Northwest Dance Venues
Kennewick Social Club
Kennewick, Washington
Some of the bands that performed at this place during those greay years of NW music were:
Fats
Domino
Duane
Eddy
Buddy
Knox
Rhythm
Orchids
The
Ventures
Others
??
Fats
Domino
Duane
Eddy
Buddy
Knox
Rhythm
Orchids
The
Ventures
Others
??
The Kennewick Social Club was perhaps the most important dance hall in the Kennewick/Richland/Pasco (Tri-Cities) area. This dance hall hosted the likes of Fats Domino, Buddy Knox and the Rhythm Orchids, Duane Eddy, The Ventures, and many many others that I cannot remember. Area bands played there regularly on weekends and the Social Club was "the" place to be. It was housed in a building on what is now Clearwater Avenue and was run by a gentleman named Basil Mabe. KEPR-TV housed one end of the building and the Social Club was in the other end of the building.A band that I was part of, the "Chessmen", was the regular band on KEPR's "Teen Time", a weekly talent show on for half an hour on Tuesday night in the late 50's. In the early 60's, the building went up in flames and was destroyed. I was scheduled to play at the Social Club that night and luckily we hadn't moved our equipment in yet so I suffered no personal loss. However, the loss of the Social Club was the end of an era in the Tri-Cities and nothing like it has ever replaced it. Another hot spot for local musicians was the "Wagon Wheel" in the Richland "Y".
Bud Derrick, April 2007
