We all know that onions have many layers, but here’s hoping one Calgary onion has many lives. The Red Onion club, a local blues hot spot, officially closed its doors last weekend. While the venue may rise again at another location, The Onion, as it was known to regulars, has ended its three-year run at its Macleod Trail space.
It’s been a good ride for the blues club. When founder Rik Kalef opened, he had a few goals in mind. “We made it through our third year, and I want to say that we were successful, not grossly, but mildly successful on a financial level,” says Kalef. “But on a different level, success for us was bringing the music back to Calgary. Blues was traditionally a music that was destined to downtown tavern-style bars. [That style of bar] was little more than a stage and dirty washrooms. By no means was that a slight on the King Eddy [the now-defunct King Edward Hotel] — I loved their music, that venue was unique to itself, but I wanted to raise the level a little bit.”
Reaching that goal didn’t come without a lot of hard work, planning and passion. Prior to opening the venue, Kalef spent years in the hospitality industry working his way up from busboy and cook to management, with formal training at Ryerson Polytechnical University in between. All that was just the opening act, though — it’s a big jump from wishing for it to actually doing it.
“I didn’t sort of wake up one day and say I want to own a blues club,” Kalef observes, “but I knew I wanted to work for myself. I’d worked for a lot of people in the industry and I thought, you know what, I can do this. I can build a better mousetrap. It was just a matter of time before I finally found the right avenue and venue to do it in.”
The blues is as much an experience as a style of music, so the right venue is key. When Calgary lost the King Edward Hotel, a long-established blues club, a few years back, it looked like the Shamrock in Ramsay would take over, but that never took root. The summer Guitarmania festival in Bowness still draws crowds, and Quincy’s will book the occasional blues show, but the genre still has no permanent home in the city.
That didn’t seem to be the case back in 2004. After moving into a seemingly ideal space on Macleod Trail, Kalef built the club’s reputation by booking some of the best blues to hit Calgary, from Big Dave Mclean to Jimmy Guiboche to David “Honeyboy” Edwards. The crowds came, but only on weekends. That was the beginning of the problem — there were loyal fans, but there was little lunchtime or evening business during the week. Not a recipe for long-term success, and as Kalef explains, “As much as I like being in the burbs, it financially wasn’t going to be as successful or as viable as I wanted it to be.”
When Kalef announced the club was closing, the news travelled fast. “Just after sending that e-mail out, I received no less than 70 [replies],” he says. It wasn’t just patrons, either. Musicians, including Shirley Jackson, Bill Johnson and Mike Clark, have been quick to send their condolences.
While Kalef is looking for a new location, he’s also being careful not to make any hasty decisions. The legendary status of the King Eddy proved that Calgarians want their blues downtown. “We need to get to the downtown workforce, and maybe the downtown residents,” says Kalef. “Calgary’s now starting to have much more of a community of people living downtown that do go out on Monday nights, Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights. That might support us.”
