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Karres recalls the late Stevie Ray Vaughn testing his guitar, playing "Little Wing" alone in a corner of the stage. McCall remembers Vaughn playing the jukebox, "hanging out, sitting on his chair backwards. A great guy -- very down to earth." It was snowing two nights Vaughn played the Door and the staff warmed up to several hours of his Texas heat virtually all to themselves. "You could hear him playing all the way down Independence Blvd.," McCall says.
One of McCall's favorite moments? Having drinks with Eric Clapton and Jerry Portnoy, McCall's friend, when the British guitar god came through town on a blues tour.
Karres cites blues queen Koko Taylor as the most professional entertainer to ever perform at the Double Door. "When you paid, you paid Koko in private, no one else. She was very professional in the way she conducted her money, her band and her show."
He remembers Taylor "coming out of the band room and down the stairs in little marching steps, getting herself psyched for performances, mentally preparing herself." Mandrapilias remembers enjoying a small bottle of something with her (back when he drank) and getting a bear hug he wasn't sure he'd get out of.
Karres was awed when the late legendary producer, songwriter and bassist Willie Dixon (who wrote songs recorded by the likes of Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead and the Doors) left his phone book behind after a performance. "I couldn't believe I was holding Willie Dixon's big, fat phone book," he says, "with tons of pages in it." And no, Karres answers, he didn't make a copy before returning it.
At one point in the 80s, guitarist Tinsley Ellis went wireless. He'd go outside with the crowd following him playing guitar all around the parking lot and then would lie down, continuing to play, on the median of Independence Boulevard.
"I was young and new then -- trying anyway I could to get attention," say Ellis from the studio. "I first played the Double Door in October 1979 -- 24 years ago. (Ellis estimates he's probably done 240 shows there.) Nick has not only been great to work with, he's also advised me in my career, like when I've changed record companies or agents. It's been my longest, strongest relationship with a venue by at least 10 years -- nothing else is even close. Usually, the clubs wind up gone."
The nightclub business is brutal and the Door's been through some sketchy periods. "There have been many times when if I hadn't done this or that, we would have gone under," Karres says. Recent economic downturns have heightened the challenges and the club is going through another period of lean times, the owner says, "beginning the spring before 9/11, which then cast another shadow. We're the first type of expense people cut for extra income."
Talent booker Rick Booth says the downturn is not just in blues clubs, all music clubs are affected. "No one is thriving. Nationwide, probably worldwide, hundreds of clubs have failed since 9/11. Business is down for the whole industry -- records aren't selling, the kids are downloading their music. And when they're not selling, companies don't advertise, causing less space for papers to write stories covering music events. People aren't going to clubs so clubs don't advertise as much and so on." Booth thinks the industry as a whole is pricing itself out of its market. "People can't pay hundreds of dollars for concert tickets. And nightclub covers used to be $3-5, now they have to be $10."
The price of many top blues acts, like Koko Taylor and Buddy Guy, increased out of reach for bars in 1994 when their agency American Famous Talent merged into Monterey Peninsula. Blues clubs also face an aging audience base as boomers get older and the discretionary-income-yielding 25-30 year-olds aren't opting for the blues as much.
The blues landscape itself has also changed as "some musicians have died, some no longer travel," Karres says, although there are "hundreds of blues acts now compared to about a dozen 25 years ago." Ironically, in down times clubs are hard pressed to take chances and try new bands out. "Many are great bands and usually we have to turn them down. Right now, people are hesitant to spend money on a band they don't know." This is the worst part of his job, he says. "Turning them down gets old."
Karres says the primary factor keeping him afloat is owning the Door venue. "Urban revival kills a lot of clubs, they always wind up losing their lease." Being conservative regarding his personal lifestyle has also helped, he says -- not driving the fancy car or upgrading to a bigger home. Good karma's probably involved as well in his longevity; by all accounts Karres is a unique positive presence in an often nasty business."The loyalty and community that Nick has created is completely unheard of in this business," says Piedmont Talent Booker Hugh Southard. "I've managed clubs and know that in this industry you don't get employees to last five years -- much less 25. Musicians like playing for Nick because he's honest and he does things right. The PA's good, he has great soundmen (Les Moore for eight years and Mark Bumgardner for one), bands love him and are loyal to him. They respect his love for music."
