Splendor in the grass

“Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass,
Of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.”
—William Wordsworth

The sensation begins when the two towering old palm trees in the south Davis field come into view; the crunch of parking lot gravel under car wheels is felt, the languid 150-foot stroll toward the tiny weathered gray barn completed. Birds twitter in the boulevard of shade trees leading toward the creaky double barn doors. To the left, some lucky soul is always sitting in the wide catbird seat of the rusted 1930s’ International Harvester tractor sunk in the dirt, usually leaning forward on the thin metal steering wheel for balance or to make a point. If you walk by the picnic table through the grass behind the shed, past the giant swamp cooler, you will probably run into a musician or two ruminating, possibly with a cigarette, while looking up at the crescent moon, or possibly ironing a shirt on the old board right outside the stage door entrance. Come around full circle to the front again, among the Zen-zoned cats that wander between the legs of folks engaged in friendly conversation.

The people in this peaceful tableau may know each other, they may not. When you attend The Palms Playhouse, it reflects the dictionary meaning of the phrase of people “in concert” with each other. Simpatico. Eye to eye they meet, nodding, sharing the anticipatory secret. Each knows that once they walk in and the barn door closes, a very special thing is going to happen. For over 25 years, music fans and performers across America have made this trek off I-80 to the scrappy 150-seat oasis that is plopped in the middle of a two-acre field. And sadly, the “Fronds of The Palms” —as many fans have dubbed themselves—are counting the number of live performances left here on one hand.

How is it that a wood barn with unfinished gray corrugated aluminum interior walls and ceiling, no air conditioning, no heat, no food, no mixed drinks, no comfortable seats, no public phone and only two bathrooms is so nationally known and loved?

The man who operates this musical outpost has a theory. “The world is constantly trying to sell you something all the time. It’s too intense. People are tired of being sold to and don’t really know how to get away from it,” Dave Fleming muses. “Hopefully, [The Palms] has been a place to escape.” Fleming is the slight, boyish, 40-something guy who has been the guiding spirit of The Palms for the past 11 years.

“There is something about the way the wood works on you, it is less electronic,” he shrugs, standing in his usual post just outside the doorway, his gentle gesture filling the room. “This has been a sanctuary for people, like church. There were a few moments last night with [Dave] Alvin,” he shakes his head in wonder, “that were stunning.”

He’s right. Alvin, a passionate, California-born, Springsteen-type performer and poet was the primary songwriter and guitarist for the legendary Blasters, the band that led a roots-rock revolution back in the 1980s.

Alvin is a perfect choice to distill down the hundreds of transcendent music experiences that have soaked into the woodwork here since 1976. Thousands of performing artists—from Etta James to Stephen Stills to Queen Ida to Dave Van Ronk to The Five Blind Boys of Alabama to J.J. Cale to Thomas Mapfumo to The Battlefield Band to Richard Thompson to NRBQ—have played here. Their unifying theme is timeless music rooted in cultural, regional or ethnic traditions, not dependent on a commercial radio hit or a major label contract. The Pied-Piper thread that picks up these deep vibes is a tightly knit, literate baby boomer community that likes to get down right alongside their performers.

Famous, or the soon-to-be-famous, blues, folk, Celtic, gospel, bluegrass, soul and singer-songwriters have stepped up on the six-inch-high stage, usually terrified at first because the front row is so close you could sneeze and need to hand a fan a Kleenex. “The first time it freaked me out, cause the audience is right up there, but midway through the first set I got used to it” says Alvin, laughing. “It is now part of the fun of playing there. It knocks down some of the barriers between the performer and the audience. It is in a barn, you just can’t really put on any airs.”

Alvin’s first show on Friday night sold out weeks before, but Fleming was able to arrange a return Sunday night performance. That too, sold out in a matter of hours. “The soundman and I had a bet that this would be a sleepy show,” Fleming said. “You know, calmer after the rave-up on Friday night. Boy, were we wrong.”The bone-deep resonance in Alvin’s baritone and his Fender Strat shakes the walls. His band, The Guilty Men, feature rollicking keyboards, a down-home fiddle, soaring pedal steel guitar and a rhythm section that makes the whole house breathe right with it. Alvin draws from the earthy American wellspring of Muddy Waters, Merle Haggard and Woody Guthrie, and with that musical history, has written new standards like “Fourth of July” and “American Music.” In a two-and-a-half-hour, sweat-soaked show, Alvin raved, rocked, crooned, told stories, sang weepers and preached on. The packed audience roared their approval. Fleming, albeit a “shy guy,” confessed he “had to witness a few times.” Cumulatively, the band and audience must have lost around 100 pounds of sweat and gained a musical epiphany they can tell their grandchildren about. That weekend, the Newport Folk Festival may have had Dylan, but The Palms, for the last time in Davis at least, had Alvin.

