Lindy Pollard, a Houston honker, recently queried me about the location of the old Corkey's in Houston, his curiosity pricked by an article I'd done on Blaze Foley in No Depression. Blaze and Gurf Morlix were Corkey's regulars.
My first guess, that it was the jazz club at the top of a high rise at the corner of Montrose and Richmond, was wronger than rain. That was Cody's, Lindy said.
Lindy seemed to recall Corkey's was in the Montrose on Hawthorne Street maybe.
Drivin' Ivan Kuper, the producer of Joe King's "Houston El Mover" b/w "Party Weekend"and Los Vertigos drummer, remembered it like this:
"It was on Hawthorne St. east of Montrose Blvd. I think it was around until the late 80’s. It was in an old bungalow that became a site for several townhouses due to Montrose gentrification. It’s where the second string of Houston songwriters held court: Shake Russell, David Rodriguez, Lucinda, etc. (before moving to Austin)"
Then Jim Barham and Bruce Bryant, who are finishing their film documentary on Houston's storied Anderson Fair "For The Sake of the Song: The Story of Anderson Fair" (www.andersonfairthemovie.com), tracked down Shake Russell, who remembered Corkey's well, telling Bruce, "It was on Hawthorne St (600block) east of Montrose blvd and down the street from Cody's(the roof top club). Remember? Happy New Year!"
Who says no one cares about old clubs that have died and gone away?
Can't wait for the Anderson Fair movie. I've seen a rough cut and was fairly blown away. Bruce and Jim make a strong argument that no venue alive or dead has honored the Texas singer/songwriter like Anderson Fair has.
UPDATE
Bruce Bryant adds a P.S.: "I remember that Corky's had lots of shade...the bar was in the music room...very friendly place. Reb Smith (a fiddle player and picker) was robbed right outside on his bicycle one night....made him furious...how dare they rob a poor folk singer!"
39 comments:
I use to frequent Corkey's , in the Montrose. I worked some , for KLOL , and even landed a job , at
"The Type House" , which was directly across the street from Corkey's.
There was some great music , in the Montrose , during the 70's.
Sadly , The young drunken stage clutcher is no more.
I've resorted to listening to old LP's , taking viagra , and wondering.... " Where have all the fowers Gone."
I went to Corky's so often that I decided to take a job there, and was a cocktail waitress for about a year, back in 1980. I waited on Billy Gibbs, and he was a great tipper and real nice guy. I remember seeing Blaze Foley there, Uncle Walt's Band, Danny Everitt and the Coldcuts, John Vandiver, Shake Russell Band, Jean Kilbourne, Gary P. Nunn, help me out with some others!
623 hawthorne
I worked there as a waitress too. My favorite part of the club was the "star" section at the front of the club. Along with the Coldcuts/Blaze/Uncle Walt, I saw Ron Crick plenty of times and the great Tommie Lee Bradley, the Dishes, and more. Then eventually I got gigs there when I played with Buxdelux. We played the night Hurricane Alicia happened!
One of the craziest memories from there was the rule that when Shake played "Deep in the West", we weren't allowed to ring the registers. Silence reigned during that song.
I almost lived at Corkey's in the late 70s. To one of the posters here, it was Jimmy Don and the Coldcuts, not Danny Everitt.
Dr. Rocket and the Sisters of Mercy were regulars, as were my favorites, The Dishes. Alan Haynes played regularly. Got Johnny Winter's autograph when he was in the audience one night. A fellow named Pettigrew owned it in those days. On Hawthorne, a block or so down from a great restaurant, The Tivoli Inn.
In a moment of "back when times were really good"...
Google landed me on one of my favorite places, Corky's in Montrose.
The drinking age was 18, Shake Russell was the band to see, many nights at Steamboat Springs, the RailHead, and Corky's. Once the bars shut down, Billy Shakespeares or Harlows for breakfast.
I worked for Corky, at Carlos and Lefties on Richmond, and occasionally hit his country and western bar a block north. Last I heard, Corky had passed.
there used to be many of the great, street level bars, in Montrose, a sophisticated 18 year old I was, hanging out in the likes. I remember the jazz bar up top of the tower, cannot remember the name, and the basement floor bar called the Rubaiyat, next to the Steak and ALe on SW Freeway, where I came of age in the seventies.
The Texas Opry House and Arlo Guthrie. A Thanksgiving tradition. Remember the long picnic tables?
