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BLUES BEAT
"This Place Cooks!"
The Imperial Garage
512 Third Street, Niagara Falls, New York
1980 - 1984
By Sharon Schneider
There was a sign on the door that said, 'Condemned.' There were holes in the roof, and the walls were fallin' down. There was no heat, no electric to speak of, and it didn't have water. It didn't have bathrooms; it didn't have nothin'. It looked like Beirut or some kind of war zone. "I went around and looked at the whole building. I thought maybe this could be something here, I don't know. I went back to the owners and said, 'Listen, I'm going to fix your building at my expense. There's only one thing you have to do, don't charge me any rent while I'm rejuvenating this place.' My sister said I was crazy, and my mother didn't say much at all." The novice entrepreneur, Toby Rotella, had no experience in carpentry, plumbing, masonry, or running a business; only the will to do it. Sometimes he pictured Muddy Waters on an imaginary stage and had a premonition that one day this place would be host to some of the best blues musicians in the country. "I only knew about welding and cars. But I had good family help, and I hired people. My nephews were roofers, and they worked for free. My nephew Dave, they call him Toby, worked right along with me hauling junk and garbage, rippin' stuff up, and pounding nails. It took almost a year to get the building in shape. When I opened the doors, I had forty four bucks in my pocket, and I charged the booze." Those who helped rebuild the place never had to buy a ticket. "Anyone who helped me fulfill this dream of mine got in free."
The Imperial originally was a garage, 130' long and 65' wide, built in the '20's (Toby thinks it may have Historic Landmark status). "If you look at the Al Capone movies, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre? Well, you'll see that type of garage." When he worked at Chrysler years before, he acquired some signs advertising one of the company's models. "They were great big signs, 12' long and 5' high. My mother used to say, 'What are you going to do with those things?' They became the appellation for his club, The Imperial Garage. 'I used to go to garage sales to find signs that had anything to do with cars. I'd tell my brother to keep his eyes peeled. I needed bathrooms." When the Stardust burned down, Chickie, that club's manager, gave Toby a great deal on what was left, and told him to pay when he could. "I took the sinks and the mirrors and stalls, etc. The garage was so big, I just threw everything in it and spread everything out. I'd have it all organized. I finally bought a code book and went through all the codes - all the kitchen stuff, the fire walls, the emergency lighting. Things started falling into place."
Throughout his teens, he was an avid listener of WKBW AM's George "Hound Dog" Lorenz. "If you were in Boston, you could hear WKBW; you could hear it in Cleveland and New York City. With George, there was no payola stuff. If he liked the person and liked that sound, he put it on the radio. He promoted concerts and shows, and he used to do the disc jockey thing from restaurants around the Buffalo area. He was a great disc jockey. Even the commercials were good. Every night, for about a half hour, he'd pay tribute to the blues; He'd say, 'It's time to go into the blues room,' and you'd hear the sound of a squeaky door opening up. They'd do a reverb thing going boom, boom, boom, down the hall. Then he'd go back to modern music. It wasn't "oldies" then, it was all new '50s rock and roll stuff, and it was great! Everybody was into cars and hot rods; not like motorcycles today. There was a lot of cruisin' - it was happy days."
Toby became a 'blues junky,' traveling to festivals and concerts, anyplace on a USA map. He drove in one day to Telluride, Colorado, just to see a festival. If Muddy Waters was booked for a week at Toronto's Colonial Tavern, he would drive back and forth every night for the duration. He went to Detroit and Houston. "I met Albert Collins, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and the Thunderbirds at Houston's Juneteenth Festival. Nobody up here had ever heard of them. That "Fest" had all the heavyweights. They were just regular local guys." He subscribed to a magazine called Living Blues and traveled to Belle Starr's in Colden, New York, which was about the only club with blues before it burned down, and before Toby opened the Imperial. "I went to clubs all around the country, got all these ideas together, and worked them into my club. I knew all the blues guys, because I went to concerts, and my face was always there all the time."
