Whiskey a Go Go

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Whiskey a Go Go (2006)

The Whiskey a Go Go is a rock club on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood , Los Angeles County .

history

On January 11, 1964, the first rock club in the greater Los Angeles area was opened with the Whiskey a Go Go ; a bank was previously located in the building. The founder was Elmer Valentine (1923-2008), a former police officer from Chicago . Located on 8901 Sunset Boulevard, the club became an important meeting place for musicians and music managers in the 1960s.

The first musician to appear in Whiskey a Go Go was Johnny Rivers , who had previously started his career in Gazzarri's Club. As was customary at the time, many bands performed for several days in the evenings instead of just giving a single concert. Over the years, live LPs by various artists have been recorded in the club. The first production was the LP At the Whiskey a Go Go, recorded between April and July 1964 . Over the years, bands such as The Doors , Alice Cooper , The Mothers of Invention or later System of a Down have appeared.

The name of the restaurant is derived from the French "à gogo" (roughly: "in abundance"). This addition was widely used in the Anglicized spelling in American pop culture in the mid and late 1960s . The club popularized the term “ Go-Go Dancer ”. In 1964, the club owner wanted to present a female DJ to his audience. When the intended girl canceled at short notice, Elmer Valentine organized his "Cigarette Girl", Patty Brockhurst, as a replacement. The desk was in a glass box that - for reasons of space - hung above the dance floor. Patty moved there to the rhythm of the music, which was so well received by the audience that Valentine had more boxes installed and paid young women to dance there with animation. However, the term go-go dancing was already known in the 1950s, and the club may have been named with this in mind.

Web links

Commons : Whiskey a Go Go  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Whiskey A Go-Go. Retrieved February 6, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Johnny Rivers Biography . Retrieved July 3, 2017.
  3. ↑ Torsten Meyer: Journey through the city of angels . 2015, ISBN 978-3-7386-2083-2 .
  4. ↑ Elmer Valentine, co-founder of Whiskey a Go Go, dies at 85th Los Angeles Times , December 7, 2008, accessed October 5, 2015 .


Coordinates: 34 ° 5 '26.8 "  N , 118 ° 23' 8.3"  W.