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| Billy "The Legend" Holloman (2006) |
© Andrea Canter
I only saw
the Tuesday Night Band a couple times in their original configuration on what
was dubbed B-3 Organ Night. It was on Tuesday, of course, every Tuesday,
starting out at the Artists Quarter digs on Jackson Street and continuing on 7th Place through
its fifteenth year. Original organist Billy Holloman, aka "The
Legend," was the star of and the soulful force behind B-3 Organ Night.
Billy was
introduced to the organ by cousin Bobby Lyle, who introduced him to AQ owner Kenny
Horst. Horst put Holloman to work, with Tuesday Night organ gigs getting
underway in the mid-90s. Hoping to lure a bigger and younger crowd, Kenny got
the idea to offer free food, with Billy cooking a pot of greens and Kenny and
the bartender whipping up some wings and spicy chow mein. The free food started
bringing in the college students, who liked what they heard and stuck around.
By the time the AQ moved to its current home in the Hamm Building,
the free food was long gone but Tuesday’s B-3 Organ Nights were still going
strong.
When St. Paul bars were
allowed to extend their closing hours until 2 a.m., the AQ was one of the first
places to exercise that right, and for a long time was the late-night hang for
the Twin Cities. Billy left for Philadelphia about seven years ago, and the Tuesday Night
Band continued with “Downtown” Bill Brown filling the organ chair until the
band ended its weekly run in early 2012. Billy Holloman returned in April
2013 for a much anticipated reunion.
(Much of this text taken from posting on Jazz Police)