"There was some atmosphere in the place; I don't know wat it was." B. B. King started playing a half hour before he was scheduled. Sometimes the police would charge in to stop the music, if it was after closing time. "They went up to Jimmy Thackery and the Nighthawks and said, 'Stop the music.' Everybody just kept playin' and playin'; bands didn't want to quit. When they came, they were very comfortable; it was like old-home week. They were always taken care of. I used to put out a spread for them. They made that place cook!" Musicians loved his jukebox - "first thing they'd do is come in and check it out." When he's in town, players come up to him now and tell him they miss the place - "You know, that was the best place I've ever been at."
Eventually, the Imperial became the biggest, and practically only, operative blues club in WNY. "Our phone used to ring off the wall; I have phonitis. Everybody and their brother wanted to play." Long John Baldry tacked a note on the door to let Toby know he wanted to play there, and Bonnie Raitt would call. Toby figures that, by the time the club folded, 90% of Chicago's bands had passed through. John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, B. B. King, Guitar Junior Johnson, Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang, Stevie Ray Vaughn, J. B. Hutto and the Hawks, Hubert Sumlin, Charlie Musselwhite, Rod Piazza, Johnny Winter, The Gregg Allman Band, John Hammond, Chris Smither, Koko Taylor, Roy Buchanan, Brownie McGhee, the Nighthawks, Bob Margolin, Johnny Copeland, Willie Dixon, Son Seals, John Mooney, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, Sugar Blue, James Cotton, Leon Redbone, Buckwheat Zydeco, and even Buddy Rich, Iron Butterfly, and Herman’s Hermits appeared at the club. The crowd was small for Stevie Ray, because "nobody ever heard of him." Does anyone remember Cub Koda, Nash the Slash, Dennis D'Asaro, Stevie B. and the Rockers, Lizard King, or B. B. Gavor? Lucky Peterson and his father, James, would play, as well as Joe Beard. Present area performers Dr. Z. Shakin' Smith, Dave Stoll, Harmonica John, and many Canadian bands like Ronnie Hawkins, Downchild, Matt Minglewood, King Biscuit Boy, the Meteors, Dave Wilcox, and Powder Blue, were regulars - "I used to get flooded from about 1 AM to 3 AM, when their bars closed."
The bluesman to whom Toby became closest was Muddy Waters. So close, that Toby sometimes acted as his manager and attended his funeral in Chicago in 1983. His secret weapon in befriending Muddy was his mother's sweet potato pie. "She used to make a hell of a sweet potato pie. My mother would cook for them, and we'd sit around and shoot the bull. She used to make spaghetti, and we'd have chicken wings. My mother was an old 'blueser.' She used to love the music and come to all the shows." One night, Muddy called the 80 year-old up to the stage and sat her on his knee. "He says, 'Mama, what would you like to hear?' She says, 'Muddy, I'd like to hear Kansas City." Toby wonders if anyone got a picture that night, because Mama's granddaughter got so excited, she forgot to shoot.
One night in Boston, "Muddy didn't have a suit jacket, and I had one. Muddy gave me an envelope with half the gig money, which was probably a couple grand. He said, 'Don't give this to anybody; this is the payroll.' He sent over Willie Smith (drummer), who said 'Muddy said to give me the money.' I said, 'Nah, nah, nah, nah, you ain't getting' the money." Toby was trusted. "Before he went on, he'd have his French champagne. He'd give some to anybody who sat down with him. I never used to like champagne, but after awhile it grows on you," said Toby. After Muddy's death, and to this day, Toby celebrates his birthday, April 4, listening solely to Water's recordings throughout the day until midnight. And, he'll sip some French champagne in remembrance. "After Muddy died, it took me awhile before I wanted to see a blues band again. If it wasn't for Muddy Waters, there would be no Rolling Stones, no Eric Clapton, no rock and roll. Muddy was everybody's man and one of the greatest artists there ever will be." *
Toby sent out 350 newsletters each month. If someone didn't like the entertainment, they got their money back. The club's mugs had "Home of Live Music" printed on them. He sponsored a Blues Festival at the Niagara Falls Convention Center. He printed his own money. "People would come in with 10s and 20s. I never had enough $1 bills. Muddy's picture was where George Washington's would be; my mother was called the "boss" of the blues, and I was the "keeper" of the blues. The Nighthawk's insignia took the place of the American eagle, and I had a little picture of the building on it. People used to keep them as souvenirs and never give them back." It took seven bartenders, ringing a U-shaped bar; a cook, a ticket girl, a doorman, and someone at every exit, to run the place, which could hold about 500 on a big night. The only problem he had was that the staff wanted to dance. "One of my rules was nobody could fight. I wanted everybody to treat each other civilized. I didn't want too much swearing, I'd say, 'Listen, if you fight, you're gonna be thrown out of here, and you'll never be back again. Don't come cryin' if you want to come back in here. This is a music place.' I tried to make sure the place ran smoothly; everything had to be right."
