By Diana Brement, JTNews Correspondent
It’s a name more associated with business than with show business, but when Highway 99, Seattle’s newest — and only — all blues nightclub opens soon, the name, the impetus and the inspiration behind it belongs to Steve Sarkowsky.
“I like the music, I like the art form” said Sarkowsky in his office on the fringe of Fremont (a neighborhood he calls ‘Frelard’). A room divider serves as a bulletin board, covered with sheets of paper listing definite and potential acts to be booked into the club. “After Congress declared The Year of the Blues a few years ago, it made me think people had an interest in this music.”
Sarkowsky, who has served on the boards of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, the former Jewish Transcript, Temple De Hirsch Sinai, Congregation Beth Shalom, and many others, has built a career in business over the last 25 years. He worked first in public relations and had a short stint as an administrator for Cornish College of the Arts. Eventually he joined with his dad, Herman, to create a family partnership in commercial real estate and venture capital.
But Steve’s first love is music, and during the same time he was developing a career as a professional musician.
“I’ve been playing drums since first or second grade,” says Sarkowsky. He played music throughout school, at Bellevue High School, at the University of Redlands in California, and at the University of Washington, where he graduated in 1979 with a degree in communications.
In the mid-‘80s he began pursuing a music career seriously, starting “from the bottom of the barrel, placing ads, answering ads, trying to hook up with bands.”
He’s played all kinds of music, but spent the longest time with a folk/pop band called Right as Rain, headed by vocalist Pamela Cook. He played in country, classic rock and, of course, in many blues bands.
“I’ve played thousands of gigs,” he says, often in less-than-desirable venues. The more he played, the more he dreamed of a place that served the best interests of the audience, the musicians and the club management. A place that served all his interests as well, as a musician, a businessman and a fan.
Sarkowsky sees the club as providing something Seattle should have, but doesn’t: an all-blues nightclub. “Seattle hasn’t had a true blues club for a long time,” he says. “It’s odd that a city like Seattle doesn’t have a dedicated blues club.”
You can hear the blues at a variety of venues around town on various nights, he points out, but not on a regular or predictable basis. Steve also hopes that the existence of Highway 99, which he hopes will feature live music six nights a week, will raise the bar on both the quantity and quality of local blues talent. “Portland has a more sophisticated [blues] scene,” than Seattle, he says, “and they often take work away” for local musicians.
The club is located in an older brick building (the former Godfather’s Pizza) on Seattle’s historic waterfront, a short walk from both the Pike Place Market hill climb and Pioneer square. This should help draw both locals and tourists to the 250-seat venue that will have pool tables and a full bar. The size of the club, with its “really big stage” open on three sides, and its professional sound system, will also help book national acts to play there.
“The fan base is there,” insists Steve, adding that it’s a broad-based demographic with a wide age-range.
Steve says Highway 99 will present “the entire spectrum of blues music,” from Zydeco to traditional folk-blues, “and everything in between.” A retail store will sell band-related merchandise as well as current CDs and collectible records. Called the Blues to Do Store, it will be operated by Marlee Walker, a longtime Seattle radio talent and publisher of the Northwest blues newspaper, Blues To Do Monthly.
A staff of experienced professionals will run the place. Day-to-day operations are in the hands of an experienced team, Patrick Evans and Garrett Clayton. Steve will provide management help and handle most of the national booking, “as well as playing there whenever I can,” he says.
On the inside, the club tries to capture the juke joint feel of the South and the neighborhood blues clubs of Chicago. Salvaged church pews line some of the walls and in one spot customers can sit on blue velvet benches that were once part of a Masonic lodge. “The back of the stage is reclaimed barn-board,” explains Steve, with the club logo painted on it. A special feature is the “Wall of Fame” that performers will sign after their gigs there.
The large rectangular room has brick walls and big wood beams. Art by local artists will hang on the walls, along with “amazing blues photographs” by a number of local photographers. Much of the artwork will also be for sale at the store.
Despite a hectic schedule, and all the last minute problems that plague any project of this sort, Sarkowsky is home mornings and evenings.
“Gotta have time for the kids,” he says of five-year-old Noah and his little brother Shiah, who is almost two. Mom Stacy Lawson, who teaches and writes about yoga, is not directly involved in the club, but says “it’s a great idea.”
Noah, however, has done a little work on the side for dad. What started out as a chance for him and his friend, Brannon, to play with some paint before the walls were finished, turned into a mural so wonderful that the decision was made to keep it.
“It’s the best painted wall in the club,” says Sarkowsky.
If you go:
For current information on the club’s opening visit the Web site at www.highwayninetynine.com. Highway 99 is located at 1414 Alaskan Way in downtown Seattle.