robinson, and the music reflected the times, with reggae, rap, and urban music being served. It wasn't enough, and The Crawford Grill closed in 2003.

The building sits forlorn now, empty with lots full of weeds alongside it. It's been for sale for years, with a price tag of $300,000 for it and a bundle of adjoining properties.

The Young Preservationists Association called the Crawford Grill one of its "Top Ten Best Preservation Opportunities in the Pittsburgh Area," in hopes of attracting a buyer who would develop the space with respect for its role in Pittsburgh's history.

But the rickety building would cost much more than that to a new owner. It needs gutted to get it back up to code, and with redevelopment popping up all around it, the fear is that some enterprising young entrepreneur will tear it down and put up...well, something that's not the Crawford. Funny how one Arena led to its eventual closing, and another may lead to its demolition.

Finding any buyer has so far been a challenge, Buzzy Robinson said. He's hoping for someone that respects the soul of the place, and at least keeps the facade intact. It's said that if you look closely, the stones outside the windows have the names of musicians that played the Grill etched into them.

Dr. Nelson E. Harrison called The Crawford Grill a "Spirit House," meaning that it was more than mere brick and mortar, but a depository of history and the souls of the men and women that filled its room.

We can only hope that someone with deep pockets, a love of jazz, and a sense of the past ends up with the deed. And it may have been; in April, 2010 a group of investors led by Franco Harris purchased the building, with plans to renovate it and return the club to its former glory.

(The history of the Crawford Grill is in Pittsburgh Magazine's "The Hill Was Alive With the Sound of Music" by Rick Sebak.)

Graffiti Challenge

Graffiti Show Board from 1987
Photo by Cynthia Lammert from Pittsburgh Signs - Oakland
Opened and operated by Tony DiNardo in 1982 in an old warehouse on Baum Boulevard in Oakland, the Graffiti Showcase Cafe was where the action was for the Pittsburgh music scene from the mid-80's until it shut its doors in 2000.

He lost his lease to a Porsche dealership. It folded, too. 4615 Baum Boulevard must have bad karma for class acts.

Graffiti booked an eclectic mix of music, combining barely known local bands with alt rock, folk music and a steady parade of national acts addicted to the road. Where else could you hear R.E.M. one night and The Grass Roots the next?

Graffiti was the kind of place where Jimmy Beaumont could share a stage with the Affordable Floors. It was Pittsburgh in all its glorious musical diversity.

The first thing many Pittsburgh concertgoers remember about Graffiti was the club’s intimacy. It had a small bar area and cafe, but its 600-seat showcase room offered music lovers a view never further than 35 feet away from its raised stage.

The brick warehouse walls and its dark, cavernous industrial surroundings added the perfect ambiance to the whole setting.

“One reason I moved to Pittsburgh was that every time I went to a local show at Graffiti, it was sold out,” says Mike Speranzo of Mr. Small's.

In fact, Graffiti won various awards for its live concert settings, being rated in the top ten Showcase rooms in the USA by Performance Magazine and #1 for live sound in a concert setting by E.Q. Magazine.

Graffiti hosted over 1500 acts in its day, with biggies like Bonnie Raitt, Nirvana, Rusted Root, Hootie and the Blowfish, Tower of Power, Jerry Seinfeld, Little Feat, and a list of other performers as long as the arm of the law taking the stage.

When a little-known Nirvana played Graffiti in 1991, they set the dressing room on fire after feuding with the promoter over their fee. Talk about a hot act!

The name lived on through the Graffiti Rock Challenge. It started at Graffiti in 1984, but the cafe was too small to hold the crowds. It moved on to the Syria Mosque before it became a parking lot, and then to sites all over Western PA.

It was a wildly unpredictable event, with participation from national artists like Talking Heads members Chris Franz and Tina Weymouth, Tommy James, and Jules Shear.

And while a great show didn't insure an act of fame and fortune, it did guarantee them a stage. And that's a valuable commodity to a young band. It did launch some groups to at least local glory, like The Clarks, Brownie Mary, the Buzz Poets, and Rusted Root, according to DiNardo.

The godfather of the Graffiti Rock Challenge was of course DiNardo, with a big hand from Charlie Humphrey. He had pretty much gotten out of the business after he turned the keys over to his club in 2000. But once a year, he emerged from his self imposed exile to run the Rock Challenge.

But like the club, the Rock Challenge died a natural death, too, the victim of too many imitators and too many venue switches. It called it quits in 2006, with Kill The Drama as the last Rock Challenge champion.


