Over its nearly 150 year history, the Lobero Theatre dressing rooms have hosted thousands of talented and eccentric performers.

But it’s likely there has never been anyone, or anything, as colorful as the duo of opera singer Emma Thursby and her precocious, multi-lingual Mynah bird.

Emma Thursby began her musical career singing with church choirs in Boston and her native Brooklyn, New York. She rose to international fame by her late twenties and performed with acclaimed musicians around the world, such as the famous American bandmaster Patrick Gilmore. She even toured the nation with Mark Twain at outdoor Chautauqua’s! The Chautauqua movement in the late-1800’s was the equivalent of the modern-day TED Talk. Rural Americans looking for cultural stimulation and intellectual inspiration gathered under large outdoor tents for weeklong retreats of lectures, performances, and conversations. In her performances with Mark Twain, Thursby sang while Twain read poems.

In 1878, Emma Thursby made her London debut. Her voice was described as having bell-like clarity, flexibility, and remarkable range. But of equal interest to the press and her growing fan base was her ever-present traveling companion – a remarkably intelligent Mynah bird.

“Mynah” as the bird was known, sang in five languages – English, French, German, Malay, and Chinese – and could play piano songs like “Home, Sweet Home” by walking on the piano keys. Mynah traveled the world with Thursby, and though he never took to the stage, Mynah developed fame that eventually superseded that of his human companion.

On the night before Emma Thursby’s Lobero performance, the Los Angeles Times wrote that Mynah was present at the reception for Thursby and entertained guests with his singing and speaking antics.

In her memoirs, Thursby eulogized Mynah.

I am certain he was able to understand us, and we were able to carry on coherent conversations. For example, I once told someone he was born in India. He interrupted and said, ‘I’m an African.’ He repeated it in German. We never caged him except when traveling. At home, he had the run of the house. He went with us on many tours. During the day at home, he would fly down to the park and play with the children, coming home for meals like a human.”

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Cecilia_Thursby
• https://virtualvictorian.blogspot.com/2014/10/emma-thursbys-astonishing-mynah-bird.html
• https://www.newspapers.com/image/380060256/?terms=%22Emma%2BThursby%22%2Bbird

On June 26, 1981, composer and saxophone great Charles Lloyd first graced the Lobero stage with his innovative and transcendent jazz.

In the decades since that first night, Lloyd has performed at the theatre nearly twenty times and has played a singular role in establishing the Lobero as one of the world’s greatest jazz venues.

Charles Lloyd has called Santa Barbara home since the 1980s but was born in Tennessee in 1938. As a teenager, Lloyd immersed himself in the rich Memphis jazz scene, playing with music greats like George Coleman and B.B. King. In 1965, he formed the Charles Lloyd Quartet, featuring Keith Jarret on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Their live album “Forest Flower: Charles Lloyd at Monterey” became one of the first jazz records to sell a million copies.

Charles Lloyd has produced a whopping 46 albums, and in 2015 was recognized as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master for his “ever-searching, spiritually charged music that combines his sharp improvisational skills with an interest in infusing jazz with non-Western musical styles.”

In 2018, Lloyd celebrated his 80^th birthday with a performance at the Lobero which was released as the album “Charles Lloyd 8: Kindred Spirits: Live from the Lobero”. The Wall Street Journal raved that the album contained “fascinating blends of daring and elegance; of structural complexity and unfettered emotion; of accumulated wisdom and wide-eyed wonder…an octogenarian master, sounding vital as ever, distilling still further the clarity of his music.”

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lloyd_(jazz_musician)
• https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/charles-lloyd
• https://www.wsj.com/articles/life-goes-on-and-8-kindred-spirits-live-from-the-lobero-review-still-pushing-forward-11582141958

On June 22, 2006, acclaimed ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov took to the Lobero stage for the third time in his career.

The Lobero was the smallest and most intimate venue Baryshnikov had performed at since achieving worldwide notoriety, and it was arguably one of his favorites. He’d performed 5 solo nights in 1998, and then another 4 nights in 2002.

Mikhail Baryshnikov was born in 1948 in Riga, Latvia, and at only nineteen years old, joined the uber prestigious Kirov Ballet, one of the world’s leading ballet companies. Even though he had an evocative and powerful stage presence and pure classical ballet technique, he was short for leading male dancers (5 ft. 5 inches) and was frustrated by the lack of opportunity to perform the work of modern choreographers.

