After more successes with Hoyt Axton and Merle Haggard, they began booking three or four shows a month, usually on Monday nights. Original owner Fred Reiser and his three partners tiptoed into the concert business with a 1980 show by veteran country crooner Ray Price that quickly sold out. The timing for a Western-themed restaurant, bar and nightclub was ideal as the movie “Urban Cowboy” hit in 1980, spurring millions to trade their polyester suits, platform shoes and Bee Gees records for dungarees, Tony Lama boots and the sounds of twangy guitars. The Palomino gave way to the Crazy Horse as the Southland’s top country spot not long after it opened in December 1979, on the heels of the ‘70s disco craze.

That’s more than any other club except the now-defunct Palomino in North Hollywood, which dominated the Southern California country scene in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. They’re not simply expanding and relocating a successful concert club and eatery Nuccio and Miller are making significant changes to a country-music institution.Įight times during the ‘80s and ‘90s, the Crazy Horse was named nightclub of the year by the Academy of Country Music. The increased size, and a plan to broaden the musical offerings to include some rock, pop and blues shows, will put the Crazy Horse into more heated bidding over acts with the 475-seat Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and 550-seat Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana, long the county’s dominant concert clubs, as well as the new 1,200-seat gorilla on the block, the Sun Theatre in Anaheim. Nuccio says the increased capacity will make it possible to bring in acts that the Crazy Horse cannot afford with its present 250 seats, making it one of the smallest major clubs in the U.S. The new site will seat about 600 concert-goers, about 30% of them in a balcony. The group is now looking for a tenant to lease the building, so what it will become remains unknown. The building that has been the home of the Crazy Horse for two decades’ worth of concerts was sold last month to Dyerhollow Partners, a consortium of investors, for a little under $2.5 million, Miller said.

“But we felt that there also was a risk of staying here and not doing anything.” “Any time you move an icon, it’s a risk,” said Nuccio, who is partners with the club’s director of marketing and entertainment, Brad “Paco” Miller Jr.

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