Creed doing "Torn" at the Graffiti in 1998

Thunderbird Cafe

Thunderbird Cafe

The Thunderbird Café, located at 4023 Butler St., Lawrenceville, is Pittsburgh's home for straight-up American music. The T-Bird lineup runs the musical gamut, from karaoke to Slim Forsythe and Parkland Drifters, down-home funk to urban blues.

Every Monday night, musicians can join the open electric jam session. Tuesdays are set aside for karaoke night for wanna-be singers. On Wednesday nights, the volume drops for an acoustic open mike night. (Warning - any of these are subject to being bumped if there's a band in town.)

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, you'll get fed a steady diet of rock, blues, funk, and jazz - the Americana smorgasbord. The sound system is excellent, too. Most evenings you can just mosey on in; other nights there's a cover charge, depending on the band.

Play your cards right, and you may be lucky enough to run into one of the national acts that pop in every so often, like singer/songwriter Graham Weber, bluesman John Nemeth or funksters Aphrodesia, all playing at the T-Bird this month.

The cafe is split into three distinct sections, with the front area being the street level bar, with fairly limited seating outside the stools. Go up a half-flight of stairs to the mezzanine and you'll find the stage area. The stage itself is small, but the bands all manage to fit. There's some seating there, too.

Continue up the steps, though, and there's a second small bar with much more room than downstairs. It's dimly lit and overlooks the stage area, giving a great vantage point to groove with the band. These are the best seats in the house.

The crowd is friendly, laid back, and a cross section of the town. You’ll find standard bar-food favorites until 1 AM and a decent selection of brew. There's a pool table, too. After all, the place is a neighborhood bar during the day, and Lawrenceville is about as down-home as a Pittsburgh community can be.

So if you're looking for a little slice of Americana in da 'Burg, both musically and crowd-wise, the Thunderbird is your place. Visit it at My Space - Thunderbird Cafe.


Good Night States at the Thunderbird in 2009 doing "Killer Of The One"

Mr. Small's - Music and More

Mr. Smalls from Pop City Media

St. Anne's in Millvale used to be filled with the joyful sounds of a choir and pipe organ resounding through the building every Sunday. And though the church has gone the way of the steel mills, it's still shaking its' walls with music.

"When I saw the church, I said, 'My God, it's my dream come true,'" said Mike Speranzo to the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Speranzo and his wife, Liz Berlin of Rusted Root, along with partner Peter Beckerman, make up Together Holdings Inc., which operates Mr. Small's SkatePark and Funhouse, a collaboration of businesses in Millvale and North Side.

Mr. Small's features a skatepark, headboard shop, concert facility, recording studio, production offices, art gallery, and apartment complex.

It's a karmic combo of talents - Sperzano and Berlin had band and industry experience, while Beckerman was a New York sound engineer. They have extensive national music connections. All their talents came into play in forming the hodge-podge know as the Funhouse.

First, why Mr. Small's? It's the nickname Speranzo and Berlin came up with for their son, Jordan.

Together Holdings paid $85,000 for the church, and sank six figures worth of bucks into the Funhouse complex.

Mr. Small's Funhouse began as a single recording studio and has evolved into a vast network of businesses. The heart of Mr Small's Funhouse is its 650 seat theatre. It hosted Ryan Adams for a month of rehearsal before his tour with the Rolling Stones.

National artists such as Rusted Root, They Might Be Giants, Anti-Flag, the Donnas, Puddle of Mudd, Girl Talk, and Ziggy Marley have played there along with dozens of touring major label and indy acts.

MTV also stopped by to film an episode of Advanced Warning. Heck, Bill Clinton even made an appearance there to sing the praises of his wife last week during the presidential primary.

They also have a set-up where the performing bands can get a top flight live recording of their Mr. Small's gig on the cheap, no little thing for an aspiring act.

Expanding its' Millvale presence to the central North Side, Mr. Small's switched the sound back on at 922 West North Avenue, previously AAM (Audiomation) Studios, and new home to Mr. Smalls Funhouse Studios. Rapper 50 Cent and the Black Eyed Peas have recorded in its' Millvale studios.

Their Millvale facilities will re-open as the new Creative.Life.Support Center providing developmental and educational resources for new musicians. The renamed Real.Life.Recording Studio will occupy the Rectory House recording studio.