But on this coming Saturday night, August 24, after 27 years, the Davis clubhouse sanctuary is closing down. In March of this year, Fleming received a fax from Linda McDonagh, the original Palms Playhouse founder and absentee owner, advising him officially that the property was being sold. The Palms had to evacuate the premises by September 12. Fleming was thrust into a drama much more emotional than simply a piece of land changing hands. A landmark music venue and modern-day music commune was being destroyed by skyrocketing property values and a townhouse civilization breathing down its neck.

It has been Fleming’s heavy charge this summer to move The Palms’ followers to higher ground. After much soul, and actual physical searching, it looks like he has found a new, very old music sanctuary, away from Davis, in the nearby town of Winters. The historic Winters Opera House, built in 1875, will unfold its second-story red-brick arms to hopeful fans, or fronds, on Wednesday, September 4.

Twenty-seven years ago, in 1975, Americans were reeling. The city of Saigon had been surrendered, thus ending the Vietnam War. John Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were all found guilty of the Watergate cover-up. Newly appointed President Gerald Ford escaped an assassination attempt right here in Sacramento. And, The Palms Public Playhouse, located in a tiny barn on two acres of the far agricultural outskirts of quiet Davis, was opened by Linda McDonagh and her fun-loving local theatrical troupe called The Bad Actors.

In the early 1970s, McDonagh, with a theatre arts degree behind her, had been producing Shakespeare in the Park in association with the nonprofit Davis Art Center. But she wanted a place of her own to stage both live Shakespeare and original theatre. She found the land, a house and the barn, dubbed it The Palms, and then set out to find an all-volunteer 10-person troupe.

Sherry Cachois, one of the current Palms board members and Bad Actor alumna, recalls how she got hooked. It was the first play she attended, I’m Sorry the Bridge Is Out, You’ll Have To Spend the Night: A Monster Musical. It was written by Bob Pickett, who in a parallel universe was Bobby “Boris” Pickett, the Karloff impersonator with the 1962 No. 1 smash single called “The Monster Mash.” “He actually came and appeared in it with us for one weekend,” said Bill Maloney, now 56, the Bad Actors’ original musical director. Maloney was a popular local musician and a creative force, designing and building sets, writing and adapting music, acting and directing. He also built the tiny proscenium to deaden the barn’s sound.

The barn also evolved into a site for local civic debates, voting, gong shows (judged by the mayor), and a sort of an unplanned nature habitat for a motley menagerie of grazing horses and dogs chasing peacocks, chickens, sheep, cats and goats.

The Palms was establishing a reputation for unexpected, transcendent-type experiences. “In The Bad Actors: Roman Style we had a pre-show outside with jugglers, watermelon seed-spitting contests and fair maidens dancing,” Maloney recalled. A gladiator-villain burst through the field in a chariot and stole one of the dancing maidens. She screamed. “I galloped out on my horse and I chased him. I cut him off, had a sword fight with him, and then grabbed the maiden, threw her on the back of my horse and rode off. Then the people were herded into the theater to see what would happen next.”

Despite their tight schedule of plays year-round, including Maloney’s successful Robin Hood: A 1950s’ Rock & Roll Musical, the theatre was dark during the weekdays. The Palms needed another steady source of income to stay open. Maloney suggested that McDonagh book beat jazz singer/pianist Mose Allison. He was the first renowned musical artist to play the room. The public responded; it was a financial success.

The live music aspect thus began, and quickly heated up Palms coffers. The redoubtable and brazen Etta James, one of the greatest voices of classic rhythm and blues, was an early Palms music trailblazer. Maloney, cleaning up in the afternoon from the night before, remembers a tour bus pulling in the parking lot. “This biiiiiig black woman gets out. I am talking about big. She coulda knocked me on my butt, and I am a big man! She stomps up, looks around and growls at me. ‘You better have the money, ’cause I ain’t unloading the bus till I see the money.’ ” James got her money 10 minutes later, and all smiles, told her guys to start unloading the bus. It was the start of a long, solid relationship with her, with many shows on the books.

