club owner dies

[footballfan]

For us old-timers:



King of Clubs owner, Bob King, dies
SWIFTON, Ark. (AP) — Bob King, who owned the King of Clubs nightspot in Swifton, where Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and other performers in the early days of rock'n'roll performed, has died. He was 83.
King ran the nightclub in Swifton for more than 50 years, playing host to country, rhythm and blues, and rock acts, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty and Sonny Burgess, who had five singles with Sun Records. The club, east of Batesville and west of Jonesboro on Arkansas 226, is still operating.
"He was one the best club owners I ever knew," Burgess told the Batesville Daily Guard newspaper. "He was a great guy, a good friend. He'll be missed by all that knew him."
King died Monday, according to Jackson's Funeral Home in Newport.
Burgess recalled that he and his band members were paid $10 each to perform for what he called "a redneck crowd" on Friday nights.
"They'd come out of the farms and they'd get drunk. They'd bring their babies in there and they'd set them on the table and go and dance," he said. Burgess said King was a hands-on manager, getting in the middle of fights to break them up.
"Bob was tough back in those days," Burgess said.
In excerpts from a 2006 interview reprinted in the Daily Guard, King said he didn't intend to become a club-owner.
"Way back then I was a farmer. I worked and lived on the farm until I went into the Navy. It was rough just like it was everywhere else," he said. King returned from service in the Pacific and bought a cafe in Swifton with his brother.
"We've had a pretty good business," King said.
Burgess said his band was the first to perform at the club. He recalled a night in December 1955 when Presley played.
"You could not believe how many people were there," Burgess said.
Burgess and his band, the Moonlighters, were Presley's backing band that night.
King recalled Johnny Cash being there the night Elvis performed. Cash had opened for Presley at Swifton High School earlier that day, and "Elvis asked me if I'd give Johnny $10 to get him to sing a song," King said.
"I told him no, I'd give him $20 to sing three songs."
"He (Elvis) was friendly. Jerry Lee Lewis was the silly one," King said, laughing.
King recalled how Lewis would tear up the piano, banging it and playing with his feet.
"I liked him as far as that goes. He played quite a few times ... Every time, I had to get Kern Kennedy (Burgess' piano player) to replace the strings."
Doug Greeno of Weiner, who played in King's house band in the late 1960s, remembered that King was generous with the people he knew.
"If something happened to someone, he would give money from his own pocket or help raise money for them," Greeno said.
King said in the 2006 interview that the club brought him into contact with a lot of good people. In the early days, he said, brawlers would obey him when he told them to take it outside.
"He was one the best guys in the music business," Burgess said. "He was good-hearted. It's tough to lose him."
The club was sold and split in 2003, now operating as the King of Clubs and King's Capri.
King is survived by his wife, three sons and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Services were Thursday in Newport, with burial in Swifton Cemetery.