![]() ![]() Newland has fronted Fat since before the release of their now highly-collectable self-titled 1970 RCA album. RCA and Atlantic Records recording artist Peter J. In promoting several upcoming concerts in the October 13, 1982, issue of the Advocate, that week’s Nail ad read: “If you missed the Go-Go’s, Joan Jett, or Hall & Oates at the Nail, don’t miss Billy Idol from Generation X on the 16th, the Bus Boys on the 23rd, Marshall Crenshaw on the 28th.” with NRBQ, please contact the Rusty Nail so we can have copies, too!” nite and took pictures of Bonnie Raitt and/or the Allman Bros. The Nail ad for upcoming shows that ran in the May 21, 1980, issue of the Valley Advocate contained this impassioned plea: “Anyone who was at the NRBQ concert last Sat. You’d never know who’d show up when the Q played there. NRBQ, also with deep roots in Western MA, played there a lot, regularly packing the place to capacity with their classic 1970s and ’80s lineup of Terry Adams, Al Anderson, Joey Spampinato, Tom Ardolino, and the Whole Wheat Horns. Felix Cavaliere-produced country-rockers Deadly Nightshade, one of the early all-female bands to land a major-label recording contract, and the wonderful Jim Kaminski Band with Pam Bricker played there. Local VIPs Fat, Clean Living, Mitch Chakour and the Mission Band, and reggae champions Loose Caboose were all virtual house bands at the Nail. ![]() When James Cotton or John Lee Hooker or Stevie Ray Vaughan or John Mayall or George Thorogood and the Destroyers (while their first Rounder album was burning up the charts) were rocking the Nail, the vibe was as incendiary as at any big-city music emporium. ![]() The club was a magnet for blues greats and their appreciators. When we opened for the Buzzcocks, they refused to move their drums for us, leaving us hardly any room on stage. The Dolls played the Rusty Nail many times on our own and with various bands of renown. “So many top national and international acts played the Rusty Nail while traveling between New York and Boston,” says Dangerous Pete, former guitarist for new wave favorites Paper Dolls, and these days plays with flashy neo-rockabilly champions Flathead Rodeo. “I can only imagine what went through James Brown’s mind while driving Route 47 to this gig so far off the beaten path. James Brown, was appropriately dressed in green, and with his stage-filling entourage, whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Patrick’s Day 1983, the Godfather of Soul, Mr. When he finally came on stage, well after midnight and solo in what was billed “a recital concert,” he transported the crowd. Talk about appreciative, when personal issues made it impossible for The Envoy-era Warren Zevon to begin his February 1983 show at the designated hour, the crowd, many of whom sat cross-legged on the packed wooden floor, waited politely as word came from the stage that the Excitable Boy would be performing… just not for a while. Tom Waits, the Neville Brothers, Los Lobos, King Sunny and His African Beats (all 17 of them!), Bonnie Raitt, Ronnie Spector, the Ramones, Les McCann, the Gary Burton Quartet, Yellowman, Bruce Cockburn, Joan Jett, Root Boy Slim, Gil Scott-Heron, the Go-Go’s, the Joe Ely Band (for $1), Billy Idol, George Carlin… they’re just a handful of the greats who played the Nail to crowds ranging from several dozen to several hundred appreciative, often rabid fans. During its run beginning in the early 1970s, the Nail drew music aficionados from the Albany, Brattleboro, and Hartford areas as well as from much of Massachusetts, including nearby UMass Amherst. More than three decades after burning to the ground in late July 1985, the Rusty Nail in Sunderland MA, just north of the Hampshire/Franklin County line, is still lovingly remembered as one of Western Massachusetts’ iconic musical venues.
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