|
Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace has been kickin’ butt in the entertainment scene recently. Of course, Pioneertown has always been known for attracting celebrities, since back in the 1946 days of Roy
Rogers, Gene Autry, The Sons of the Pioneers, and other famous founders of the old west movie town. The original Pappy and Harriet Allen had a longtime country palace band and hosted scores of guest musicians
over the years. The walls inside the rustic dinner and dance hall are filled with autographed photos by many great names in the entertainment business from past decades.
Today, renewed energy is filling the palace again, due mainly to the efforts of Manager Jimmy Smith and current owner Jay Hauk, and their supporters, plus a contact list of musicians who appreciate the historic
venue that is Pappy & Harriet’s.
Canned Heat and Country Joe McDonald performed here last spring, along with other notable country rock and blues performers who have appeared on the roster since January, or have dropped by to jam with a band. Hi-desert musicians Buzz Gamble & The Daily Blues are regulars at the palace. They always draw a crowd, plus occasional hot jammers. With live music on stage Thursday through Sunday, you never know what talent you might hear on any given night.
Then, on June 7, 2003, came the blockbuster pre-summer concert by Eric Burdon and The Animals.
It was about 104° on the desert floor that Saturday, but Pioneertown was at least 20 degrees cooler with a light breeze, a half moon, and a nostalgic crowd filling the outdoor stage area of Pappy &
Harriet’s new Cisco Kid Plaza.
This was not your ordinary rock concert crowd. No screaming young’uns or hip teens. Instead, it was an adult crowd—a mature and savvy crowd. Several hundred concert-goers who resembled a convention of aging hippies and rock aficionados. They came in Birkenstocks and T-shirts, cowboy boots and jeans, running shoes and shorts, sandals and capris, long skirts, tie-dye, Hawaiian print and golf shirts. Most of them were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and all of them had one thing in common: a nostalgia for the music of the 1960s counterculture era. Many had lived it.
Friends Phyllis Ross and Mary Jane Binge and I strutted our 50-something stuff along with the rest of the adult crowd that night.
Artists, musicians, poets, writers, business owners from Joshua Tree, 29 Palms, Yucca Valley, Pioneertown. Groups of fans and friends from Palm Desert, Big Bear, L.A., all over Southern California. News editor (and musician) Steve Brown of Desert Post Weekly said he met a guy who’d flown in from Texas for the event.
It was a real happening. A sign of the changing times in the Morongo Basin and the burgeoning arts and music scene here.
A Marine Reservist named Bob from New Jersey, who discovered the event by accident that night, summed it up well.
“I was out here in 1992 for training [at the Marine Base in 29 Palms], right after Desert Storm,” he said, recalling how quiet the town was then.
“I remember coming up to Pioneertown—on a Thursday night, I think—but not much was happening. Now I’m back here for training for a few weeks. I always remembered this place, so I thought I’d come up tonight and see what was happening. When I rounded the bend, I saw cars parked a half mile down the road. I thought, ‘There must not be much to do around here on a Saturday night, so all the folks are hanging out at the local watering hole.’ Then I came in and heard the band out back, so I went to check it out. It was Eric Burdon and The Animals! I couldn’t believe it! What luck. Out here in the middle of the desert, and I stumble across a concert by Eric Burdon! They’ll never believe this back home.”
Buzz Gamble and The Daily Blues kicked off the evening with a couple of rousing sets, which already had people dancing on the tables—literally—then moved inside the palace where they continued to play until
closing. The hi-desert band features seasoned musicians Buzz Gamble, guitarists Kenny Brown and Clive Wright, and drummer Harry Lieberman, who all have music credits and notoriety of their own, from country
to rock and blues.
At 8 o’clock, Eric Burdon and The Animals took the outdoor stage for a power concert.
Burdon commanded the audience from the moment he took the microphone. He delivered up songs like “We Gotta Get Out of this Place,” “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “It’s My Life,” and “Sky Pilot,” while the audience sang and danced in the sand. By the time he got to “House of the Rising Sun” we were thoroughly submerged in the nostalgia of our past, the memories and the music, remembering the impact of the Animals on all our lives. After the concert, Burdon autographed CDs and copies of his book, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, then mumbled something about needing a beer and disappeared into the night. We assume he returned to his quiet house in Joshua Tree. (Didjano? Yes, he’s one of us now. A renaissance desert rat.) –VW
Vickie Waite is an old hippie, a freelance writer, and Publisher/Editor of The Sun Runner Magazine in Twentynine Palms, California.
|