Admission was generally $5. B. B. King's show cost him $8500, and tickets sold for $11. Sometimes Toby would sing with a band or serve as disc jockey. On quieter nights, he could close off the main room with a sliding door, leaving an intimate front room. He worked seven day a week with few breaks. Sunday was clean up day, and his mother would help. "She liked it when she saw about a foot of garbage, because she knew I'd made money. If she didn't see any, she'd say, 'You didn't make any money, didja?' The garbage was the thing." Toby said she told it like it was. "She'd see a band come in and say, 'Let's see how good you are.' People used to come up and say, 'Jeez, these bathrooms are cleaner than my bathroom at home."
Too much weighed on him personally by 1983. The same year Muddy died, his ex-wife died, leaving children who now depended on him. Then, Henry, who did the artwork for the club, announced he was going to California - "we're surviving, but we're not making money." Toby felt the City and its press didn't help enough. And "people didn't go out like they used to; I couldn't make money. The thrill was gone, and I'd lost my killer instinct. The great shows were there, and the people didn't come." A year later, and on the exact day Muddy died (April 30, 1993), a ferocious gust of wind blew part of the building down. Toby took it as an omen the Muddy might have been telling him to close up and move on.
Today Toby lives in Key Largo, Florida, and comes back north in the summer. You'll find him at festivals here and there, and they play blues every Saturday on a commercial station in the Keys. Toby would love to get all blues devotees involved in making April, National Blues Month. He says, "Blues is a gut feeling. It takes in everybody. You can be 14 or 140; it's a feeling inside. It grabbed ahold of me one time and never let loose."**
*Sometime After Muddy's death, Toby flew in the band's remaining players to do a reunion concert.
**Many thanks to Toby Rotella for sharing his adventures with me. Also, Toby wishes to that all those who were part of that scene and who helped him to make the Imperial Garage the great club it was.
Some of the performers who played at the Imperial Garage '80-'84:
Muddy Waters
Pinetop Perkins
Brownie McGee
Jerry Portnoy
B. B. King
Willie "Big Eye" Smith
Duke Robillard
Calvin "Fuzz" Jones
Buddy Rich
Bob Margolin
Stevie Ray Vaughn
Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson
Charlie Musselwhite
James Cotton
Down Child Blues Band
Willie Dixon
Elvin Bishop
Jimmy Rogers
Allman Brothers
Jr. Wells
David Wilcox
Buddy Guy
John Hammon
Johnny Winters
James & Lucky Peterson
Carey Bell
John Mooney
Eddie Shaw
Giner Baker
Hubert Sumlin
Rod Piazza
Matt Murphy
Buchwheat Zydeco
Koko Taylor
Roy Buchannon
Albert King
Twist Turner
Mighty Joe Young
King Biscuit Boy
John Lee Hooker
Powder Blues Band
Phil Guy
Iron Butterfly
Joe Beard
Spencer Borren
The Nighthawks
Catfish Hodge
Jimmy Thackery
Savoy Brown
J. B. Hutto
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown
Son Seals
Ron Levey
Jimmy Johnson
Herman Hermits
Lonnie Brooks
Matt Minglewood
Eddie Clearwater
Long John Baldry
Johnny Clyde Copeland
Brian Lee
Lafayette Leaks
Shaken Smith Blues Band
Freddy Robinson
Ronnie Hawkins
Piano Red
Lizard King
Martin, Bogart & Armstrong
King Snake
Ted Harvey
Third Street Band
Ola Dixon
Four Joes Band
Sam & Dave
Box Car Willie
Wildchild Butler
Cub "Smoking in the Boys Room" Koda
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