Sand Dollar fans singin’ the blues

Monday, Jan. 31, 2005 | 8:09 a.m.

The owner of the Sand Dollar Lounge padlocked a piece of Las Vegas history last week, closing one of the city's most well-known blues clubs where seven nights a week fans could listen to the likes of the Ruffnecks or the SpellCasters or one of dozens of other bands.

A real-estate developer has bought the 30 acres where the Sand Dollar has been leasing space for more than 20 years, intending to raze the existing structures at Spring Mountain Road and Polaris Avenue and erect 10 high-rise buildings.

"I guess that's progress," said Scott Rhiner, whose band, Moanin' Blacksnakes, had a regular Saturday night gig at the Sand Dollar for the past four or five years.

A benefit for the club's former employees, and a reunion of Sand Dollar fans, is being planned for 8 p.m. Saturday at the Emergency Room Lounge, 3550 S. Decatur Blvd.

The event is being planned by John Earl Williams, of John Earl and the Boogey Man Band fame. Williams has been associated with the Sand Dollar for almost 10 years and is credited with making it a blues haven.

The Sand Dollar's co-owner, Brad Huffman, did not return phone calls for this story.

Rhiner said the sign announcing that the club was shutting down went up Tuesday afternoon, with little warning.

It reads "closed temporarily," but few think it will reopen, there or anywhere else.

"There has been a lot of buzz going around about the possibility of it closing," Rhiner said. "I knew the real estate deal was coming and I asked Brad, 'Why not have a going away party? The DJs from KKLZ called and said they would play for free, so let's do a party.'

"He wasn't interested. He just said it's time for it to run its course."

And what a course it ran.

Admission was never high, about $5, and so the dimly lit club with the low-hung ceiling nestled into an office complex at 3355 Spring Mountain Rd. attracted blues fans from all walks of life -- rich and poor, bikers and businessmen.

They never knew who might walk through the door, squeeze past the crowded bar and make their way onto the small stage. Such impromptu performers included:

Bill Medley of Righteous Brothers fame.

The late John Entwistle, bassist for The Who.

Dave Mason, a founder of Traffic.

Blind blues guitarist Jeff Healey.

Steve Cropper, who performed with the Blues Brothers Band.

A lot of musicians from the Strip would stop by the Sand Dollar when they finished their gigs.

"Saturday nights were always packed," Rhiner said, "people wall to wall."

He said he was saddened by the closing.

"I met my wife, Lisa, there," Rhiner said.

He said the Sand Dollar was successful because it didn't try to be all things to all people, serving up different kinds of music on different nights.

"It was a blues venue. Seven nights a week you could hear the blues," said Rhiner, who now can be heard with the Moanin' Blacksnakes from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. Friday nights at Tequila Cantina on Boulder Highway, north of Tropicana Avenue.

It became a blues venue when Williams and his wife, Shirley, took over the entertainment there in 1990. Shirley managed the venue, and John Earl performed.

"It was just a neighborhood bar that did a lot of business during the daytime, because it was in an office complex, but after 8 o'clock (at night) it was dead," Shirley Williams recalled during an interview in 2002. "That's why they asked me to do something, and I said I would put my husband in and let him play music."

The couple left the Sand Dollar in 1999.

Williams said its closing "is disappointing, being that my wife and I founded it as a blues lounge."

"It's a sad thing. There's not enough live music venues in town as it is. We had some good acts through there."

Fans say the Sand Dollar seemed to have experienced a decline in business in the past few months, possibly because of persistent rumors that it was closing.

Maybe because it seemed to be becoming more popular with the biker crowd.

A shooting in the parking lot outside the club last summer didn't help.

Two members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and a woman were drinking inside the lounge when they became involved with some nonbikers. The fight spilled out into the parking lot where one of the nonbikers pulled out a handgun and shot two of the bikers and a woman in the legs. The suspects jumped into a vehicle and drove away.

But, in the end, the Sand Dollar went out with a whimper. There were no fireworks, no farewell parties, no announcements -- just a padlock.

Williams says the Emergency Room may be filling some of the vacuum in the blues scene left by the Sand Dollar's demise.

"The music there is happening again," said Williams, who will perform there at Saturday's benefit and on Feb. 19.

Saturday's benefit, Williams said, will feature some of the venues original bands as well as many others who have performed there over the years.

"These are the bands that made it happen," he said. "This will not only be a benefit, but it will also be a celebration -- a blues wake."