The Five River Elixir: Brand Dayton
For a serious-minded music town to jam properly, the epicenter of the Land of the Funk, Dayton, Ohio, goes down quite well with vodka. Anything works with vodka. Heck, Dayton brews its vodka right from these waters.
The recently opened Belle of Dayton boosts their business as a link to Dayton’s past, an era before Prohibition when “grist mills and distilleries dotted the Miami Valley” and “spirits were distilled the old-fashioned way — with hard work, ingenuity, and honest craftsmanship drawing from the area’s deep, mineral-rich water of the Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer.”
As I explored before, this music town is home to many famous and emerging musical acts, venues, summer festivals, and, most importantly, fans. Triangle Park sits dead center of The Great Miami River, the Stillwater River, and The Mad River, along with several tributaries that comprise the Five Rivers Conservatory District. They are all part of the Ohio/Mississippi River watershed area. Dayton was almost wiped out by 1913 flooding attributed to volcanic activity in Alaska. This abundance of liquid feeds a massive aquifer under Dayton that could supply the people of Flint, MI, for decades.
The Five River Elixir. It would make a great drink! (Not out of the actual river, mind you!)
The fuel to the fire supporting so much musical output of talent from this mid-size hamlet is the feisty natives. As Ohio boasts itself as the Heart of it All, Dayton is the beating portion of that heart. While Cleveland Rocks and Cincinnati host tours, Toledo and Akron kept burgeoning music scenes; Dayton breeds the artists and fans alike. Layered in curiosity and desire, this town is eager to discover and support the next principal music act or cultivate and nurture unknown creative geniuses. It has for decades. It’s something in the water.
For example, the deeply missed Gilly’s was a simple 250-seat jazz and blues club in the middle of downtown that finally closed after 45 years, only because its beloved owner Jerry Gillioti passed away in 2017. He was 80. Despite its small stature, national musicians included it as a stop on their itineraries. Fans were reported to travel from miles away and neighboring states to see the acts.
“Gilly’s helped put Dayton on the map in the jazz and blues worlds.” Musician Doug Hart said he was humbled to play there over 25 times. “It is one of the more legendary clubs I know of in the country,” he said. “Everybody that I considered my hero I’ve seen play there.”
“We knew it was a great place to play, and we always had a sell-out,” Musician Floyd Weatherspoon of the band Touch said. “(Gillotti) gave a lot of local groups a place to showcase their talents. If you were good, you’d come back.”
Not slacking in attracting acts, Gilly’s was notable for countless national performers during the club’s 45-year tenure, including Roy Meriwether, who performed the club’s opening show, George Benson, B.B. King, Herbie Hancock, Tony Bennett, Art Blakley, Charles Mingus, Bobby Blue Bland, Wynton Marsalis, Stan Getz, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Roy Ayers, Sun Ra, Alex Bugnon, Bill Cunliffe, Marion Meadows, and Kevin Toney, and many others. Before his tragic death in 1979, the legendary R&B singer Donny Hathaway performed sold-out shows in 1976 and 1977 when the club was inside the Dayton Inn at 3rd & Ludlow.
Another missed legendary local club was the Canal Street Tavern, a 225-seat hobble off of First St near the ball stadium. While small in scope, it made up for it by having a heart. The original Battle of the Bands carried on by the newer Brightside has its roots in the mid-80s at Canal Street.
The creator Mick Montgomery’s philosophy for starting Canal Street was simple. “People have a tendency not to think of live music as a participation sport,” he said to Dayton Monthly. “I wanted to create an environment where people could let the music touch them. I’ve always strived to offer a quality of music to this area that is truly an alternative to the kind we are force-fed from every angle.” Canal Street’s performance schedule and atmosphere indeed demonstrated this philosophy.
Montgomery’s venue opened in late 1981 and hosted everything from folk, funk, rap, blues, and country rock to bluegrass, indie rock, cajun, and punk. Canal Street also drew well-known acts, such as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Los Lobos, The Del McCoury Band, Leo Kottke, and Bela Fleck & the Flecktones.
It catered to no one genre of music. The result is music for its purest reason: that is, music for the sake of human expression.
Dayton commissioners in 2014 named a portion of East First Street from North Patterson Boulevard to Sears Street as “Mick Montgomery Way, near his business at 308 E. First, St. Mick passed away in January 2018 from natural causes at Kettering Medical Center. He was 71.
While the sprawling city is dotted with many small clubs, there were/are several large arenas, such as the mothballed Memorial Hall and The Nutter Center, and was the prime of its day; Hara Arena. Over a 60-year history, that facility hosted many musical performances from bands ranging from the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead to Guy Lombardo And His Royal Canadians to Michael Jackson and Ice Cube’s Steady Mobbin tour. The facility hosted one of the first-ever U.S. performances of the Rolling Stones, which was attended by only 648. Heavy metal band Pantera performed at the facility numerous times between 1990-2001 and was officially named the venue's house band in 1998.
Multi-instrumental singer-songwriter Paige Beller came to Dayton, Ohio, to launch her musical career for a reason. She answered Joyzine.org's question, “What makes Dayton a special place for music and bands? Bands in Dayton play because they love to. There’s less focus on “making it” and more on self-expression brings a level of vulnerability that I like. Downtown is covered in murals by local artists, and many shops and bars are run by people who have grown up in Dayton. Everyone kind of knows everyone. It’s also an affordable place to live for a musician, giving those of us who like to tour the ability to do so.
Paige continued, “Dayton has a rich history of weird indie alt-rock. It’s the birthplace of Guided by Voices, The Breeders, and Brainiac, which I think influenced a lot of bands in the area. One of the things I like the most about Dayton, though, is that there is a pretty good mix. You can find quality acts in almost any style you’d like if you look for them.”
A transplant from Cleveland, hip-hop artist Tino also stated recently with Lando Funk, “I appreciate the support the local radio (scene) gives to not only to myself but to every one of the artists in the area.”
Live music lives on at Blind Bob’s, The Yellow Cab Tavern, The Brightside, The Arena, The Fraze Pavillion, The Rose Amphitheater, the newly opened outdoor venue the Levitt Pavillion, and the classic Triangle Park itself, the heart of the five rivers.
Mick summed it up well, this rebellious little borough that spawned the funk, that produced the weird fun alt-rock — this attitude that rejects the status quo, what we are force-fed from every angle, what the masses desire you to consume. While mainstream media is commercialized, the people dwelling at the beating heart en masse stay resiliently anti-establishment and counter commercial. Something in the water computes just fine!
So have a drink and jam with us! Keep it Funky, my friends!
