The Iron Horse Music Hall was a music venue located in
Northampton, Massachusetts
The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571.
Northampton is known as an a ...
, west of
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and north of
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, th ...
. Its motto was ''Music Alone Shall Live''. The night club showcased a wide variety of musical genres and
performing artist
The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perfor ...
s in past years, including artists such as
Richie Havens
Richard Pierce Havens (January 21, 1941 – April 22, 2013) was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul (both of which he frequently covered), and rhythm and blues. He had a rhythmic guitar styl ...
,
Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke (born September 11, 1945) is an acoustic guitarist. He is known for a fingerpicking style that draws on blues, jazz, and folk music, and for syncopated, polyphonic melodies. He overcame a series of personal obstacles, including parti ...
,
Janis Ian
Janis Ian (born Janis Eddy Fink; April 7, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter who was most commercially successful in the 1960s and 1970s. Her signature songs are the 1966/67 hit "Society's Child, Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)" an ...
,
Livingston Taylor
Livingston Taylor (born November 21, 1950) is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. Born in Boston and raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, he is the brother of singer-songwriter James Taylor, singer-songwriter Kate Taylor, singer ...
,
Duke Robillard
Michael John "Duke" Robillard (born October 4, 1948) is an American guitarist and singer. He founded the band Roomful of Blues and was a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Although Robillard is known as a rock and blues guitarist, he also pla ...
,
Ellis Paul
Ellis Paul (born Paul Plissey; January 14, 1965) is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. Born in Presque Isle, Aroostook County, Maine, Paul is a key figure in what has become known as the Boston school of songwriting, a literate, ...
and
Vance Gilbert
Vance Gilbert (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He started as a jazz singer, switched to folk music, became a regular on the open mike circuit in Boston and toured with Shawn Colvin. He h ...
.
It closed in 2022, according to the Boston Globe.
History
Jordi Herold and John Riley opened the club on February 24, 1979, as a bohemian cafe with 85 seats. The club (doubled in size in the late 1980s) is home to many kinds of music and talent ranging from popular local performers to artists of international repute. In college, Herold fantasized about opening a club and placed a bid on space in Amherst. (Needs Verification) After limited initial success, he began teaching for the
Amherst, Massachusetts public school system.
John Riley was responsible for bringing the first jazz shows into the club. In the early years of operation, music was really a complement to the room's ambiance as opposed to the main event, live music was limited to a strict format of classical
chamber music (Thursdays),
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
(Fridays) and
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fo ...
and classical (Saturdays) and the talent was mostly local. The club gained recognition when national acts
Dave Van Ronk
David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of Ma ...
and the
Heath Brothers played the club during its first year.
By 1982, musical performers played the Horse on a regular basis, with many performers being nationally known or critically renowned artists. Some now well known acts such as
Suzanne Vega,
Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan (born July 31, 1959) is an American jazz guitarist noted for his playing technique, which involves tapping his fingers on the fretboard of the guitar with both hands.
Music career
Jordan was born in Chicago, Illinois, United St ...
,
George Winston
George Winston (born December 26, 1949) is an American pianist, guitarist, harmonicist, and record producer. He was born in Michigan and raised mainly in Montana ( Miles City and Billings), as well as Mississippi and Florida. He is best known fo ...
,
Michelle Shocked
Michelle Shocked (born Karen Michelle Johnston; February 24, 1962) is an American singer-songwriter. Her music has entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and received an award f ...
,
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman (born March 30, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter. Chapman is best known for her hit singles "Fast Car" and "Give Me One Reason".
Chapman was signed to Elektra Records by Bob Krasnow in 1987. The following year she released ...
,
Dar Williams
Dorothy Snowden "Dar" Williams (born April 19, 1967) is an American pop folk singer-songwriter from Mount Kisco, New York. Hendrik Hertzberg of ''The New Yorker'' has described Williams as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters."
She is ...
, Northampton-area native
Sonya Kitchell and comedian
Steven Wright performed at the Iron Horse before they became nationally known artists. The lineup of musicians has also included legendary reggae group
Toots & the Maytals
The Maytals, known from 1972 to 2020 as Toots and the Maytals, are a Jamaican musical group, one of the best known ska and rocksteady vocal groups. The Maytals were formed in the early 1960s and were key figures in popularizing reggae music.
...
, Michael Franti, pop-rock icon
John Mayer, monster guitarist
Jorma Kaukonen
Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Jr. (; ; born December 23, 1940) is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist. Kaukonen performed with Jefferson Airplane and still performs regularly on tour with Hot Tuna, which started as a side project with bass ...
(a founding member of
Jefferson Airplane), pioneering free-jazz pianist
Cecil Taylor, jazz pianist
Mose Allison
Mose John Allison Jr. (November 11, 1927 – November 15, 2016) was an American jazz and blues pianist, singer, and songwriter. He became notable for playing a unique mix of blues and modern jazz, both singing and playing piano. After moving to N ...
, folk-blues legend
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...
, alternative-rock band
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a ...
, psychedelic-folk act
The Incredible String Band
The Incredible String Band (sometimes abbreviated as ISB) were a Scottish psychedelic folk band formed by Clive Palmer (musician), Clive Palmer, Robin Williamson and Mike Heron in Edinburgh in 1966. The band built a considerable following, esp ...
, rock musician
Jesse Malin
Jesse Malin (born January 26, 1967) is an American rock musician, guitarist, and songwriter. Starting his performing career in the New York hardcore band Heart Attack, and rising to prominence as vocalist of D Generation, a solo recording arti ...
, folk-rocker
Steve Forbert, Chicago blues guitarist
Jimmy Dawkins
James Henry “Jimmy” Dawkins (October 24, 1936 – April 10, 2013) was an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer. He is generally considered to have been a practitioner of the "West Side sound" of Chicago blues.
Caree ...
, children's musician
Mister G the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and rapper
George Watsky.
[See "The Iron Horse Turns 10" By David Sokol, originally published on Feb. 20, 1989 in The Valley Advocate.] The Iron Horse closed for a time in the 90's, but was eventually reopened.
Current Operation
The music hall continues to operate, and food and beverages are served on the premises. The Iron Horse is owned and managed by the Iron Horse Entertainment Group.
References
External links
Iron Horse Entertainment Group
{{Authority control
Nightclubs in Massachusetts
Buildings and structures in Northampton, Massachusetts
Tourist attractions in Hampshire County, Massachusetts
Music venues in Massachusetts