Maloney recalled another “Etta experience” a few years later. One of the guys in the band was helping out with the hors d’oeuvre trays, and he made one tray that had paté made out of canned dog food. “And he put that out on the plate! So we are all sitting there waiting to see what was going to happen. Etta goes over and sees that plate and says, ‘Ohhh, that looks goooood’ and she grabs a big ol’ slab of it and sticks it on a piece of bread and just before she eats it, someone yells, ‘No, no, stop, stop!!’ And we told her about it and she just died laughing. She loved The Palms. At The Palms, things like that happened all the time—everyone felt really comfortable with everyone.”

Cachois brightens with memories of the acting troupe. “We kept the Bad Actors going for nearly 15 years. We pretty much frolicked from 1976-1990. But we all had to grow up. People couldn’t commit to the time it took to build sets, make costumes and just rehearse. It was all volunteer. People finally had to go become normal working types.” They did fewer plays, more music.

In the mid-1980s, Dave Fleming left his retail clerk gig at Tower Records in San Francisco, and headed back to Davis to manage Barney’s Good Time Music, a local record shop known for its deeply knowledgeable staff and broad inventory. McDonagh regularly called on him for advice on artists to book. It paid off, and when she eventually decided to move to Florida to take care of her ailing mother, Fleming got more involved and, in 1991, he became the official manager/talent booker.

“Dave Fleming? Well, he is a visionary,” states Brian Terhorst, general manager of KVMR-FM, the highly respected, musically eclectic Nevada City station. “Dave was able to see musical trends before they were visible to just about anyone and in many cases long before stuff was visible to us as a community radio station. I was always amazed at Dave’s ability to select music and artists that were about to explode on the scene, but no one knew who they were.”

Singer-bassist Laura Love is a great example. Terhorst saw her along with eight other people at The Palms back in 1995. He was so knocked out that KVMR booked her for a concert in Grass Valley. She sold out their 300-seat venue quickly. “The way that I’ve always viewed The Palms is that if Dave booked them, they were worth seeing. Even if you had never heard their name, you would take a risk on it, because his tradition was to nail it.”

With a reputation like that, Fleming might be a cavalier fellow, but he is not. He doesn’t like to talk about himself, much preferring a conversation about music, or in fact, just music itself, forget the talk. But given the circumstances of this spring and summer, he’s had to talk and focus heavily on money and budgets and figuring a way to keep the music sanctuary alive.

Back in the spring, Fleming said, every other minute was filled with wanting to try anything he could to keep The Palms where it was. “But it wasn’t gonna happen. There are houses being built ever closer. The person who owns to the north of us is still going to build. We’d soon be too loud for anyone close. We can’t buy the property to the north for $2 million. And then find money to fix up the theatre too?”

Two summers ago, there was a plan to put up $350,000 townhouses right next to The Palms, right on the property line. “You could have put your hand out the window and touched our swamp cooler,” Fleming said. That plan didn’t get approved. For the past 10 years, The Palms had staved off a number of housing developments—they knew the day was coming when the encroaching townhouse culture would force a change. Now Davis is exploding with people, and despite or because of an aware City Council advocating slow growth measures, property values have risen dramatically.

“A lot of people are mad at Linda McDonagh right now,” states Cachois. “But this is her land, and she has every right to sell it. It is her retirement, for God’s sake.”

Sue Greenwald, city councilwoman for Davis, wanted The Palms to stay in Davis. “We just said to Dave that we’d do anything it takes to keep him here. They were shown everything that anybody could think of that was available. Nothing seemed like it interested him that much,” she noted.

It seemed at one point that it might be the old Davis City Hall and police station downtown. But the cost of renovation was over $500,000. Still, the vibe factor superseded all other reasons. According to Fleming, it just wasn’t right.

The Varsity Theatre, a 400-seat movie theater in downtown Davis, became the City Council’s front-runner. Greenwald freely admits that they need more income from the long-term lease the city holds. “It’s an albatross around our neck. And we are locked in” Greenwald says grimly. “It is costing the city over $200,000 a year in subsidy.”

Greenwald seems resolute and somewhat bittersweet about The Palms’ departure from Davis. “I think had he gone downtown, Dave would have been surprised at how huge his business would have been. Many people never knew where The Palms was. Maybe the time will come when he decides he wants to be a bigger operation and less funky, and will want the Varsity,” Greenwald said.

Fleming’s all-critical vibe factor ultimately ruled out the Varsity too. And many Palms-goers are glad, but are still in somewhat of a general state of disbelief. The consensus of regular Palms-goers is echoed by Tom Spaulding, a diehard fan from Sacramento. “Can’t we declare eminent domain—something, anything?”