They were great times. Rory
For anyone that stumbles upon this old post, I'm an archivist at the Woodson Research Center at Rice University. We are creating a 1960s-1980s Houston folk music archive. We already have a sizable collection of folk audio recordings via our college radio station KTRU. Through a folk archive, we can preserve a part of Houston's history and make it available to the public for research. We would like to collect photographs, scrapbooks, correspondence, business papers, memorabilia, fliers, schedules, posters, lyrics, notebooks, audio, and video.
If you have materials that you would like to donate, please contact me at slg4@rice.edu.
My first guess, that it was the jazz club at the top of a high rise at the corner of Montrose and Richmond, was wronger than rain. commercial moving Houston
Not Corky's (though it was a fave!), but there used to be a two-story yellow house on Fairview(?) that had live music. I remember a really rocking New Year's Eve there around 1983 or 1984, as do other friends of mine, but none of us can remember the name. Ring a bell anyone?
yes, i remember that place on fairview at mandell, it had great music, we lived on maryland and used to walk there. later on i had a friend who's parents i found out, were the owners. i can't remember the names of either. lol. i want to say quasimoto's.
I was a friend of Reb Smith. I used to spend a lot of time at Anderson Fair, Theodores, Carnaby's, Corky's, and Firzgeralds. All very cool. Theodores and the Fair were my favorites. Living in the Montrose in the mid-70;s was amazing. I could walk to all those places from my house. The music was fantastic and the food was great. People were all cool.
I worked at Corky's as a waitress, bartender, and front door entrance fee (depending on who was playing); Corky owned the bar, not Les Pettigrew (he was the manager). Eileen Pettigrew, Les's wife worked there, as well; the great John Vandiver was murdered in his home from a drug related incident...Shake Russell still plays the live venues around Houston, Austin; one night when all the customers were gone and we were closing up, I heard a grandfather clock strike 3:00; I looked at Corky and said "where is that clock?" He smiled and said "there is no clock here now..but there used to be". Before Corky owned the house, there were two sisters that lived in the house together who had passed away. Corky said they still walked around in the upstairs part of the house where his office was..so, the place was haunted? Go figure. We always made the cheese queso/chips and veg for Happy Hour..sold lots of Pina Coladas. Jean Kilbourne had a voice like an angel, she ended up singing at my wedding; it was a great time!
I too worked as a waitress and bartender from 1982-1984, What a wonderful place. Les & Eileen were the owners then and when the lease was sold, due to Montrose gentrification, Les decided to try opening a new place on Highland, maybe, due to other circumstances,Les decided to sell the business to 2 woman, (accountants) who opened a spot close to Rice, many of us who worked at Corky's on Hawthorne went over to the new place, which tried to compare, but alas did not. I ended up heading back to college and kept in touch with some of the best people I've met. Every once in a while I'll google a name or place from that time in my life and am always so excited when I find a post. Unfortunately, that is how I found out about Ron Cricks death. He opened up for so many bands and was just a great guy. Shake Russell, The Dishes, Uncle Walt's Band, How about Lyle Lovett on Sunday nights? Corky's was a special place, great musicians, co-workers and customers!
For anyone who stumbles upon this old post, Reb Smith was my uncle and passed away when I was very young. I'm trying to find any music or videos featuring him, or photos. If anyone knew him and has such things, would appreciate if you shared them with me. My email - rayne.lew@gmail.com
I lived on Lovett and Stanford and hit corky's 3 to 4 times a week from 1981-1983. One of the first times I went in the waitress recognized me as a customer of hers from a bar I frequented in Phoenix, AZ. Great bar with great music. Favorites were The Dishes and Shake.
The place mentioned above near Fairview and Mandell probably was the Parlour. I believe it burned down sometime in the 1980s and townhouses are there now.
About the place on Fairview. I think it was originally La Bodega, then became the Parlour. I remember a girl there called Flea since she jumped from man to man more than a flea on dogs. Shake Russel played there a lot. And Blaze Foley. As a grad student, I hit La Bodega and Corky's often. Have lots of fond memories listening to Blaze. I live in Austin now, but so many of my musician heroes are gone. Lyle's still around, thankfully.
Perhaps Theodores?
I was one of the musicians who played in the bands there in the mid - late 70's. I played drums and occasionally bass. I was refered to these groups by the Musician's Referral Service in Houston; many fond memories! Lewis Howard
The place of Fairview WAS La Bodega and later the Blue Moon Cafe
Cody's was the rooftop Jazz club.
Absolutely, Theodores.
