Whitney Houston, Ray Charles, Jimmy Buffett and John Lee Hooker are just a few of the music greats who have performed at the intimate bayside venue.
Humphreys Concerts by the Bay will celebrate its 45th anniversary this year. The first season at the intimate venue on Shelter Island took place in 1982. In the March 8 Sunday Arts section of the San Diego Union-Tribune we looked back at the evolution and history of Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, the intimate Shelter Island venue that this year celebrates its 45th anniversary.
We also asked readers to share memories of their favorite shows at Humphreys, and received some very enthusiastic responses. Here are a dozen of them. They have been edited for length and clarity.My favorite Humphreys concert was John Lee Hooker in 1998, three years prior to his passing. I was enthralled by the low-key blues great. I was a “boat person” for this concert and loved it. I am a lifelong Deadhead, but also a blues lover. I will never forget John Lee, sitting on that dark center stage, playing his guitar and singing with his guttural yet smooth, deep voice hitting straight into the soul.I don’t remember the year, but the best concert I attended at Humphreys was Jimmy Buffett and The Coral Reefers. A conga line started in the audience during the song “Fins” — “Fins to the left, fins to the right!” I’ve been to many Buffett concerts, but this might have been the best.I’ve been reading your great work since the 1980s and I went to my first concert at Humphreys in the ’80s. A great concert venue with a lot of great acts that visit there. No wonder artists love it. It’s a great spot to perform! The article brought back a lot of nice memories of seeing Lee Ritenour there numerous times in the ’80s. I hope you never stop sharing your knowledge and interest of music with us! Keep on rockin’!I re-met my husband at a Hiroshima concert at Humphreys on June 21, 1991. I had known him when we were both San Diego Police Department officers in the 1970s. We had both worked on the same squad and knew each other as co-workers until 1980 when he left SDPD. Fast forward to that June night and he walked by me with a woman and a Humphrey’s employee who was showing them to their seats. I was with two girlfriends. I told them I had worked with the guy and was going to say hello. I tugged on his sleeve and said: “Hi.” He responded by saying my entire name and asking if I still worked for the city. I said “Yes.” and also said I was embarrassed as I had forgotten his name. He said: “John Burgess.” I then told him his wife and the Humphreys’ employee were walking away and didn’t know he had stopped to chat. He responded it was a blind date! We said goodbye and the following week he called me at my office and asked me for a date. Our next two dates were at Humphreys, The Righteous Brothers and Johnny Mathis. We both had tickets to various concerts there that summer but none were the same. During the Righteous Brothers’ concert, Bill Medley saw all the people on the boats and kayaks and yelled: “Next time, buy a ticket!” It was hilarious. Three years after re-meeting my husband, we were married in San Diego. It’s now been almost 32 years. That’s my story.I’ve attended maybe 100 Humphrey concerts over the years. There are so many memorable ones, but three that standout are: 1. In 1990, I took my then-8-year-old daughter to her first concert, Ray Charles. She had started liking him because he was doing Pepsi commercials at the time. 2. Seeing Chicago in the rain in the late ’90s when I was dating my wife. We had our rain ponchos on and it was fun experiencing their music this way. 3. Tony Bennett in the mid-2000s. Another rainy concert. There were flash flood warnings that night, but he still got out there and sang beautifully. His daughter opened up the show for him.Great article in the Union-Tribune on the 45th anniversary of Humphreys! I’ve been to 49 concerts at Humphreys, starting with The Rippingtons in September 1994. My 50th show will be Cheap Trick coming up on April 24th. I’ve seen some great acts at Humphreys, from Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, and Steve Winwood to Alice Cooper, Kansas, Styx and ZZ Top, to name a few. But my most memorable have been to see my favorite band, Yes, at Humphreys, seven times. I sang in a San Diego Yes tribute band called Roundabout from 1998 to 2005, so the music of Yes is near and dear to my heart. When I left the band in 2005, the guy who replaced me was the one and only Jon Davison, who is now the current lead singer for Yes. At Jon’s first Humphreys show with Yes, on Aug. 18, 2012,he got me and my son two tickets and backstage passes. It was a fantastic concert! What made it even better was to hang out with Jon Davison afterward and to meet Yes bass legend himself, Chris Squire. I’ve seen Yes 30 times, but that was my son’s first Yes concert. Very exciting for both us and a memory to last a lifetime!My favorite Humphreys concert was Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul in October 2017. I only know the date because of the T-shirt I bought, which I still wear. I was amazed at the crowd size — I’m not sure it was even half full. I couldn’t