Recently, Palms-goers have made new friends in their barnyard commiserations. Holly Martin, a Palms fan for over 15 years, stands with her husband and newfound comrades. “Right here, you can escape out in the country! This place is like the Old West of music. Nothing is this unspoiled, unpretentious, rustic, full of joy, it is just so full of joy—it’s like losing a piece of … ” She tears up and cannot finish her sentence. “I would have hated it at the Varsity Theater. We would have gone there, of course, but it just doesn’t have the right ambience, the character.”

When Fleming announced officially back in April that The Palms property was being sold, the rumors had been flying for months. Artists all over the United States were calling and e-mailing him. “Darden Smith wrote to me and he said, ‘I’ll really miss my favorite backstage in the whole country.’ See, when he comes here, he just goes out back into the field and starts playing his guitar … and Adrian Legg brings his camera every time he comes and takes a photograph of the tree out back there. Every year the tree would be different. … They all like this place, they really like that stuff, you know.”

Fleming likes it too; rather, he loves it. It has been extremely hard for him to think beyond the place he has lived and worked for over 10 years. His house is a mere step behind the club so there has been no separation between his work life and his personal life. The musicians know this. They have thanked him in writing for his dedication to this place on the drywall right behind the stage. “If these walls could talk” is a vast understatement. The “green room” is smothered in artists’ signatures with messages to The Palms and to each other, like ships passing in the night. Artists have asked him to save these walls; even the construction paper star and upturned rusty horseshoe that has hung over the stage for decades.

In late July, Fleming and The Palms board made their decision public. After seven months of searching in Davis, West Sacramento, Woodland, Loomis, Hood, Colfax and Sacramento, taking myriad meetings and doing lots of soul reflection, the decision was made to land the mothership at the legendary red-brick, 240-seat Winters Opera House in the quaint downtown crossroads of Winters, 13 miles west of Davis.

“I’ve known about the Opera House for years. It was obviously always an option—just because it has been in my consciousness for so long. The Winters Opera House ownership group didn’t push it—they made a proposal and just let me think about it,” Fleming notes.

According to Charlie Wallace, one of the Opera House owners, there is now a commitment to getting artists to move to Winters. He talks about the fact that R. Crumb used to live there. Just recently, incubator artist studios have been built and are being rented out at affordable prices. Young people are moving there and many U.C. Davis professors have lived up in the hills near Putah Creek and Lake Berryessa for years. Bay Area people are migrating over. Fleming nods at the barn, “The Opera House is not as rustic as this place here, but it has got character, it has got charm.”

It also has air conditioning, heat, an elevator, a new roof and earthquake trusses, an old wooden dance floor and several late-night eateries, including the Putah Creek Café where Crumb sketched, and the renowned Buckhorn Steakhouse and Bar across the street, all desirable elements that Palms-goers heretofore could only dream about. Many artifacts from the old barn will grace the new digs, including the “green room” walls. The beloved old tractor will nestle in an outdoor courtyard area where benches, plants and little Italian lights are being hung—the place where folks can still gather between sets.

Wallace is a warm-voiced Harley rider and the publisher of the Winters Express, the town paper his father first published in 1947. He makes no bones about the prospects. “We wanted The Palms here. We think people will go the extra mile. We told Dave to just have at it, and we let him know we will do whatever it takes to make this a successful venture. And folks tend to keep their word here.”

So now, Fleming and the board are racing back and forth between the two sites. And they are expecting an ever-increasing number of people outside under the stars during the final weekend of the old barn. Even now, fans show up, and if shows are sold out, they still stay, swapping stories at the picnic table, sipping a beer handed out to them through the tiny back bar window; maybe even taking a final sit upon the old tractor, like a childhood memory to cherish.

Mumbo Gumbo, a perennial area favorite, will play two shows on Friday, August 23. The early show will be seated, but the late show will shed all the goofy mismatched folding chairs and open the place up. “We’re gonna dance ’em out,” says Rick Lotter, Mumbo Gumbo drummer. “We’ll come in with a dirge and out with a second line!”

Saturday night, August 24, has been almost impossible for Fleming to envision. Ceremonial saging, a Native American rite of purification, has even been suggested. A Bad Actors alumni gathering is being planned. U. Utah Phillips, the grand old man of folk music and storytelling, will perform the closing celebratory show, and it will be broadcast live on KVMR. “Tell people to ride bikes here, or carpool. Don’t drive!” Fleming smiles ruefully. “I just really haven’t let myself think about this too much. But I know it will be … sweet.”