Iowa roots music lovers rally around Byron’s Bar
Greg Brown, left, with his old friend Dave Moore. Photo by Byron Stuart
A crowd filling the Historic Phillips Auditorium in Fort Dodge on Sunday bore witness to history as a parade of Iowa’s most beloved musicians took the stage to raise money for Byron’s Bar in Pomeroy.
Todd Partridge of Auburn set the tone with his song, “Broken Town,” lamenting how he wished he could have seen those better days in rural Iowa. Joe and Vicki Price of Decorah earned two loud standing ovations for their intimate guitar interplay of their own unique style of Tall Corn Blues — they were radiant. Dave Moore regaled the crowd with tales of trying to find a bar in Dutch Country while doing residencies for the Iowa Arts Council.
David Huckfelt flew back home from Arizona to perform. “I saw all the tie-dyes and overalls and knew I was in Iowa,” he said. The musicians were lined up by Chad Elliott of Jefferson, who performed with Kathryn Fox on fiddle.
Byron Stuart, who tends the bar that has become a music mecca in the cultural desert of Northwest Iowa, was shocked recently to receive a letter from the City of Pomeroy telling him that his property was unfit unless he could prove otherwise. He was given 90 days to come up with a plan.
Byron was nearly debilitated. He didn’t quite know how to react. He is 71. What to do?
The Friends of Byron’s sprang into action, organizing a Go Fund Me page that hauled in some $28,000 so far and benefit concerts, the first of which was at Fort Dodge.
They also are helping Byron navigate a transition. Everyone appears resigned that the 1893 Byron’s Bar will get tugged down by vacant, deteriorating downtown buildings attached to it. Led by Dave Hearn of Fort Dodge and Steve Irwin of Sac City, the Friends are trying to find a new location. Scott Buchanan, an attorney from Algona, offered his legal services pro bono.
The city has responded with understanding to Buchanan’s entreaties for patience and forbearance while the Friends help sort this out.
The plan is to find another building in Pomeroy. The problem is that small-town Iowa is being torn down. What is available is decrepit and awaiting the wrecking ball. There are buildings used for storage of 50 years of knickknacks and other junk whose value as a hoardhouse is inestimable. They are not available, apparently. The search goes on in hopes that the community can help find a solution.
Byron’s has become an institution in Iowa over the past 30 years, drawing top-flight talent from across America to entertain the denizens of the cornfields. He loses money on most shows because his patrons are too serious about the music to get drunk. His friends have become his family as Byron created his own community inside that haunt devoted to Jerry Garcia. (It was appropriate that Huckfelt covered “Touch of Gray” by the Grateful Dead: I know the rent is in arrears/The dog has not been fed in years/It’s even worse than it appears/But it’s alright … We will get by. We will survive.) That’s the spirit!
Brown came out of retirement to offer a few classics. Our unofficial state bard told a story about one of our special favorites, “Early.” He, too, was an artist in residence like Moore back in the day, and spent some time at the Crossroads of the Nation. Oooo-ee, ain’t the mornin’ light pretty/When the dew is still heavy, so bright and early/My home on the range; it’s a one-horse town/And it’s alright with me. They liked the song in Early and invited him to perform at the centennial. He sang some songs and then a large man with a small head shouted, “Play Early.” So he did. The man demanded it again. He played it again, and again, eight or nine times, Brown recalled. That’s Iowa.
If there were a thousand Byron’s Bars creating community around music, and forging bonds, and beating down divisions, Brown mused, “we just might have a chance.”
“We need it more than ever right now,” Brown said.
The Save Byron’s fund has grown to nearly $50,000, and two more benefit concerts are planned for Fort Dodge and Des Moines. A location for Byron’s will be found. Even in Pomeroy, barely anything is free or cheap, except a beer at Byron’s is only $3.
And one more thing, Byron declared as he raffled off a toilet plunger: “!#&! Kim Reynolds! I am not going back in the closet!” The top just about blew off Historic Phillips Auditorium as the roar went up. Then Byron said his parents raised him to be nice, which is why all those musicians showed up, and he left it at that with hugs for all. He will survive. So long as people come together we have a chance. It was something to see and appreciate, cast against a backdrop of Roger Feldhans’ tie-dyes, a unique Iowa moment.
Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.
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Thanks for the reporting Art.
Very cool. Waterloo's Electric Park Ballroom on the National Cattle Congress grounds could use a shot in the arm like this. It goes back to the big-band era. And the nearby Hippodrome, formerly McElroy Auditorium which has seen everything from pro basketball to Johnny Cash to Kiss to Bob Hope.
I remember our family took a short-lived vacation to Clear Lake in 1976. The Surf Ballroom looked like it had seen its better days. Remarkable what a little bit of nostalgia can do for a place.