In 1974, while on a Canadian tour with the Bolshoi Ballet, Baryshnikov defected and requested political asylum. He briefly danced with the National Ballet of Canada, before emigrating to the United States later that year. Baryshnikov has lived in New York City ever since, and for decades was the principal dancer for prominent companies such as the American Ballet Theater and the New York City Ballet.

Baryshnikov’s appearance at the Lobero in 2006 opened the 10th season of the distinguished Summerdance series. Appearing with the 58-year-old legend was a 14-member company called Hell’s Kitchen Dance. Beginning in the 1990’s Baryshnikov had transitioned from ballet to modern dance, and his 2006 Lobero performance featured experimental and multimedia work that was spellbinding for audiences and media alike.

“Onstage at the Lobero Theatre, Mikhail Baryshnikov is dancing a duet with himself, interacting with nearly 40-year-old motion-picture images projected on a screen behind him… in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the dawn of his career in the Kirov Ballet… Moreover, after the last Baryshnikov film-dance fades out, a living coda erupts with high-velocity asymmetrical turns and agile booty-shaking, proving definitively that the old guy can still cut it.” – Los Angeles Times

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Baryshnikov
• https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jun-23-et-misha23-story.html

In June 1945, just weeks after Victory in Europe Day (VE Day), the Lobero stage doubled as a broadcast studio for one of America’s most popular wartime radio programs, “Hollywood Barn Dance”.

The performance was brought to Santa Barbara to promote the sale of war bonds to hasten the end of the war in the Pacific.

Hollywood Barn Dance first aired on CBS Radio on December 4, 1943, as a replacement for “Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch” weekly radio show. Autry’s characterization as the friendly and honest “singing cowboy” helped distract America from the anxiety of the War, and was soon mimicked by other cowboy crooners like Rex Allen and Roy Rogers.

The show itself took off and became a tremendous hit but was put on a temporary hiatus when Autry enlisted in the Air Force in 1942. CBS Radio was desperate to develop a replacement series, and within a couple of weeks, they had hired a likable Texan with the memorable stage name of Cottonseed Clark as the show host. Hollywood Barn Dance aired each Saturday night and came to be known as “America’s greatest half-hour of western fun and music.”

Cottonseed Clark had the same warm, quaint, homey friendliness as Autry. He opened each show with “welcome, friends and neighbors”, and would then present the “house band,” Foy Willing and The Riders of the Purple Sage.

Other cast and characters included Cliffie Stonehead and his bass fiddle, Carolina Cotton the yodeler, Herman the Hermit and his banjo, Texas Ann the cowgirl singer, and Ted French and his Barn Dancers. Guest appearances by top-name talent such as Roy Rogers and Bob Hope added to the show’s mainstream appeal.

According to the website RadioArchives.com,

“Hollywood Barn Dance introduced listeners to a wide range of western-based musical entertainment – much of it performed by the same singers and musicians whose talents were featured in the B-Westerns of the time. Thanks to the influence of such nationally known groups as Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, audiences had recently been introduced to something new in “hillbilly” music: country swing or “honky-tonk”.”

Hollywood Barn Dance was recorded in front of a live, hip-hollering audience at the CBS KNX Playhouse in Hollywood. But several times a year the cast visited other Southern California cities and put on special, two-hour performances in an effort to boost the local sale of war bonds.

War bonds were a way for American citizens to financially support the US government’s war effort. When the war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945, the war bond sales effort shifted to focus on the war in the Pacific with Japan. Santa Barbarans who bought a war bond in the week before the Lobero show automatically received tickets to see Hollywood Barn Dance. During the entirety of World War II, Americans purchased nearly $200 billion in war bonds.

Sources:

• RadioArchives.com
• Cowpoke Radio: Cottonseed Clark
• Wikipedia: War Bond

On the (dark and stormy?) night of June 15, 1929, a Lobero audience was subjected to an evening of terror when Bela Lugosi took the stage as the blood-sucking vampire Dracula.

It would be two years before Lugosi would star in the world-famous film version of the horror story.

Adapted from Irish writer Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, the theatrical presentation of Dracula ran for 40 weeks in New York starting in 1927, followed by 11 weeks in Los Angeles, before beginning its nationwide tour.

Horror in literature was nothing new – Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” was published in 1818, and Edgar Allen Poe had tested out the genre in the 1830s. But horror onstage – in the flesh – was groundbreaking. The theatrical run of Dracula from 1927 – 1929 was almost certainly the first real-life exposure American theatergoers had to the horror genre.

