{"id":17003,"date":"2019-07-17T05:30:33","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T09:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=17003"},"modified":"2019-07-18T09:22:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T13:22:07","slug":"ashevilles-grey-eagle-soaring-at-a-quarter-century-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/17\/ashevilles-grey-eagle-soaring-at-a-quarter-century-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Asheville’s Grey Eagle: Soaring at a Quarter Century (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Western North Carolina’s most popular music venues, the Grey Eagle is taking a well-deserved victory lap this year. In celebration of the hall’s 25th<\/sup> anniversary, the Grey Eagle recently hosted a music festival. Too big and varied an event to fit inside the roughly 550-person capacity of the venue, Grey Eagle 25 took place outdoors at nearby Lake Eden. With a lineup that included artists key in the Grey Eagle’s history \u2013 Unknown Hinson, James McMurtry, Of Montreal and the Budos Band to name just a few \u2013 it focused on the present and future. And on the occasion of the venue’s anniversary, owners and managers past and present take a look back at the history of the beloved music hall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dawn of the Grey Eagle<\/b>
\nIn 1997, Tyler Richardson moved from Georgia to Black Mountain; with business partner Dan O’Brien, he bought a live music venue that used the old Cherokee name for the area: Grey Eagle. First opened in 1994 by Edd Konopka, the venue focused on local, regional and occasional touring artists; the Grey Eagle Tavern and Music Hall grew in popularity. But they soon lost their lease on the building, so Richardson and new partner Bert Ivey moved the Grey Eagle to a building at the corner of Clingman Avenue and Haywood Road, in a part of town not yet known as the River Arts District.<\/p>\n

Jeff Whitworth started working at the Grey Eagle soon after its relocation. \u201cI moved to town because of the Grey Eagle,\u201d he says with visible pride. He first visited the music hall in 1999 to see a show featuring Vic Chesnutt and Kristin Hersh. \u201cIt was just such a unique space,\u201d Whitworth says. \u201cIt spoke to me right when I walked in the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noticed that the room had a vibe quite different from other music venues. \u201cI was used to seeing shows in Charleston: crowds going for the bar, and there happens to be a show happening. Whereas in Asheville, that script was totally flipped: people were here for the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whitworth hung out after the show, getting to know the performers and Richardson. After that evening he describes as a \u201clife-changing experience,\u201d he knew he wanted to work there. Stuck in a pair of dead-end jobs in Charleston (a veterinary technician, Whitworth is \u201cdeathly allergic to cats\u201d), he was ready to make a move. \u201cI started bugging Tyler,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"\"Three months later \u2013 and without a new job \u2013 Whitworth relocated near Asheville. \u201cI was beating down the door of the Grey Eagle every day for them to hire me,\u201d he recalls with a hearty laugh. \u201cI came in three or four days in a row, just letting them know I wasn\u2019t going away.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that point, the Grey Eagle’s staff totaled four or five people. \u201cIt was small-time,\u201d Whitworth says. \u201cThey were open three nights a week, maybe four on a busy week. Their focus was primarily on singer-songwriters, with the occasional rock or reggae show.\u201d But with the Orange Peel’s 2002 opening still in the future, it was the largest capacity music room in town.<\/p>\n

In early 2000 the Grey Eagle experienced a four-day consecutive run of especially noteworthy shows: Bill Mallonee’s Vigilantes of Love, McMurtry and Unknown Hinson were the first three. The fourth night would feature blues icons R.L. Burnside and T-Model Ford.<\/p>\n

Whitworth showed up early and asked, \u201cYou need any help?\u201d Richardson asked him if he could work the door. \u201cI was like, ‘Yeah,’\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that was the first night of the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most nights, Martin Kasun (Ivey’s replacement as co-owner) or Whitworth took tickets at the door, Richardson ran the sound board, and Richardson’s ex-wife tended bar. After about two months, Richardson asked Whitworth if he’d like to run the sound for an open mic night. \u201cWhich I had never done before,\u201d he emphasizes. But he learned quickly and soon mastered the gear. \u201cThere’s no better way to learn than on open mic nights,\u201d he says. \u201cOn-the-fly changeovers, no sound checks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The all-hands-on-deck nature of the small staff meant that soon Whitworth was bartending, too. \u201cI did whatever they needed, whenever,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Whitworth era<\/b>
\nJeff Whitworth recalls a night in 2004 when he was chatting with Brian Landrum, whose alt-country band Black Eyed Dog had just finished a set. \u201cTyler came over and asked us, ‘Y’all wanna buy a club?’ Brian and I were like, ‘Yeah, sure,’ jokingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the conversation had been started. \u201cA month later we were signing paperwork and taking over a lease,\u201d Whitworth says. \u201cI think Tyler had subconsciously been grooming me for that, all along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

He notes that up to that point, a typical night at the Grey Eagle meant \u201c150 people and maybe $500 at the bar.\u201d So once he took over, Whitworth launched a determined effort to widen the venue’s stylistic reach, and to take advantage of what he saw as untapped opportunity. \u201cAsheville wasn\u2019t the destination that it is now, but it\u2019s always been a great ‘router.’\u201d he says. \u201cIt’s perfectly positioned between Raleigh, Atlanta, Charlotte and Greenville.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, Landrum handled the booking of talent. \u201cWe\u2019d make joint decisions,\u201d Whitworth says. \u201cWe were two younger guys who were more in tune with what was popular at the time, with the current music scene.\u201d He says when they’d book a rock show with a standing-room-only crowd, he’d stop and think, \u201cMan, it could be like this every night.\u201d They started taking risks on the kinds of artists they booked. And more often than not, those risks paid off.<\/p>\n

Even when they didn’t pay off financially \u2013 as with a show featuring songwriting legends Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham that Whitworth says \u201csold like 20 tickets\u201d \u2013 he says that the experiences were more than worthwhile musically. \u201cJust the two of them on stage \u2026 that was a really, really powerful night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Booking a John Doe show stretched the limits of what the venue could afford, but the well-attended concert featuring the former guitarist of the band X worked out for all concerned. \u201cIt was a turning point, Whitworth says. \u201cPeople would say, ‘That guy was just at the Grey Eagle. It’s not just folk shows any more.’\u201d<\/p>\n

And the Grey Eagle made a practice of bringing back artists who put on great shows. \u201cEven if they didn’t do great\u201d in terms ticket sales, Whitworth emphasizes. \u201cThat’s developing an act.\u201d One such act was Barbez, a Brooklyn group featuring a Theremin player and a Russian opera singer. \u201cIt was weird, weird stuff,\u201d Whitworth laughs. \u201cBut we kept booking them. Bob Moog was a fan; he’d roll in and sit front and center for soundcheck.\u201d The Grey Eagle booked Barbez \u2013 each time to larger audiences \u2013 five or six times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey eventually kind of disappeared,\u201d Whitworth says. \u201cBut for every one of those, there’s Lumineers or St. Paul and the Broken Bones, bands we helped develop who went on to bigger things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another change that Whitworth and Landrum made was to install an HVAC system, a significant venture considering they didn’t own the building itself. \u201cThat was the first thing we did,\u201d Whitworth says.<\/p>\n

Click here to read Part Two<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Western North Carolina’s most popular music venues, the Grey Eagle is taking a well-deserved victory lap this year. In celebration of the hall’s 25th anniversary, the Grey Eagle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3668],"tags":[237,3894],"class_list":["post-17003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-music-business","tag-asheville","tag-the-grey-eagle","cat-41-id","cat-3668-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17003"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17185,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17003\/revisions\/17185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}