Great American Music Hall, Concert venue in San Francisco, United States
The Great American Music Hall is a concert hall on O'Farrell Street in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, holding 700 people. Its two-story facade is painted deep reddish-brown, with a stepped parapet, hooded windows and a tall vertical sign down the center. Inside are decorative balconies, columns and frescoes; the interior was designed by a French architect.
Built in 1907 during the rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake, the hall opened as Blanco's, named after a Barbary Coast brothel, with an interior by a French architect. Sally Rand bought it in 1936 and renamed it the Music Box; it closed at the end of World War II, reopened in 1948 as a jazz club called Blanco's, and in the 1950s served the Loyal Order of the Moose. Tom Bradshaw purchased and refurbished it in 1972, renaming it the Great American Music Hall.
The hall's name comes from its 1972 rebranding under owner Tom Bradshaw, when the former Blanco's and Music Box became a rock and jazz venue. Its stage has hosted burlesque, folk, jazz and rock, and the Stuart Little Band served as house band in 1973-1974, opening for Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie and Bill Evans.
The hall maintains a website with a calendar where visitors can buy tickets in advance, check show dates, and browse merchandise. The location near O'Farrell Street in the Tenderloin makes it easy to reach by public transit or on foot from other parts of downtown.
The hall holds 700 people, and in 2013 Rolling Stone ranked it the sixth-best rock club in America in a poll of artists and managers. Jerry Garcia played here thirty times, mainly with Merl Saunders, and the Legion of Mary debuted and recorded a live album at the venue in 1974.
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