Dracula was marketed with the tagline “The Season’s Best Shudder”, and certain cities even warned ticket buyers of the health risks of attending the play. One theatre prominently posted:

“In connection with the presentation of the vampire play, ‘Dracula’… patrons are notified that they will be admitted to this drama AT THEIR OWN RISK. A duly qualified, trained nurse will be in attendance at each performance, but it must be distinctly understood that the undersigned accept no responsibility whatsoever.”

By all accounts, audiences found Bela Lugosi’s creepy performance as Dracula to be spellbinding. Unfortunately, Lugosi seemed to take the concept of method acting to an entirely new level.

According to RogerEbert.com, “Lugosi was by all accounts a strange, deliberately theatrical man, who drew attention to himself with stylized behavior. He made his foreignness an asset, and in Hollywood and New York used his sinister, self-mocking accent to his advantage. After the success of “Dracula,” he often appeared in public dressed formally, with a flowing cape, as if still playing the role.”

Lugosi’s Dracula persona even invaded his private life and was cited as evidence in his divorce proceedings, which began several months after his appearance at the Lobero.

Sources:

• https://www.newspapers.com/image/617264145/?terms=bela%2Blugosi%2Bdivorce
• https://beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com/1929-2/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_Lugosi
• https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/dracula-terrifies-brisbane-1929
• https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-dracula-1931

On June 13, 1946, the film actor Basil Rathbone took to the Lobero stage in the US premiere of the romantic thriller “Obsession”.

But audience members could be forgiven if they’d bought tickets for another reason – for everyone in attendance, Basil Rathbone was famous for one role and one role only – Sherlock Holmes.

Born in South Africa in 1892, Philip St. John Basil Rathbone began his acting career as a Shakespearean stage performer. He shifted to film in the 30s, and starred in several notable films, including 1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood” with Errol Flynn. In 1939, he landed his breakout role as Sherlock Holmes in the film “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. From that moment forward, Rathbone was a cultural icon.

The following seven years kept Rathbone extremely busy, as he starred in fourteen Sherlock Holmes films. The actor is widely regarded as one of the best Sherlocks in cinematic history, bringing panache, charisma, and warmth to the character. In a ranking of the best actors to portray Holmes, the film critique website Screenrant slotted Basil Rathbone in third place, and nicknames him the “doyen of the detective melodrama”.

The very week Basil Rathbone appeared at the Lobero, his final film portrayal of Sherlock – “Dressed to Kill” – was opening on screens nationwide. “Obsession” had premiered in London in early summer, and then moved to Santa Barbara in June, where it began its U.S. run. In October, the play debuted on Broadway.

Reviews for “Obsession” were mixed – with most praising the acting but critiquing the writing. According to the San Francisco Chronicle,

“Obsession is frankly a tour de force – an elaborate piece of theatrical machinery that enables its two characters to run up and down the emotional gamuts… The play is a study in how jealousy can become a mania. Obsession is never a believable play. It is melodramatic duologue, created fully out of technique and never warmed by real emotion.”

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(1939_film_series)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Rathbone
• https://www.basilrathbone.net/theater/obsession/index.htm
• https://screenrant.com/actors-who-played-sherlock-holmes-ranked/
• https://www.newspapers.com/image/629794666/?terms=%22basil%2Brathbone%22

On June 9, 1891, bare-knuckle boxing champion John L. Sullivan tried his (probably) battered and bloodied hand at acting, marking his debut with a performance at the Lobero.

Sullivan has been aptly described as the world’s first sports superstar, earning the title after he went undefeated in 47 fights.

John Lawrence Sullivan (1858 – 1918), was an Irish American boxer and cultural icon who was considered to be the last heavyweight champion of the brutal sport of bare-knuckle boxing. Although no formal gloved boxing title existed during his day, Sullivan is also generally recognized as the first heavyweight champion of gloved boxing (1882 – 1892).

Sullivan’s fight with Jake Kilrain in 1889 in Richburg, Mississippi is considered to be a turning point in boxing history because it was the last world title bout fought under the London Prize Ring Rules, and therefore was the last ever bare-knuckle heavyweight title bout. These set of rules meant that fights were fought to the finish – there were no judges present, and no limit to the number of rounds that could be fought. Thus, fights ended when one man could no longer continue-either by being counted out or because he simply couldn’t fight anymore. It was also one of the first sporting events in the United States to receive national press coverage.

