A Tower District icon, this nightclub remade live music in Fresno. ‘The Blue was it’
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The Wild Blue was an institution among Fresno’s musician class.
The nightclub operated out of a spot on Olive and Fulton Avenue for two decades starting in 1974. It was a breeding ground for would-be rock stars, jazz cats and folkies — and a viable tour stop for artists traversing from the Bay Area to Los Angeles.
Its success established a blueprint for future music venues in Fresno (places like Strummer’s and Fulton 55) and was a catalyst for an artistic enclave and entertainment hub that would become known as the Tower District.
In a column in 1994, Fresno Bee writer Ken Robinson likened the Blue’s closure to a death in the family.
“How do you write an obituary for a nightclub?”
Thirty years on and the Wild Blue remains revered.
To wit: The Valley Music Hall of Fame is honoring the Wild Blue with its first Legacy Award during its 2024 induction ceremony Sept. 25.
‘The Blue was it.’
“You can never overestimate the importance of that club,” says Glen Delpit, one of the dozens of professional musicians who still performs around town after cutting their teeth on the Wild Blue stage.
Delpit spent a lot of time at the Blue.
His band, the Houserockers, had a standing New Year’s Eve gig at the nightclub from 1986-1990.
It played a three-night run of shows at least once a month through the bulk of the ’80s: Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, with crowds lined up down the block.
But Delpit was also at the Blue for shows he booked for the Folk Society, which brought in guys like John Fahey, and for a music and poetry night he helped put together.
He was also there just kind of whenever.
“You could assume you could go there any night and like the music,” Delpit says.
“Everyone who had an original band wanted to play there.”
The Blue became a gathering place; its patrons a mix of freaks, geeks, older folks and college kids all coming to see music that ran the gamut from progrock, to folk, blues and new wave.
During its height, recorded performances from the club were broadcast periodically on a local radio show on KFCF and KFSR.
In 1990, the club even hosted its own awards show. Any local musician who performed at the Blue that year was included on the ballot and could vote for their favorites in a variety of categories, which were mostly broken up by instruments (including horns, both brass and reeds).
Delpit was named musician of the year.
The award is a little dusty, but still on display at his house.
The rise of the Tower District
The venue was run by the Bixler brothers, Jim and Bill, and originally conceived as club house for their musical project, Wild Blue Yonder. The band’s members pulled their money ($300 each in the 1970s) to open the spot, mostly so they would have someplace to play.
Per the band’s bio: “Disco was a 24/7 nightmare ... the band’s future survival was in doubt.
“Utilizing an old maxim by the industrialist Howard Hughes — to be successful in business, you should ‘own what you use’ — the band arrived at the audacious notion of forming a partnership and creating a performance space dedicated to original music and thought.”
Bixler recalled those early days in a column in The Bee in 1997.
“The town still seemed manageable,” he wrote.
“The club provided an island of culture, The Tower, a sense of community and charm.”
Of course, the club opened before any of the Tower District’s cultural touchstones were in place.
The Tower Theater was struggling to operate as a first-run movie house into the 1980s. It had a short run showing foreign films, but didn’t get a full revitalization until late in the decade.
Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater didn’t open until 1978; after Rocka himself has visited the Blue (that’s according to Bixler, anyway).
The Daily Planet restaurant followed two years later.
As, Delpit remembers it, “There wasn’t much going on when they started.”
“It was sleepy, you could say. The Tower grew with it.”
By the time the ’90s rolled around, the area was seeing rising rents. That, plus changes in musical tastes and burnout among the Bixlers, led to the Blue’s closure.
The spot has been mostly vacant since.
A disco club called SoHo ran for three years, before its dance permit was revoked the city over safety concerns.
Jax House, tried to bring live music back into the space, but lasted only a year-ish.
It was the same for a Christian nightclub, Elementz.
Recently, there has been activity inside the venue and a notice for alcohol sales was posted. It appears to have some connection to India’s Oven, the restaurant next door, but the owner wouldn’t comment.
Valley Music Hall of Fame 2024 inductees
The Wild Blue is the Valley Hall of Fame’s first Legacy Award honoree.
It was selected by the board of directors as a way to honor those that might otherwise be overlooked, says board chair Don Priest.
“As we’ve gone through the process of selecting inductees based on the nominations submitted by community members, it’s become apparent that there are people and organizations out there that have played extremely important roles in our musical community that will probably never be nominated,” he says.
“We wanted to have a way to give special recognition to those individuals/groups/venues. It’s kind of our gift to them.”
In June, the Hall of Fame announced its full list of inductees for 2024.
It includes folk musician and educator Evo Bluestein; Armenian folk musician and ensemble leader John Chookasian; blues singer John Clifton; Fresno Community Chorus director Anna Hamre; and Marisa Orduño, a pioneering female in the mariachi genre.
This is the first class in which all of the honorees are still living, which means they’ll all be attendance at the induction ceremony at Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater.
Prior inductees into the Valley Music Hall of Fame are:
Class of 2021: Russel S. Howland, Dr. James. H. Winter, Dick Contino, Audra McDonald and Dave Stogner.
Class of 2022: Gene Bluestein, Ray Camacho, The Fresno Musical Club, Allen and Fay Harkins, and Richard Hagopian.
Class of 2023: Benjamin Boone, Kenny Hall, Redbone, Dr. Juan Serrano and Ann Leonardo Thaxter.
