Mill Valley’s Sweetwater Music Hall celebrates its 50th anniversary with a month of shows and events

On Nov. 17, 1972, a line snaked down the block to get into a trendy new bar and nightclub, named Sweetwater, that was opening that fall evening in Mill Valley. Its first band was an acoustic folk-rock trio called An Exchange.

Fifty years to the day later, the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir is set to take the stage at Sweetwater Music Hall next month for a benefit gala celebrating the golden anniversary of a renowned small-town venue that has earned a worldwide reputation as an intimate showcase for American roots music.

The list of marquee performers who have played at Sweetwater over the decades is a long and impressive one. Jerry Garcia, Elvis Costello, Carlos Santana, John Lee Hooker, Mark Knopfler, J.J. Cale, Bonnie Raitt, Clarence Clemons, Aaron Neville, Huey Lewis, Ry Cooder, Maria Muldaur, Etta James and Sammy Hagar are only a few of the many stars of rock, blues, R&B and country music who have graced Sweetwater’s stage.

Over the past half century, the club as gone through several distinct eras. The original closed in 2007 after 35 years at 153 Throckmorton Ave. Five years later, its successor, Sweetwater Music Hall, opened a block away on Corte Madera Avenue, across from the Mill Valley City Hall. In addition to a 300-capacity concert space, it also offered a small café, its walls covered with photos of some of the major musicians who played the old Sweetwater. After being closed during the pandemic, the music hall emerged as a nonprofit organization with an expanded restaurant, Rock & Rye, and a mission to broaden its reach and customer base, diversify its audience and serve the next generation of musicians and music fans.

“In all its locations and eras, Sweetwater has always existed out of love from the community for the institution,” says Michael Klein, chair of the Sweetwater board. “The community has always been behind it, and it can only exist with that support and love. That’s why it’s important that we find the next generation because it won’t exist otherwise.”

Even with tickets priced at $500 and $1,000, the Weir and Friends 50th anniversary gala was an instant sellout. The evening, including a live auction, is a fundraiser for the new Sweetwater Music Hall Arts Fund, which has earmarked some of the money for scholarships and tuition for underserved kids in the Enriching Lives through Music (ELM) program in San Rafael’s mostly Latino Canal neighborhood.

Displays and gigs

Acknowledging that the gala was out of the financial reach of the average live music fan, Sweetwater general manager Maria Hoppe points out that there are other anniversary shows and events scheduled during the month and in months to come that are more affordable and accessible.

That list includes musicians from the original Sweetwater who are returning to celebrate the anniversary, including Big Brother and the Holding Company with founding members Dave Getz and Peter Albin (Nov. 4), singer-songwriter Bonnie Hayes (Nov. 11), bluesman Tommy Castro (Nov. 12), 91-year-old folk icon Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (Nov. 30) and Garage A Trois (Nov. 18 through 20) featuring jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter, who first played the old Sweetwater when he was 15. Get tickets at sweetwatermusichall.com.

To commemorate the anniversary, Hoppe and her staff are preparing Sweetwater displays for storefronts and galleries around the city throughout November. A coffee table book of historic Sweetwater photos is also in the works.

“My one goal is to have Mill Valley be all Sweetwater all month long,” she says.

As part of that effort, the Mill Valley Public Library is preparing an exhibit of vintage photographs, concert posters, video and audio recordings of live shows and other Sweetwater memorabilia that will run through November in the gallery outside the Lucretia Little History Room.

“By honoring Sweetwater’s 50th anniversary, we are remembering what Mill Valley was and what it continues to be,” says library operations manager Kristen Clark.

That priceless collection was donated to the library by the estate of the late Jeanie Patterson, a beloved figure who is revered as Sweetwater’s spiritual heart and soul.

For nearly 20 years, from 1979 to 1998, she ran what she called “this little squished club” from her low-ceilinged basement office, its walls papered with photos of many of the stars who played there during her storied tenure.

Bob Weir called her “an angel for Mill Valley” after she died in 2019 and blues guitarist Roy Rogers said she had acted “like a den mother” to generations of musicians who gladly performed there even though the place could hold only slightly more than 100 people.

“In so many ways, Sweetwater Music Hall is a tribute to her,” Klein says.

Club’s beginnings

Sweetwater was founded by an entrepreneur named Fred Martin, who is now 80 and living in Reno. Inspired by a nightspot he admired in Aspen, Colorado, he and some investors took over a neighborhood watering hole called the Office, remodeled it with rustic, century-old barn wood, stained glass and antique fixtures, and reopened it on that historic November evening in 1972 as Sweetwater (after rejecting the names Sequoia and Redwood).

The whole redwood and stained glass, brass rail and fern bar motif was in fashion in the post-hippie 1970s, and Sweetwater fit into that architectural style along with the redwood-clad Record Plant recording studio and the slightly notorious Trident restaurant in Sausalito.

In those days, Marin was home to many newly minted rock stars who hung out at the bar and often sat in with Louisiana-born saxophonist Jules Broussard, who had a regular Sunday afternoon gig that quickly became a phenomenon.

“Bill Graham was a regular customer with his own seat at the bar,” Martin recalls. “Van Morrison and his band played one night. Joan Baez came in and sang ‘Respect.’ There was just a lot of magic in the place.”

In a nostalgic nod to that early magic, Broussard, now 85, returns to celebrate the club’s golden anniversary with a Sunday brunch show on Nov. 13. Martin plans to be on hand for that reunion and other festivities during the anniversary celebration.

“We were right in the middle of one of the biggest musical moments in the history of the United States,” he says. “It was pretty cool.”

Multiple owners

Martin ran the club for seven years until the Jeanie Patterson era began in 1979. After she retired, a Mill Valley couple, Thom and Becky Steere, bought the business from her, keeping the club afloat until they lost their lease in 2007. After the Steeres’ attempt to reestablish Sweetwater in a storefront on Miller Avenue was scuttled by the 2008 financial crisis, a group of deep-pocket investors and partners opened the new Sweetwater Music Hall in 2012.

Since then, some critics have derided it as a rich man’s playground. But Sweetwater Music Hall wouldn’t exist without the millions of dollars of their own money the investors sunk into the place to build it out, open it and keep it going. And after the board voted to go nonprofit during the pandemic, the partners bid goodbye to whatever financial stake they had in the venture.

“There was some grumbling, but we knew from the beginning that it was a community thing, a labor of love,” says Chris Moscone, board vice president and chief financial officer. “All the partners took a loss.”

While many old-timers are proud that Mill Valley continues to have such a high-quality live music venue and critically acclaimed restaurant, they would have preferred it if the Sweetwater name had been retired out of respect for its storied past.

“Don’t get me wrong, they’ve got a great thing going,” Becky Steere says. “It’s just that the spirit and soul of the old Sweetwater can’t be moved. It had its heyday and there will never be a place like that again.”

‘Work in progress’

John Goddard, when he was owner of another Mill Valley institution, Village Music, hosted many of the legendary parties that Sweetwater became famous for.

“I’m sorry but Sweetwater Music Hall is not Sweetwater,” he says. “I probably wouldn’t object to the club as much as I do if they had called it something else.”