Connie Mims was my favorite! Saw Shake many times and later on in the Austin area.
Saw Shake Russell & Dana Cooper, Danny Everett, Partners in Crime, and other area groups at Corky's many times. My clearest single memory was sitting about ten feet from the stage when Billy Joe Shaver played at there in the summer of 1978.
My companion was a beautiful dark haired girl named Debbie, who was a friend, not a girl friend. Billy Joe opened the show shouting out, "How's everybody doin' tonight?"
I hollered back "Great". He took one look at Debbie and said, "I can see that!"
Does anyone know of any recordings or downloads of Danny Everett's music, especially "Blue Texas Morning"? I haven't been able to find anything on DVD, Amazon, Spotify, or other online sources. I'm pretty sure he released one or more vinyl albums in the late 70s or early 80s.
Corky’s was originally owned by Corky Fields. He later opened a club called Texas on Fairdale, a block off Richmond, when the Urban Cowboy movie set off a wave of country music venues. I worked the door on the weekends when there was live music & in the office a bit. Shake and Dana played there a few times. The Cadillac Cowboys and other bands that were converting to country played there for the most part. It was an interesting and somewhat sad time when the music, radio stations and clubs flipped to country overnight. Kelly
On my way to Alaska in mid 1975 I stopped in Houston.
I lived on Westheimerand worked at KPFT and the renovation of the future Corkys. Sorry I missed the opening, It must have been grand.
The five months I spent in Houston was filled with great music.
Thanks to this blog I now have memories I thought were lost forever.
MICHELE McMYLER !!!! We worked together at Corkys - it's me. Pat from N.Y !!! Damn, what good times we had ... I miss those days ! What ever happened to Janelle? She was married to Pete, the drummer for the Dishes ... he came up to N.Y. to visit us.... John and I still talk about our years in Houston back ibn the 80's.
I lived next door to Corky's in a 4plex in the summer of '79. Stevie Ray Vaughan played there sometime around there, but outside of Austin no one new about him. I spent more time a few blocks down of Rodale at Griff's best Irish bar in town. Then at the end of Hawthorne at Montrose was Cody's on the penthouse of a 4or5 story bldg. Probably ran into a few of you folks. Good memories
Does anyone know if Shake ever lived with Ron Crick in Chicago in the early to mid 70's?
Wow oh wow, what memories this has stirred up. I spent a lot of nights at Corky's, Fitzgeralds, and Cody's. I was married to Crash Collins, an infamous disc jockey at KLOL, which was on Lovett. Those were the greatest but most difficult times in my life. It's hard to recover from partying THAT hard! Living in Montrose during the '80's was truly a magical time, being around like-minded way cool people who didn't give a shit what the world outside our circle thought. We lived large! While I was married, I met Shake, the Dishes, Blaze Foley in his broken hearted glory. God, I was so young then, too timid at times to really talk to these cats. None of us would have believed that the streets we lived on, the bars and clubs we rocked, and the amazing old houses we lived in would be leveled and all but forgotten. It was an amazing experience to live during that heyday. Corky's was one of my favorites.
To the lady married to "Crash Collins" I lived right next door to KLOL on Lovett and was at Corky's most nights since it was just around the corner from where I lived. As soon as I walked in the bartender had a "Ketel One" on the rocks at my seat before I got to the bar.
Tim C. Perkins
ITHANK YOU! I've been reading all these recollections, hoping someone remembered SRV playing there once or twice! We were only 2 tables back from him one night. Amazing
I was also a friend of Reb Smith and lived in the Montrose and later in the Heights, before moving to England. Reb and Bill Galbraith came to visit me in England in 1978. I loved Anderson Fair most of all, but Theodore’s was a close second. Corky’s, Carnaby’s, and Fitzgerald’d were all amazing. The music scene in the Montrose was incredible and being able to walk to all those clubs was magical. It was a special time in Houston.
I managed Caranaby's for a few years. Also I was a musician and played drums at many of the clubs in the Montrose including Corkys, Damians, Theodores and others. Those were great days! Bill Galbraith and I shared a small house on Fairview Ave. right down the street from Carnabys. Bill worked at Theodores as a bar tender.
I posted the above piece earlier this year. Not sure why it says anonymous.
I worked near Corky's at Hope Center for Youth in the Montrose area. I remember it was upstairs and that I loved the coconut scented candles. Still do to this day but they're hard to find. A bunch of us would go there after work often.
I worked with Bill G bartending at Theodores
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