Litchfield’s Bermuda Palms, 745 East Francisco Blvd, in San Rafael, was where we went to dance during the late 1960s, early 70s. It was not a particularly safe place for young teenage girls, as it was a pick-up joint already gone to seed, a rough underside of drugs and prostitution was background music. The motel was also a hangout for sailors—a mob during Fleet Week. Talk about culture clash. A milieu of redneck and hippie as it transitioned from Big Band era gone to seed to the reimagined world of rock and roll. My mom and aunts and uncles used to dance there. One time when I was there, there was a knifing, cops swarmed the place. One of my friends, Ruth Steele was exploring the some of the benefits of the fringe, while Sue Williams, Sue Barry and I looked on with Catholic distrust. Definitely Sin City. I wish I had kept some of the posters. But this one from Bill Graham Presents Facebook page, sums it up nicely.
The other venue where we danced was the Lion’s Share on the Miracle Mile in San Anselmo. I was a Clover fan, and loved to dance to Captain Beefheart, Sons of Chaplain, Grateful Dead and other bands were homegrown and we saw them often. But this September lineup at Pepperland is astounding in retrospective. Most of the musicians listed lived in Marin and the unspoken tradition was to headline with them. They got top billing. And later they really were top drawer! Wish I could find the summer lineup poster as I was there whenever I could afford to go, which wasn’t often as $3 was a lot of money in those days. Obviously I didn’t write this blog in 1970. Hindsight: 4/25/2022. Here’s hoping I can find some of those posters among my things. Poster is from Facebook’s Bill Graham Presents group managed by Christopher Bolei.
From Facebook’s Marin History Museum: The Bermuda Palms, was “California’s Las Vegas”. In 1949, San Rafael developer Irving “Whitey” Litchfield built this motel and restaurant. For more than 20 years, the resort was boasted a colorful and musical venue in the Pepperland Ballroom (also known as the Euphoria) attracting Big Band giants like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, Blues singers Muddy Waters and Big Mama Thornton, and some of the biggest rock groups including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa, Steve Miller, Boz Scaggs, Leon Russell, Elvin Bishop, Linda Ronstadt, Pink Floyd, Chuck Berry, Sly and the Family Stone and Van Morrison. In addition, the Bermuda Palms was a favorite spot for celebrities and community gatherings during the 1950s and early 1960s. While filming “Blood Alley” at China Camp in 1954, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum were guests at the motel.”
