Roxy Co-Founder Lou Adler Life As a Sundown Strip Legend Spotlighted In New Grammy Museum Exhibit

The famed Roxy nightclub in West Hollywood turns 50 this month, and it’s celebrating its place in historical past with a brand new exhibit on the Grammy Museum.

A lot of the exhibit, titled Roxy: 50 and Nonetheless Rockin’, attracts from the private archive of Roxy co-founder Lou Adler, 89, who opened the 500-capacity membership on the Sundown Strip with Elmer Valentine in 1973. Adler is named a contemporary grasp of each movie and track whose introductions are sometimes preceded by an extended record of award-winner accolades, however it was his best accomplishment – fathering and elevating seven profitable sons – that offers the exhibit a singular attraction.

Included within the exhibit — which boasts images and portraits of Hollywood stars and music legends who frequented the membership, together with Neil Younger, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan — is a brief documentary that provides a revealing glimpse contained in the Roxy’s first household.

Directed by Ashley Stagg and produced by Grammy Museum chief curator/vp of curatorial affairs Jasen Emmons, the documentary focuses on Adler’s place atop the influential household, which incorporates Adler’s sons, ages 50 to 21: Nic, Cisco, Sonny, Pablo, Ike, Oscar and Manny.

Lou Adler’s two oldest sons, Nic Adler and Cisco Adler, got here of age in The Roxy, the On the Rox personal membership upstairs and the kitchen of the neighboring Rainbow Bar & Grill, all of which their father co-owned together with many of the remainder of the Sundown Strip, together with different well-known outposts together with the Whiskey A-Go-Go, the Comedy Retailer and the Viper Room.

Nic Adler recollects within the movie, “As I have my own kids and they say they want to go somewhere…I’m like, ‘That’s unsafe.’ And then I think back to my own childhood, having free reign between the Rainbow and The Roxy and riding my skateboard in the parking lot. And I think at that point I kind of realized that maybe the way I grew up was different.”

Cisco Adler described the venue as an after-school “rock and roll YMCA” with dwell music, meals and a gentle stream of Lakers televised video games all the time out there.

“I was a musician playing the club before I was actually in a role other than being an Adler, but I can tell you, I still felt that responsibility,” says Cisco Adler within the movie, which notes he first carried out on stage in 2000 along with his band Whitestarr, and got here of age round legendary Roxy locals like Slash and Tommy Lee and even joined Bret Michaels on stage to sing “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.”

“When you step on that stage, it’s a big moment,” he defined. As for his different siblings involvement, “Ike has become involved in On The Rox and will become more involved as time goes,” Cisco Adler tells Billboard. “Oscar has started handling merchandise. It’s a true family business.”

Within the movie, Lou Adler says he by no means “thought about” making The Roxy a part of his sons’ lives however that “it was automatic.”

Additionally featured within the movie is promoter and Coachella co-founder Paul Tollett, who has been designated as an honorary Adler by the household for the years he spent on the venue as a fan, and later as a promoter bringing concert events to the venue. He’s now seen because the keeper of the flame, managing the venue on behalf of the Adlers by his L.A. live performance firm, Goldenvoice.

Within the movie, Tollett recollects seeing Lou pull as much as The Roxy in an Aston Martin Lagonda with one among his children within the backseat — on a college night time — and considering to himself, “What a cool dad.”

The Roxy is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with a collection of anniversary reveals, together with two Neil Younger concert events set for Wednesday (Sept. 20) and Thursday (Sept. 21) in honor of Younger’s concert events that opened the venue in 1973. Moreover, Stephen Marley will carry out on Monday (Sept. 25) in honor of Bob Marley and the Wailers‘ historic 1976 efficiency at The Roxy, which aired dwell on KMET radio and was launched as a dwell album in 2023. Extra data may be discovered at theroxyturns50.com.

The Metropolis of West Hollywood can be internet hosting an exhibit on the historical past of the Roxy on the West Hollywood Library along with the Grammy Museum. Click on right here for extra data.