In Richburg, Sullivan and Kilrain fought an unimaginable 75 rounds, lasting two hours and 16 minutes before the matter was resolved, leaving Sullivan the winner and reigning champion. They boxed in stifling 100-degree heat, fighting fatigue as the sun beat down on their backs. About 2,000 heavily armed spectators were huddled around them, most of whom had traveled all night by train from New Orleans, to get to Richburg by the early-morning hours.

After the historied fight with Kilrain, John L. Sullivan took a 3-year break from boxing, during which his managers convinced him to try out acting. In 1890, Sullivan was cast as the star in a five-act melodrama called “Honest Hearts and Willing Hands”. The play, set in Ireland, featured Sullivan as the muscular village blacksmith James Daly. The action followed the stock melodrama plot line – virtuous hero defeats the dastardly villain and wins the hand of the leading lady.

Critics hated the play, and apparently Sullivan’s acting was horrible. But audiences loved it, and “Honest Hearts” set off on a year-long national tour. Everyone came to see the famous John L. Sullivan. A San Francisco newspaper wrote that the audience “screamed with delight when the action of the play indicated that Sullivan might have to use his fists on the villain.”

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Sullivan
• https://www.genealogybank.com/
• https://www.paulbeston.com/blog/sullivan-v-kilrain-july-8-1889-last-bare-knuckle-boxing-match

On June 8, 1948, indomitable matador Barnaby Conrad recounted his time in the ring to an enraptured Lobero audience.

Twenty-six years old at the time, he told of how, a few years earlier, he had impulsively (and fueled by tequila) leaped out of the stands and challenged a bull in Mexico City’s giant Plaza de Toros México bullring. Conrad had used his Brooks Brothers raincoat as a cape.

When he died in 2013 at the age of 90, Barnaby Conrad was one of Santa Barbara’s most beloved residents. Cate School alum, Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference founder, artist, and general bon-vivant, Conrad had met, and become friends with, many of the most important artistic talents of his day. Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck, Truman Capote, and Ray Bradbury were all close confidants of Conrad. But Conrad’s real hero, and eventual nemesis, was Ernest Hemingway.

After graduating from Cate School and then Yale, Barnaby Conrad went to work for the US State Department and served as a vice-consul in Spain. While there he followed Hemingway’s footsteps and took up the pursuits of boxing and bullfighting. In Madrid, Conrad became the protégé of Juan Belmonte, considered among the greatest of all matadors, and fought under the name “El Niño de California”, the California Kid. Conrad survived at 47 corridas (bullfights) in Spain, Mexico, and Peru.

After returning to the States, Conrad would use his bullfighting experience as the source of his most famous novel, “Matador”. Apparently, Ernest Hemingway was not impressed by “Matador”, and wrote a number of scathing letters about Conrad to his editor. In his obituary in the Paris Review, Conrad is quoted as saying about Hemingway, “I suppose that he felt I had invaded his territory, which I had. He felt that he owned bullfighting, and I think it hit a nerve that I dared to write about bulls.”

In 1958, Conrad was gored, almost fatally in a bullfight that was part of a charity event. After learning of the incident, the Hungarian actress Eva Gabor is said to have run into playwriter Noel Coward at Sardi’s restaurant in New York and asked him,

“Did you hear about poor Barnaby? He was terribly gored in Spain.” Coward replied, “Oh, thank heavens. I thought you said he was bored.”

Barnaby Conrad founded the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in 1973 and was a long-time attendee and supporter of the Lobero Theatre.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnaby_Conrad
• https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/03/04/barnaby-conrad-author-matador-bon-vivant-and-thorn-in-hemingways-side/
• https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-barnaby-conrad-20130217-story.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/arts/design/barnaby-conrad-bullfighter-and-novelist-dies-at-90.html

On June 7, 1940, renowned Hollywood actress Joan Blondell appeared in the world premiere of the comedy farce “Goodbye to Love” before a packed Lobero audience.

Hopes were high that the play would get raving reviews in local and Los Angeles press, and would inevitably make its way to Broadway. Tragically, Ms. Blondell suffered a nervous breakdown after the performance and ended up in the hospital.

Born in 1909 in New York City, Blondell began acting and touring the world as a young child with her vaudeville family. At eighteen, her glamorous appearance, poised air, and superb acting ability placed her 4^th in the Miss America pageant, after which she moved back to New York to pursue a modeling career. In 1930, she got her first acting role, starring with James Cagney in the Broadway play “Penny Arcade”.

Shortly after the film’s release, Joan Blondell signed a contract with Warner Bros., where she appeared in several films with Cagney, including “The Public Enemy”. Other co-stars in her Warner Bros. days included superstars Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, and John Wayne. Blondell was typically cast as the archetypal wisecracking but good-natured working-class gal.

