[Dixielandjazz] Big Bear Tavern

[Dan Augustine]

DJML (and other) historians--
     Whatever happened to the old Big Bear Tavern in the Oakland hills 
that Watters and Murphy et al. used to play at?  Does it still exist? 
Was it torn down or replaced?  If it still exists, how does one get 
to it, or (if it doesn't exist) get to the site where it used to be?
     Reason?  I'm flying up to the Lu Watters tribute "tea dance" 
concert on October 23rd in San Francisco (cf. 
http://www.sftradjazz.org/main_events.html), and would like to drive 
by the Big Bear Tavern (or where it used to be), just for grins and 
maybe take a picture.  In _The Great Jazz Revival_, Jim Goggin and 
Pete Clute say that "Among the other after-hour places was a spot 
located in a canyon over the ridge in the Oakland hills.  Big Bear 
Tavern was so remote that finding it required an intimate knowledge 
of the East Bay, and only the dedicated chose to go there."  I've got 
DeLorme's Street Atlas USA over on my Gateway computer, and it might 
be able to at least show me the road it used to be on, if i knew the 
name of the road.
     So.  Did any of you used to go there, or do you at least know 
where it might have been?

     Dan
-- 
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**  Dan Augustine    Austin, Texas   ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu     **
**       "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through          **
**        the leather straps." -- Emo Phillips 
** 
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