believe it. He played my favorite songs from 1994’s “Voice of America” album. I was the only person around me singing these great rock and roll protest/resistance songs. The Disciples of Soul were awesome; great horns and backup singers. I have all their “albums,” aka CDs. On the way out, I bought a Little Steven Underground Garage T-shirt. This was my favorite concert at Humphreys, and is in my Top Ten concerts anywhere. I’m still amazed more people didn’t attend that concert. Regarding your 2015 Union-Tribune commentary about nonstop yammering at concerts, I experienced exactly that at a Lucinda Williams concert. It may have been the same year as Little Steven. I asked three women behind us to please be quiet and they made fun of me the rest of the night. It sucked.On July 10, 1994, an old friend from USD — where we had became Firesign Theater fanatics — and I attended Firesign’s performance at Humphreys. At a point midway through their famous “Nick Danger” sketch, in which Nick and Lt. Bradshaw are cracking wise, I yelled out the next line in the script — a killer line. Immediately, Firesign’s Phil Austin and Peter Bergman stopped the show, stormed off the stage, rushed to where I was seated in the middle of the venue, and upbraided me for stealing Austin’s line. The audience went wild and my friend slugged me in the arm. They then returned to the stage and picked up where they had left off.Vince Gill’s cocnert at Humphreys is cited as a favorite by a San Diego Union-Tribune reader. In August 2005, we were told by the young sailors sitting next to us at Humphreys that they may need to leave early because they were on call to go help save Russian submariners on the Priz AS-28, which was tangled in fishing nets with had just hours of air left. We usually went to a concert at Humphreys to celebrate my birthday every August. I have great memories of seeing Vince Gill and Dwight Yoakam there.For me there was no better way or place to watch live music than a concert at Humphreys. It still makes me think of the great KIFM disc jockey, Art Good, and the song “Wine Light” by Grover Washington Jr. I was in the crowd for four or five concerts a year. I once treated a group of friends to see Smokey Robinson on my birthday. No better way to age! One night stands out. A beautiful young woman walked out on the stage to applause. It never stopped. Her debut album had just been released. To hear her sing those songs from the closeness of Humphreys made you feel incredibly lucky. She was fantastic. The audience stood on their toes for encores. Thank you, Whitney Houston. I missed Roy Orbison and Ray Charles. But I did see Whitney, a young lady that would become one of the all-time greats before fame and greed interfered. I’ll never forget that night. I don’t go anymore; too many rude people. But I will always think fondly of so many Humphreys concerts, Art Good, and that incredible lady, Whitney.I was introduced to Grover Washington Jr.’s music by a former girlfriend in Kansas City. She relocated to San Diego and invited me to visit, knowing that outdoor shows are my preference. My first concert when I moved to San Diego was at Humphreys to hear Grover. He had recently released the album “Strawberry Moon” and there was a gorgeous full moon that night. The evening offered palm trees, drinks you could order from your seats, a great temperature, and his amazing, sexy saxophone playing. This is the finest outdoor concert venue I have experienced. Thank you, Richard Bartell! I really enjoyed your article, including the history of how this incredibly successful venue, Humphreys, came to be. As a young radio sales guy, I had the pleasure of working with many of those involved in establishing Humphreys Concerts by the Bay . Few will recall the one year that my radio station, K-BEST 95, was able to secure Art Good’s evening “Jazz Trax” program away from KIFM and was the presenting radio station for one year. It was 1985, the best summer of my life! I feel that Art’s influence in the early years, while he was at KIFM and introducing San Diego to these amazing light-jazz artists bears mentioning as a huge contributor to Humphreys’ early success. Since you asked, my favorite Humphreys concerts, all from 1985, include Whitney Houston’s debut and Jimmy Buffet’s two days of shows, including a Monday-night concert when the power was out on Shelter Island, delaying the start of the first show. With a backstage pass, I happened across a dimly lit open hotel room where Buffett and Josh Leo were sitting on the bed with their guitars. I enjoyed hearing them write and and rehearse the eventual opening number for the show. To the melody of Bruce Springsteen’s, “Dancing in the Dark,” the lyrics I loosely recall were” “You can’t start a concert without a spark / This band’s for hire, even if were just playing in the dark.”Trying again: Environmental groups want a rehearing on California rooftop solar rulesSpring break activities for families in San Diego County for under $6Excess load on transmission line may have caused SDG&E power outage to 103,000 customersRandy Vásquez pitches Padres past Tigers for first victory of season
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