After a ten year hiatus from the stage, Blondell decided to once again try her hand at theater, and signed on to play the lead in what was billed as “a rollicksome, frolicsome, farce comedy” – “Goodbye to Love”. “Goodbye to Love” premiered on June 7, 1940, at the Lobero Theatre and was scheduled for a two-week run across California, premiering in Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, before moving to Broadway. Unfortunately, audience response and reviews were mixed.

“Goodbye to Love” will probably be a money-maker here and on the road… but it is not likely to be Broadway provender.” -Oakland Tribune

Even worse, the stress of premiering the play for two nights at the Lobero apparently took a toll on Blondell’s mental health. According to the biography “Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes”,

“Goodbye to Love opened at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara as a jumble of comedy setups. Audiences were polite to the actors but dismissive of the material. After the poorly received opening, Joan suffered some kind of breakdown on the train north. When she arrived in San Francisco, an ambulance was waiting at the station. She was sent to a hospital for “nervous and physical exhaustion”, and the planned 10 June opening was postponed one week.”

“Goodbye to Love” never made it to Broadway and ended its tour in Los Angeles in July 1940. A minor speedbump on the roadmap of her illustrious career, Joan Blondell would go on to make 42 more films, and star in 3 Broadway plays.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Blondell
• https://books.google.com/books/about/Joan_Blondell.html?id=2flYpwKevy0C
• https://www.newspapers.com/image/457992015/?terms=joan%2Bblondell

On June 3, 1887, 11 seniors from Santa Barbara High School were celebrated in a standing-room-only graduation ceremony at Lobero’s Opera House.

The Lobero was lavishly decorated with flags and bunting and a large floral banner proclaiming “Class of ‘87” spelled out with marigolds set against a background of evergreens.

Santa Barbara High School opened in 1875 on the corner of Anapamu and De La Vina streets. The sunny, seaside educational facility was one of the first ten high schools in the entire state of California. In its initial years, the number of students at the high school was astoundingly small. School attendance in California was only mandatory from ages 8 – 14, and, as most families were more occupied by either domestic labor or gaining employment outside of the home, only a small percentage of children went on to pursue a high school education.

On September 23, 1886, the Santa Barbara Independent reported that of a total of 2,864 students in Santa Barbara schools, only 14 attended high school.

However, by 1887, the high school finally had enough seniors to justify an elaborate graduation ceremony, and Jose Lobero’s newly built Opera House was rented for an elaborate evening ceremony.

In addition to the bestowing of diplomas, the graduation was filled with festivities fitting for the elegant Opera House. The momentous occasion was scored by piano, violin, and vocal performances. Students also read essays and gave orations in celebration of their educational achievement.

The Lobero would continue to host Santa Barbara High School graduation ceremonies in 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, and 1893.

Sources:

• https://www.santabarbaraca.gov/services/community/historic/historysb/timeline.asp
• https://caschoolnews.net/issues_guide/a-history-of-californias-public-school-system/
• https://www.newspapers.com/image/625949874/?terms=%22santa%2Bbarbara%2Bhigh%2Bschool%22

On June 1, 1955, Aldous Huxley, one of the most provocative thinkers of the 20^th century, gave a talk on the Lobero stage.

Huxley was the author of the influential dystopian novel “Brave New World”. His lecture at the Lobero closely followed the release of his book “The Doors of Perception”, which explored his psychedelic experience with peyote (mescaline) and would go on to become hugely influential to the counterculture generation.

Aldous Huxley was born in 1894 to a prominent English family and attended Eton College and Oxford University, where he received a first-class degree in English literature.

In 1932, his novel “Brave New World” was published. The story is set in a technologically advanced society where embryos are sorted to be of specific economic class – for example, higher classes get chemicals to make the children more intelligent and beautiful. The citizens of this dystopian world are addicted to the drug “Soma”, a powerful hallucinogen that provides a holiday from reality, and tremendous feelings of euphoria-though it poisons the body.

“Brave New World” would later be slotted as number 5 on the Modern Library’s World’s Best Books list, marking it as of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20^th century. It explained, “Though Brave New World is less famous than George Orwell’s 1984, it arguably presents a world that more closely resembles our own: a world of easy sex, readily available and mood-altering pharmaceuticals, information overload, and mass production.”

