When my family came to San Antonio in 1967, I enjoyed the fun and excitement of the city’s night life. One of my favorite places was a club called the Pink Pussy Cat. The music played was rock groups of the late 1960s and early ’70s, such as 13th Floor Elevators and Strawberry Alarm Clock. I assisted in presenting light shows for mood effects.
I understand that before the Pink Pussy Cat, the building was a ballroom. I wonder what happened to the club named the Pink Pussy Cat.
— Kenneth Cook
This was one of the questions left over from 2020 — a stumper because your spelling was too correct. Or perhaps you’re recalling the Pink Pussycat lounge in Houston, once located at Main and Congress with a distinctive cat-shaped neon sign. That building was demolished in 1983.
But thanks to Michael Ann Coker, co-founder of TexPop, a local music archive, we were able to identify the San Antonio place you’re talking about as the Pusi-Kat Club, one of the hottest nightspots in town for teens and young adults in the late 1960s.
The Pusi-Kat Club opened in 1967 at 120 Villita St., a one-story building completed in 1929, according to Sanborn Insurance Co. maps consulted by Beth Standifird, Conservation Society of San Antonio librarian. It was briefly a garage and later a print shop, and reopened in 1959 as a ballroom associated with the hotel across the street — the former Plaza Hotel, completed in 1928, long associated with partner/manager A.C. “Jack” White, a former San Antonio mayor and namesake of Jack White Way, a cross street (along with South St. Mary’s Street) of Villita at that location.
The Plaza (covered here July 24, 2013, Nov. 24, 2018, and Dec. 2, 2018) flipped briskly from the mid-1950s onward. Acquired by Hilton in 1956, the hotel underwent a $2 million renovation and expansion into the Hilton Hotel and Convention Center. Half a million went toward the purchase and remodeling of the little building across the street for its transformation into the Hilton Grand Ballroom, a convention facility with 15,8006 square feet of space “a few steps away from the Hilton Hotel…to accommodate 2,500 people at meetings or 1,500 at banquets and dances,” as announced in the San Antonio Express, Jan. 30, 1959. With a kitchen, check room and public address system, the hall was advertised as “available for meetings, luncheons, banquets and dances.”
Apparently the whole hotel was soon available, because it was bought, made over and renamed one more time as the Granada Hotel, and the annex across the street turns up as the Granada Ballroom in the 1960 city directory. The Granada was sold a few years later and redeveloped in 1966 as the Granada Homes, apartments for senior citizens, presumably not in need of a “grand ballroom.”
An ownership group of investors from Los Angeles and coastal Mexico who had “sister clubs” in Acapulco and other locations saw the possibilities in the location - not quite the River Walk, but close - for a “mod nightclub.” The Pusi-Kat Club opened in March 1967, with eye-popping psychedelic décor and music that appealed to young people.
There was a mix of live music (popular local bands such as Bubble Puppy, the Water Brothers and the Eastwood Country Club’s Eastwood Revue, with occasional big-name acts including James Brown, B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix) and a DJ playing hits and sometimes preview albums.
The dance floor was known as the Plastic Peacock (multicolored, illuminated and pulsating), the interior featured lots of neon, and even the hostesses were part of the visual effect. (“They wanted one brunette and one blonde,” said Susan Velzy, one of the blonde greeters who enjoyed staying to dance once off duty.
Advertised capacity was 3,000; the music was thunderously amplified and the atmosphere could be intense. Keith Miller, a member of the Laughing Kind, a band that played the Pusi-Kat, remembers that when his parents came to see them, “While they were finding a seat, the strobes (flashing lights) came on. They freaked out, spun around and found the nearest chair to recover. When the strobes stopped, they were several tables away from each other, making new friends.”
For a while, Augie Meyers — before the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados — fronted the house band, Lord August and the Visions of Light.
“Warm-up bands for the major acts that played HemisFair Arena would perform at the Pusi-Kat the next night,” Don Mathis said. “(A band called) ‘If’ had a keyboardist who could play four tunes at the same time. Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids played a drum solo on a guy's head while he was wearing a football helmet.”
Management kept the place hopping. Advertised as “the beautiful people place,” the club was available for “school, fraternity or any other party, any night of the week.” The Pusi-Kat opened for nonalcoholic teen dances (run by the popular Teen Canteen youth hangout) on Sunday afternoons and odd weeknights. Girls usually were admitted free, students and military were charged $1.50, and everyone else paid $2. Beer and set-ups were available on “adult” (18 and up) nights.
In July 1970, the club’s name changed to the Jam Factory, and the focus switched to famous bands — the Allman Brothers, Deep Purple, Fats Domino, Fleetwood Mac and Leon Russell all appeared there. The clientele grew up a little — under-18s were first banned, then 17-year-olds were allowed to take out a membership for a discount on concerts.
One of the most unusual shows in this venue was the “fast-moving, highly charged antiwar show” starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and Country Joe MacDonald.
“Except for the words and the long hair of some of the male performers,” said the Express, Sept. 21, 1971, of the previous night’s show, “it could have been Bob Hope entertaining the troops in Saigon (with) songs, blackout skits, pretty girls and lots and lots of political jokes.”
Billed as the Entertainment Industry for Peace and Justice, the troupe played to “an enthusiastic, hand-clapping, yelling crowd of about 3,000.” It was free to military service members, who made up most of the audience, “judging from the GI haircuts,” the newspaper reported.
As the Jam Factory, the club didn’t last much longer. In August 1972, stories about Russell’s next San Antonio concert refer to “the old Jam Factory,” since closed.
historycolumn@yahoo.com | Twitter: @sahistorycolumn | Facebook: SanAntoniohistorycolumn
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "From James Brown to Jane Fonda, San Antonio’s downtown Pusi-Kat Club kept youth dancing in 1960s - San Antonio Express-News"
Post a Comment