(Photo by Todd Zimmer)
Last Monday about 20 to 30 hearty souls braved the cold and the coming snowstorm to go down to the Crossroads and celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of that uniquely Kansas City jam of American music, the Rural Grit Happy Hour.
The Rural Grit Happy Hour started in the winter of 1999 as Brother Ike’s Rural Grit Happy Hour ("Brother Ike" being frontman Ike Sheldon of The Wilders), and it was held on Monday evenings at the Grand Emporium. I worked at that fine establishment back then, and when the word spread through the musical community that Roger Naber had sold the bar, the most frequent question I got from people out in the community, wherever I went, was "what will happen to Rural Grit?" asked by people who were genuinely, painfully concerned.
After the Grand Emporium, the Rural Grit Happy Hour found a home at Mike’s Tavern, the bar across Troost from Rockhurst University, where I learned a new definition of "awkward.” While my son and my money were going to Rockhurst, I walked into a Rural Grit one night to find a former colleague from the GE happily serving my minor son while he tapped his foot and bobbed his head in time to the music. Eventually, he felt the daggers I was staring at him and turned slowly to see me standing there cross-armed and fuming. He closed his tab and beat a hasty retreat across the street to his dorm.
A few years later, it was my turn to ask "what happened to Rural Grit?" with genuine concern, when that same son, now living in a house a couple of blocks from Mike’s, told me in a satisfied tone, that the bar had closed. "Don’t worry Mom. It moved to The Brick, and the Brick isn’t going anywhere. It’ll be there forever."
Here’s hoping, because looking at the slideshow of fifteen years of Rural Grit on Monday night, I sure did get nostalgic for those Mondays gone by.
—Tammy Booth
The Rural Grit Happy Hour happens every Monday from 6-9 p.m. at The Brick. Old Sound will be the featured artist at tomorrow’s show. If Mondays don’t work for you, you can catch the Rural Grit All-Stars at Halfway To Winfield 2014 at Knuckleheads on Saturday, March 15. Facebook event page. Purchase tickets online.