The Troubadour is legendary, located in West Hollyw/ood, California, on the border of Beverly Hills. Inspired by a visit to the newly opened Troubadour café in London, it was opened in 1957. I had been waiting for this show my whole life. The Troubadour played an important role in the careers of Hoyt Axton, Jackson Browne, the Byrds, Neil Diamond, Elton John, Eagles, Carole King, Love, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, J. D. Souther, James Taylor, Tom Waits, and other prominent and successful performers, who played performances there establishing their future fame. In October 1962, comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested on obscenity charges for using the word "schmuck" on stage. Michael Nesmith sometimes worked as an M.C. at the club in the 1960s, before the formation of the music group the Monkees. Buffalo Springfield debuted at the club in 1966, and Randy Newman started out there as well.
On August 25, 1970, Neil Diamond (who had just recorded his first live album at the Troubadour) introduced Elton John, who performed his first show in the United States at the Troubadour. Comics Cheech & Chong and Steve Martin were discovered there in the early 1970s. In 1974, John Lennon, Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr were ejected from the club for drunkenly heckling the Smothers Brothers. That same year, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band performed third on the bill with ex-Byrd Roger McGuinn headlining, going on stage at 1:45 in the morning. In 1975, Elton John returned to do a series of special anniversary concerts. In November 2007, James Taylor and Carole King played a series of concerts commemorating the nightclub's 50th anniversary and reuniting the two from their 1970 performance.
The Troubadour featured new wave and punk in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Bad Religion, Flipper, The Meat Puppets, Napalm Death, and Redd Kross. L.A. residents and proto-grunge band Melvins have played the Troubadour stage 24 times and counting as of November 2019, including live tapings for Carson Daly in 2012 and 2015. The club features in the 1972 film Cisco Pike.
In the 1980s the club became associated with glam metal bands such as Candy, Cinderella, Guns N' Roses, L.A. Guns, Mötley Crüe, Poison, Ratt, Warrant, NEWHAVEN and W.A.S.P. Guns N' Roses played their first show at the Troubadour, and were also discovered by a David Geffen A&R representative at the club. During the glam and metal years, it continued to attract non-glam metal acts through this time and into the 1990s such as Fiona Apple, Steve Earle, Mudhoney, Silverchair and Radiohead.
I felt like I was entering a Church our band of traveling misfits had made it to the promised land. I have read so much about the LA music scene, the history, being at The Troubadour was an out of body experience. Not only being there or even playing there I was inside the inner sanctorum the Green Room. Drinking craft beer imagining all the wild. wonderful, events that transpired in this very room before I was even born.
The word "troubadour" refers to a poet and musician singing tales of romance in 11th through 13th century France. "Modern-Day Troubadours" like my self must always pay homage to those that paved the road for me, broke the dry old ways and opened a new world for performers, artist, fans alike.
Daydreaming of Guns 'N' Roses parting in this room or James Taylor smoking pot over there. I was shocked when Abby Lake a girl from my hometown stopped by she was in college at UCLA. Abby was a cheerleader four foot eleven, blonde hair, blue eyes, popular with all the cliques. She said my Mom had told her Mom we would be playing here so she wanted to come see me.
