The Noctambulist

My first gig as a singer/guitar-player was at the Noctambulist in Santa Barbara. This was Santa Barbara's first coffee house, as far as I know. It opened in March or April of 1959. I started playing there a couple of months later, close to midnight, on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend that year.

The Noctambulist was located on Canon Perdido Street near Anacapa, at the rear of a Spanish-style office building that was adjacent to the legendary Lobero Theater. The front entrance was directly opposite the Green Room of the theater. Lines of people stood for hours, waiting at both front and back entrances, to get in and see what the Beatnik coffee house phenomenon was all about. Going through the crowd, I was amazed, and not a little terrified, to think I would be playing for them in just a few minutes-for ten dollars, yet!-pretty good pay in those days.

In the audience that night were three significant people in my life: a fellow named Gary Sorensen, whom I had known years before at school in Pasadena (where I was born and raised), who later became my business partner at the Rondo; an enthusiastic and brash teenager named Dave Crosby (known to the world as David Crosby) who later became my guitar student; and a young woman named Carol Denny, who (as Caroline Townsend) later became my wife. I wore a suit and tie, which was the prevailing standard of the time, and was very nervous. So nervous that, had I not stopped smoking on my 25th birthday several weeks before, I would probably have been doomed to an early demise due to nicotine-related issues. I played a new Goya G-20 classic guitar, sang with rigid intensity and didn't have much to say, to say the least. During the breaks, I didn't know what to do. So I stood by the coffee bar and got in the way of the frantic waitresses.

The sizzle of the espresso machine in cups of cappuccino, the scent of hot cider and cinnamon, the fog of cigarette smoke, and the sounds of Theodore Bikel, Cynthia Gooding, or the Limelighters on the sound system above the noise of the crowd, all so new and strange then, were unavoidably committed to memory. And any one of them, experienced today, can instantly transport me in mind to that memorable night, forty-five long years ago.

Of all the people then, the three mentioned above were the most noticeable. Gary and Caroline sat at a table directly in front of me and appeared to be very interested in what I was doing. They left after my first set, but returned for the third set when, long after midnight, there were fewer people. At the end, Gary introduced himself in suave tones, and we renewed our acquaintance. Caroline didn't have much to say, but I thought she was quizzically interested. I was attracted to her.

While they were gone during my second set, I could not help but notice Dave, who sat by himself at a table along the wall and applauded and cheered wildly when I finished a song about a man facing the gallows, called “Sam Hall,” in which each stanza concluded with the phrase, “Goddamn your eyes!” He was so enthusiastic, I thought I must be bound for stardom. (Thanks, David. You made my night, that night!)

Tony Townsend

May 22, 2004

Tony Townsend is presently living in Pasadena.