News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
MUSIC | BARBARA KATE REPA The Fillmore Auditorium has existed as the neighborhood’s dance hall and rock emporium for more than a century. And in all that time, there has been one common characteristic among those performing and running the shows: All were men. That will change on January 31, with The First All Lady…
Q & A | MICHAEL BLYTHE Michael Blythe has worked at the venerable Clay Theater at 2261 Fillmore Street for nearly a decade. In that time he’s had the opportunity to lavish his love of old theaters on the Clay, which is now more than 100 years old. On New Year’s Eve he helped launch…
JUST AFTER MIDDAY an email message went out: Alden Gilchrist, the widely beloved music director who served Fillmore’s Calvary Presbyterian Church for more than 60 years, had died the night before, on September 1, Labor Day, at age 83. A few hours later, as dark descended, several dozen of Gilchrist’s friends and admirers instinctively gathered at…
By Chris Barnett AFTER A DIZZYING seven year roller-coaster ride — from its opening as the hot new jazz club on the West Coast to a plunge into bankruptcy — Yoshi’s on Fillmore was taken over by new owners July 1 and is tuning up for its next gig. Yoshi’s San Francisco, launched at the…
By Chris Barnett YOSHI’S ON FILLMORE is already booked this summer with acts lined up before the ownership changed on July 1. But it almost went dark. Just a few weeks ago, the mood at Yoshi’s was deathly. Backstage, insiders could practically hear a New Orleans funeral band playing Just a Closer Walk With Thee,…
By Judy Goddess MANY AGREE THAT choir music can be a joyful noise. And choir members often find singing fulfilling and fun. But a new study recently launched locally aims to uncover whether singing in a choir can actually help older adults have longer and healthier lives. As part of the study, the 15-member Community…
FLASHBACK | HONEY GREEN It was October 1966, just a few days before my birthday. Bill Graham had booked an amazing show. Headlining was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, with Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Mark Naftalin, Elvin Bishop and a host of many others. The second band was the Jefferson Airplane — Marty, Jorma, Jack,…
BOOKS | BARBARA KATE REPA The versatile and iconic singer Linda Ronstadt has mostly kept a low profile since moving back to San Francisco from her native Arizona about eight years ago. But all that changed recently with a huge media blitz touting her new book, Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. Her appearances these days…
Woody Allen’s new film, Blue Jasmine, opens today at the Clay Theater on Fillmore Street. It’s set mostly in San Francisco, and some scenes were filmed locally in Pacific Heights. Blue Jasmine “seems to me the best film Woody Allen has ever made,” says film critic David Thomson, a neighborhood resident, writing in The New…
FILM | Barbara Kate Repa JIM TRACY, longtime running coach at the neighborhood’s University High School, never set out to be a film star. But when life conspired to deliver a record-setting team, a diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s Disease and a community that rallied around it all, he could be no other. The result is…