Shortly after the publishing of “Brave New World”, Huxley moved his family across the pond and relocated to the City of Angels. In Hollywood, Huxley worked as a screenwriter, and according to his close friend Christopher Isherwood, used much of his salary to transport Jewish and left-wing writers and artist refugees from Hitler’s Germany to the United States.

Huxley’s notorious experimentation with psychedelic drugs began in 1952, first with mescaline (obtained from the peyote cactus), and later with LSD.

“The Doors of Perception” inspired Alan Ginsberg and Timothy Leary to experiment with psychedelics, which was the inspiration for Jim Morrison to name his band “The Doors”, and in general influenced a generation of youth who were eager to explore the boundaries of personal identity and consciousness. Huxley is actually credited with coining the word “psychedelic”.

In 1958, Aldous Huxley was named as UCSB’s first visiting professor and spent several years living in Isla Vista teaching and presenting a series of special lectures. Huxley spoke 3 times at the Lobero Theatre between 1955 – 1959.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doors_of_Perception
• http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

On May 27 & 28, 1963, Psychic Peter Hurkos appeared at the Lobero as part of a wildly popular West Coast ESP tour.

Peter Hurkos, the “Man with the X-Ray Mind” gave demonstrations of his allegedly supernatural psychic abilities to a live audience.

Peter Hurkos was a Dutchman who allegedly manifested extrasensory perception (ESP) after recovering from a head injury and coma caused by a fall from a ladder at age 30. He came to the United States in 1956 for psychic experiments, later becoming a professional psychic who sought clues in the Manson Family murders and the Boston Strangler case.

During his early career as a psychic entertainer, Hurkos purported that he employed his psychic powers to discern details of audience members’ private lives that he could not otherwise have known.

Hurkos gained particular notoriety when he was asked by the Boston Police Department to help in their search for a serial killer who had been named “The Boston Strangler.” According to a biography by Norma Lee Browning, Hurkos maintained that the man he picked for the Boston Strangler was the killer, and that self-confessed Strangler Albert DeSalvo was not the murderer. However, Hurkos’ theory was disproven as DNA testing in 2013 definitely linked DeSalvo with the killings.

In 1964, after his appearance at the Lobero Theatre, Hurkos was put on trial on the charge of impersonating a federal agent, found guilty, and fined $1,000. Turns out that Hurkos posed as the FBI agent in order to gather the information that he could later claim to be psychic revelations. As for the stage shows, Psychologist Ronald Schwartz wrote in Skeptical Inquirer that Hurkos employed cold reading methods to guess information about the audience members.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hurkos

On May 24, 1988 Nigeria’s King Sunny Ade played the Lobero Theatre for the first time.

King Sunny Ade, “The King of Juju Music” is one of the true superstars of World Beat Music. He is well-known for his incredibly charismatic stage presence and dance steps.

Since the 1982 release of his best-selling recording Juju Music on Island Records (the label that introduced Bob Marley to the world), he has been called one of the world’s great band leaders. Sunny Adé’s music is characterized by, among other instruments, the talking drum – an instrument indigenous to his Yoruba roots, the guitar, and his unique application of synthesizers and sophisticated recording technology into jùjú music.

His music is in the age-old tradition of singing poetic lyrics (“ewi” in Yoruba) and praise of dignitaries as well components of Juju (traditional African belief) called the Ogede (casting a spell). Hence, Adé’s music constitutes a record of the oral tradition of his people for posterity.

As Trey Anastasio, the leader of Phish and a devout fan of the Nigerian star once said, “If you come to see Sunny Adé live, you must be prepared to groove all night long.”

King Sunny Ade and his band returned to the Lobero in 2009 just in time for that year’s Summer Solstice Celebration, filling the auditorium with infectious grooves and dance moves from his big band and dancers. Read the review from the Independent and enjoy photos from David Bazemore below.

Previous Next

King Sunny AdŽ – Lobero Live! 6/18/09

Close

King Sunny AdŽ – Lobero Live! 6/18/09

Close

King Sunny AdŽ – Lobero Live! 6/18/09

Close

King Sunny AdŽ – Lobero Live! 6/18/09

Close

King Sunny AdŽ – Lobero Live! 6/18/09

Close

King Sunny AdŽ – Lobero Live! 6/18/09

Close

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Sunny_Ad%C3%A9
• https://pickathon.com/artist/king-sunny-ade/
• https://www.independent.com/2009/06/22/king-sunny-ade-lobero-theatre/
• http://www.lifeandtimesnews.com/king-sunny-ade-juju-music-maestro/

Concert photos by David Bazemore