Music Through the Years

It’s a late September evening in West Ashley. The air is beginning to have a cool feel to it. It’s about to get hot though. Pick a venue and you just may encounter a “guaranteed to be awesome” live music experience.  Live music is popular in the Charleston area and West Ashley has its fair share of venues: Voodoo, The Tin Roof, The Roost, Home Team BBQ, Traycee’s Too, The Pub on 61 – to name a few.  But did you know that Voodoo was once a dance studio? The Tin Roof was a bait and tackle shop? And Home Team BBQ was one of the first gas stations on this side of the Ashley River? Did you know that THE place to eat steaks, and dance to big band sounds was the Cavallaro, now home to Rick Hendrick’s Honda? Who remembers Club 17, The Azalea Room, or a more modern club called Sassy Fats?
Entertainment, in the form of live music, is just one facet of the “suburban history” in St. Andrew’s Parish, the early name for the area located west of the Ashley River. The Church Act of 1706 divided South Carolina into parishes. This Parish and its residents wielded considerable wealth and power prior to the Civil War. With little effort one can read about this influence. The local libraries and book stores are full of history books detailing the landing of the Carolina at Albemarle Point in 1670, plantation life, slavery, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War.
But the modern 20th century history of the Parish has yet to be written. However, with a little digging the stories of the transition from an agrarian society to the community we live in today reveal themselves. And they are fun stories, often related first hand and thus become far more interesting, which brings me back to the subject of live music.
The clubs and venues are one aspect of the West Ashley music history. With time I have learned more about them, found a photograph or two, and gathered some “happening” stories. The stories and photographs about these musicians are just the beginning: Gus Cacioppo, Ralph Peeples, Roy Heissenbuttle, Dimpy Pearson, and Caleb Davis are some of the musicians that called West Ashley home.
Cacioppo played saxophone and lived in Byrnes Downs. Peeples loved the piano and lived in Avondale. Heissenbuttle played the saxophone and his band was popular at the clubs. Pearson played in several combos, was on the Board of Directors for the Charleston Jazz Society and also lived in Byrnes Downs. Caleb Davis’s instrument was his voice and his first band was Malibu. Later he would sing for The Sight and Sound and The Southside Soul Revue playing in “teen clubs”. Their stories about balancing life and a passion for music are intriguing and for me entertaining.
Know more about these venues or musicians? Contact Donna Jacobs at westashleybook@gmail.com.