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Author: Sandy Ross
ISBN: 0-9777227-0-8
Sandy Ross has pieced together a truly engaging story of a well-known café located in Los Angeles from the early days of 1971 to mid-1982. It was known as the Bla- Bla Café- a hole-in –the-wall club that was twenty feet by eighty feet on Ventura Blvd in Studio City where musicians, comedians, and other aspiring artists were given the freedom to hone their crafts and try out new material. It was also a place where the unknown were given a break, as Los Angeles was not exactly the easiest place to find a venue to perform.
The Bla Bla Café was previously known as Mona’s Purple Hag and before that the Pourvu. Sebastian Massa was the owner of Mona’s, and his cousin Albie Hora worked there as a waiter. Eventually the pair sold and re-purchased the café and turned it into the Bla Bla Café. It was Albie who decided on the name Bla Bla, as he recounted to everyone that he had a dream wherein his name Alb Alb was spelled backwards thus giving you Bla Bla. In due course, the operation and management of the café was extended to include Albie Hora’s cousins, the Massa siblings and others.
Ross was an original performer who became its entertainment coordinator for eight years. Many of the stories she recounts and the interviews she conducted pertain to performers whom she either booked into the café or whose performances she had attended. Some of the familiar artists who performed at the Bla Bla before anyone knew their names were Jay Leno, David Letterman, Robin Williams, Al Jarreau and Sting. There were others, not so well-known, who were part of the community patronizing and performing at this unique venue. In fact, at the end of the book, Ross lists all of the artists who performed at the Bla Bla from 1971 through 1980 with their names, performance type and credits.
As you read these stories and interviews, you notice constant themes one of which was that the performers were given a free reign to play and do as they pleased.The café was open after hours and attracted all types and despite the prejudice of the era, you could find gays, drags, hippies, where no one would hassle them about the way they chose to look or their sexual orientation. It was also a place where everyone seemed to be part of one large family who loved each other and took care of one another. Moreover, a place where people appreciated your talent and perhaps even provided a catalyst for the struggling performer to hang in and not quit performing. A venue that as one of the performers, Maxine Sellers recounts, “bursting at the seams with people, music, food and emotion!"
Sandy Ross has done an admirable job bringing all of this information together and I am sure there will be many former performers and audience members who will find this read down memory lane a pure joy.
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