Stephen Talkhouse

1991-08-05 Marty Balin

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Stephen Talkhouse

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On a Monday night in August in 1991, Amagansett was pretty quiet, and much less busy than it has been in more recent years.

The Stephen Talkhouse was a very small, intimate scene. If you got a table, you felt like you were right on top of the performers. (Even after it was later expanded, the Talkhouse was still a very small and intimate club; in 1991 the Talkhouse was still in its original form.)

A local restaurant there featured a "4 hour salad" - made from ingredients picked out of the ground within 4 hours previous to being served. But that night we went to Mt Fuji - the sushi restaurant in Amagansett - for dinner before the show, and we immediately saw Marty and band members eating there. So we said hello to them and wished them well. They did not disappoint - an intimate musical experience with one of the true leaders of the 1960s San Francisco music scene.

I was really sad to hear of his passing and will always remember seeing him at this show, at which he played a beautiful version of “Summer of Love,” and other great songs…

1995-08-[18] Suzanne Vega

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The Stephen Talkhouse

 

I saw Suzanne Vega play solo at Stephen Talkhouse shortly after Garcia passed away in 1995. I thought it was the following weekend but may have been a subsequent weekend and couldn’t confirm the date.

I was aware of her since the mid-1980s and enjoyed a lot of the earlier material, including the great song “Left of Center” in which Joe Jackson plays lyrical piano runs behind Suzanne’s beautiful voice. And I knew she was one of only a few people who had actually played with the Grateful Dead, at the rainforest concert at MSG. Garcia’s recent passing was certainly in mind when she opened with “When Heroes Goes Down” to open the show. However, she mentioned nothing otherwise.

She mentioned her experience as a counselor at a sleep-away camp in the Adirondacks where she was the folk singing and disco dancing instructor.

Before the main room was enlarged, the Stephen Talkhouse was tiny - among the smallest venues at which you could see a show like this (and even after the first renovation it was still a very small room). We sat at a table probably about 20-25 feet from her, as she performed solo for the entire show, and I thought it was incredible - a really intimate and beautiful performance.

There have been some subsequent performances of noteriety by Suzanne there - a live recording of a 2003 show there has been released and is available, and she played there again a couple of years ago, when the Talkhouse added an extensive bio page about her background and reputation as a great songwriter.