Snapshot: The Smothers Brothers Find the “Limelite” in Aspen and Denver
In the winter of 1958, folk singers Glenn Yarborough and Alex Hassilev invested in a small folk club in Aspen, Colorado, that they renamed the Limelite. The two soon joined with Lou Gottlieb, who had worked with the Kingston Trio, and formed the Limeliters (Bianculli 21). The Limeliters enjoyed only modest success, making the Hot 100 once in 1961, when “A Dollar Down” reached #60. Yarborough had greater success as a solo artist, at least for a time, when “Baby, the Rain Must Fall” and “It’s Gonna Be Fine” reached #12 and #54, respectively, in 1965.
Yarborough knew Tom and Dick Smothers from San Francisco, where both groups had played at the hungry i and the Purple Onion. Knowing the brothers were struggling, even thinking of leaving the business after parting ways with Bobby Blackmore, the third member of their trio, Yarborough offered them an eight-week engagement at the Limelite for $200 a week plus free room and board (Bianculli 20–21). In Aspen in February of 1960, the Smothers Brothers took the stage for the first time as a duo. A young girl from Denver named Judy Collins opened the show.
The Smothers Brothers discovered their identity as a stage act in Aspen, “almost stumbling onto the idea that Dick [would] play the role of straight man and interact with Tom conversationally as well as musically” (Bianculli 26). “The comedy just took over [and] became our central focus,” says Tom (28). The two months in Aspen were an unqualified success, and the Smothers Brothers then moved to Denver’s Satire Lounge, whose owner wanted the “hot new group from Aspen” at his folk club on East Colfax (28). During the summer of 1960, while living in an apartment above the club, the Smothers Brothers made the Satire one of Denver’s most popular social spots. [1] “We got hot so fast after that,” remembers Tom (29).
The Smothers Brothers left Colorado and returned to San Francisco, where the Purple Onion rehired and showcased them. There they recorded performances that would appear on the first of their string of hit comedy albums. But before the release of their debut record the Smothers Brothers appeared on the Jack Paar Show in January of 1961 and promptly bowled over the audience, impressed the influential host, and became stars. In 1967, seven years to the month after first appearing at the Limelite in Aspen, the Smothers Brothers were given their own weekly variety show on CBS (Bianculli 34).
Above piece excerpted from the forthcoming It’s Only Music: A Musical and Historical Memoir.
[1] Sharing the bill at the Satire (and the upstairs apartment) for three weeks during the summer of 1960 was a young, scruffy unknown with a gravely voice named Bob Dylan (Bianculli 34).