It will function primarily as a demo EP studio offering a studio rate of $25 per hour. Also, it will continue to offer the live-show recording packages, with a price of only $150. Basically, Mr. Small's is giving new bands a chance to record and forge a name for themselves without busting the bank.

The Rectory House is now Recording Studio B and the Rock Hostel for Artists. What once was the priests' living quarters now offers 6 bedrooms for musicians.

St. Anne's Schoolhouse, located beside the Theatre and Rectory House, was redesigned into Small's main offices, Recording Studio C, Opus One Productions, an art gallery, and a pair of two-bedroom, low-income apartments that are specifically geared towards artists high on talent but low on bread.

Mr. Small's SkatePark is located along the Allegheny River, three blocks from the Theatre. It offers an in-depth street course with a quadzillion skateboarding ramps, and in-line and freestyle biking, including a 40 foot wide vertical ramp, ala the X-Games. It also features a rock climbing wall.

How's this fit in with the music biz? Well, Speranzo spent nearly 10 years as the director of one of the largest summer skateboarding camps in the country. And hey, entertainment is entertainment, no?

The SkatePark is host to many summertime demos and workshops like the ZooYork Tour. It also has a cafe overlooking the Allegheny, a handy spot for locals and for parents to hang out while their kids are playing their gnarly games.

Segments from the monthly Sonic Funhouse series hosted by Mr. Smalls will be available on Comcast's "On Demand" service under the "Your Town/Local Music" categories. There are also plans afoot for a Mr. Small's folder that will include concert footage and band interviews for cable viewers.

Mr. Smalls employs 30 staffers, and every year it draws 80,000 folk to its music and skatepark venues. So next time you think of Mr. Small's Millvale stage as just a rock hall, think again. It offers it all, and may be the best thing to ever hit the 'Burgh as far as nurturing local bands hoping to make the scene.

Mr Small's helps its' fans keep up with all the action at My Space Mr. Smalls

where live music lives

Where has rock n' roll gone in Pittsburgh? Not far - just to the Strip and Harry & Joel Greenfield's 31st Street Pub, beside the bridge. Their motto, "High Octane Rock and Roll," pretty much says it all about a place that crackles with more energy than Dr. Frankenstein's lab.

The Pub has featured live music for the past decade. It opened in 1962, when Harry, now 81, bought the bar to cater to the mill crowd. But when big steel went down, it was time to move on and find new fannies to fill the barstools.

Son Joel helped plot the bar's outlaw future. He turned the pub into a biker bar, bringing his Harley buddies in to fill the joint. Now it's home to indy, alt, punk and guitar abusing bands of all stripes. But the crowd isn't much different from the early days.

Bikers, spiked-and-studded punkers, long-haired metalheads, rockabilly cats with leather jackets and greased-back hair, garage rockers and a few music geeks show up. Despite their decidedly hide the women and children looks, the bar regulars are a pretty sociable bunch to party down with.

The beer's cheap, the room is small and smoky, and the cover is generally $5. The music is loud and grungy, like it was back in the glorious garage days. The Pub is everything a rock club should be. Heck, they even have free wifi.

The Pub doesn't push its' bands; it gives them a venue and leaves the rest to them. The group has to pass Joel's sniff test to get a job, and he makes them stop in and sell themselves before he unleashes them on Pub loyalists.

Then the band promotes the gig itself. So not only does the Pub provide a stage, it force feeds the fledging groups into learning Music Industry 101 ("How to Pack a House") before they unload an amp. The course grade is pass/fail. If you draw, you can come back. If not, see ya' later. The pay is the cover, minus the stage techie's cut.

The White Stripes played there twice in 2001, arguably the club's biggest moment. But the locals play it hot and heavy too - ATS, Anti-Flag, and Plastic Jesus have raised the Pub's roof. Don Cab will be there May 3rd, and the Midgetmen, indy punkers from Texas with CMU roots, will highlight the May 10th show.

And while you're there, don't miss "The Skull Room." Yep, there's a wall full of skull-shaped stuff, like mugs and candles, Mexican Day-of-the-Dead figurines, and what appear to be actual human skulls. Just a little touch of atmosphere to get you in the mood for the evening's festivities.

So if you're looking to check out the up and coming regional and national touring bands before they hit it big (and the price of a show is three figures), stop by the Pub. You'll enjoy the experience - and it is an experience.

(31st Street Pub My Space. It represents the Pub; where else are you gonna get greeted by Supersucker's "Pretty F****d Up, a great tune.)