Iron Horse Music Hall

With its five colleges and population of the progressive, cultured and curious, the Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts, and Northampton in particular, was an ideal spot for a new coffeehouse and music listening room in 1979.

Not that there weren’t already plenty of clubs, concert halls and boogie bars in the area; there were. But the Iron Horse Coffeehouse, which opened Saturday, February 24, 1979 with a capacity of 60 was different, soon becoming the heart of Northampton’s cultural renaissance. A couple of expansions brought that number up to 170 a decade later, along with a new name: the Iron Horse Music Hall.

OPENING, JORDI HEROLD

Back on that chilly February night, Jimmy Carter was President, gas was $1.30 a gallon, and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by Rod Stewart topped the pop charts. And for one day only, you could get a cup of French roast coffee for a nickel at the Iron Horse’s grand opening, heralded inauspiciously by a tiny 1/32-page ad in The Valley Advocate, the local newsweekly. From the very beginning, the room drew caffeine-hungry musicians, Smith College professors, students, locals and lots of colorful street people by day and lovers of all musical genres by night.

The Iron Horse was the vision of entrepreneurial Hampshire College grad Jordi Herold and the club was named for a sculpture his mother had created. Soon after graduating from Hampshire College , Herold traveled to England and, inspired by Tom Paxton’s song “Leaving London,” visited The Troubadour, where a lightbulb went off in his head.

In his memoir, Positively Center Street: My 25 Years at the Iron Horse Music Hall, Herold recalls musing in his journal at the time: “Wouldn’t it be great if there could just be a place where, by day, people could come by and hang out and be with each other, a space that wasn’t in their living rooms, where they could just be comfortable and read and write and talk? Where there wasn’t any pressure to move along. And at night there would be camaraderie and music…”  On that late-February night in 1979, in the cozy confines of 20 Center Street, that vision was born.

MULTIGENRED ROSTER, IRON HORSE ENTERTAINMENT GROUP

From the start, the Iron Horse was home to a vast array of entertainment, and Herold proved himself to be something of a Renaissance man in terms of his bookings. He built his business by bringing in acts that he understood and his choice of musical fare was diverse enough to set the Horse apart from all the competition. It wouldn’t be long before folk, blues and jazz were regularly on the club’s calendar, as were Afro-pop, so-called “women’s music” (thanks to Carol Young’s Clay Lady Productions), rock, pop, new wave, stand-up comedy and classical.

“The Iron Horse, less than 30 minutes from my house, books or has booked most of the people in my music collection, from Dave Alvin to Warren Zevon” says Tommy Shea, an award-winning journalist, music lover and co-author of Dingers: The 101 Most Memorable Home Runs in Baseball History. “To quote John Prine: ‘How lucky can one man get?’ “I mean, I’ve seen Rosanne Cash there. T-Bone Burnett. Paul Kelly, all the way from Australia. Discovered Bill Morrissey and the Saw Doctors because of the Iron Horse, a place that can be as intimate as my living room, but with a better sound system.”

Over the years, the Iron Horse has become the namesake for the Iron Horse Entertainment Group (IHEG), which now includes other area venues including the stately Calvin Theatre and Performing Arts Center in Northampton, Pearl Street Nightclub in Northampton, and Mountain Park in Holyoke.

RAY MASON, MARK SHERRY COMMENTS

Lifelong Western Massachusetts resident and local musical legend Ray Mason has played the Horse on multiple occasions as a headliner and an opener. His Ray Mason Band and Lonesome Brothers Band have recorded dozens of albums, he’s been a session player on such LPs including Cheri Knight’s The Knitter and he’s the subject of the disc It’s Heartbreak That Sells: A Tribute to Ray Mason (Tar Hut Records). “It’s mind boggling how many amazing (and inspiring) shows I’ve been to over the years at the Iron Horse!” he says. “I’ve also had the honor of opening for heroes of mine like Alejandro Escovedo, James McMurtry, Steve Forbert, Garland Jeffreys, Graham Parker… the list goes on. And did I mention what a great sounding room it is? The Iron Horse is all this and more!”

Mark Sherry, executive director and founder of the New Music Alliance, an organization dedicated to bolstering the Western New England music scene, notes how important the Horse has been to the region. “The Iron Horse has been instrumental in stimulating the music scene in Western Massachusetts,” he says. “It established a venue in a relatively small-population area and it’s attracted some of the best music talent in the country. By doing so, it’s played a significant part in making Northampton one of the top arts communities in the country. Though some people would like to see the Iron Horse do more to promote local talent, it occupies an important niche in the Western Massachusetts music scene.”

NEW OWNERSHIP, ORIGINAL VISION

In the 25 years between 1979 and 2004 – give or take a couple after Herold sold the club in 1994 and before he was hired back to book it for then-new owner Eric Suher – more than 8,500 shows were brought into the region under the Iron Horse banner, the vast majority of them at the club itself. Since 2004, the Iron Horse has continued to thrive under Suher’s ownership, and in 2019 the monthly calendar was packed with a wildly diverse array of artists such as country star Chely Wright, rockers The Flamin’ Groovies, local legends Peter Newland (Fat, RadioX) and Norman Schell (Clean Living), bluesman Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, The Bad Plus, Elizabeth Cook, Willie Nile and Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys.

Although Jordi Herold has moved on, much of his original vision for an eclectic listening room remains intact, and more than four decades after that inauspicious opening night, the club, still at its original address on one of Northampton’s sleepy side streets, continues to draw music lovers hungry for a memorable night on the town.

(by David Sokol)

David Sokol is the co-author (with Iron Horse Music Hall founder Jordi Herold) of Positively Center Street: My 25 Years at the Iron Horse Music Hall (Levellers Press, 2014).