Cultural innovator Glenn Smith is a force to be reckoned with
One in a series of casual conversations with movers and shakers in (and from) our cultural community
You’ve probably seen him around town, maybe during the Kitchener Blues Festival, a compact bulldozer of a man striding about in sunglasses and a T-shirt.
Just another middle-aged blues fan, no deference required, blending into the background.
But without Glenn Smith cultivating an audience that didn’t previously exist, there would be no bluesfest, no 150,000 people crowding the streets of downtown Kitchener every August, no monetary windfall for Waterloo Region businesses.
Without Glenn Smith, Kitchener would still be known, musically, for a long ago nostalgia bar called Lulu’s and the Oompah music that goes hand in hand with Oktoberfest.
If the beatings he took from more athletic teammates during high school football practice taught him anything, it’s that if you have a dream, dream big, and don’t give up.
Needless to say, the 63-year-old entrepreneur — proprietor of Waterloo’s retro-tinged Ethel’s Lounge since 1994 — had big dreams.
Bitten by the blues bug as a teenager, he surveyed the musical landscape and — while working at his parents battery shop — started booking American legends like Buddy Guy, Jimmy Vaughan and Albert Collins into the Kitchener Legion Hall, Hoodoo Lounge and in 1989, a dedicated blues club of his own, Pop The Gator.
The latter only lasted five years, but like the first Beatles record and Timothy Leary’s experiments with LSD in the ‘60s, it opened the door for everything that followed.
Smith — a likable character always ready with a sardonic quip or terse nugget of wisdom — is the last guy to blow his own horn.
But as cultural innovators go, he’s a force to be reckoned with.
Pop the Gator, The Circus Room, Ethel’s Lounge, Hoodoo Lounge: It seems like you built an entire career hanging out with your pals drinking beer.
You make it sound like some alcoholic opening a business and getting drunk all the time.
Sorry, I should have phrased it more as a question.
You can’t spend your whole life sitting around drinking beer or you wouldn’t do all these things.
Let’s go back 45 years. Football practice. Forest Heights Collegiate. Brad Forwell is pounding you during a hamburger drill. No matter how hard he hits, you suck it up while your disbelieving coach gapes from the sidelines, formulating an anecdote he will tell for the next 40 years. What was going through your head?
Probably his fist. He probably hit me in the head and a bell rung and I didn’t know the difference.
Not to play amateur psychologist, but this tenacity, stubbornness — whatever it is — has been a hallmark of your success as a club and restaurant owner, has it not?
I was never gonna climb Mount Everest or find a cure for cancer.
But I had a brain, street smarts and was able to figure out blues music — every part of it. All that information’s out there.
I just took what I had and ran with it.
What gave you the idea to book blues acts in the land of Oktoberfest?
I just heard it a lot and was instantly enamoured with it.
These blues guys were still alive.If you phoned them and offered them X amount of money, they would come and play in your city.
You met B.B. King at 16 — how did you even get in the door?
It was just one of those things. He was playing at the Stratford festival. I was standing at the back door and a lady said “would you like to meet him?” He shook my hand and said “Do you want a Coca Cola?” and I said “OK.” He gave me a guitar pick with his name on it.
Not the pulse-pounding tale I was hoping for.
It’s a simple story but a very powerful thing at the time. It was the beginning of my life in general.
Blues legend Howlin’ Wolf played at the University of Waterloo in 1972. Again, you gained access.
I heard he hated white people and had already gone to prison for murder, but I went backstage and there’s Howlin’ Wolf sitting in a chair, eating chicken.
He said “I’m Wolf, how you doin’?” I pulled the KFC lid out of the garbage and got him to sign the back ... (laughs) ... the bucket of chicken came from the KFC where Ethel’s is now and I still have the lid hanging in my bedroom.
Despite your success, you describe yourself as "unemployable."
My father told me “You’re the third generation of Smiths who have done nothing and have somehow survived — and I don’t know how.”
(Laughs) ... I used to tell people all the time, “Don’t end up like me.”
And yet here you are — a successful club/restaurant owner and blues guru.
I have no skills. I’ve got a full Grade 11 under my belt. You need a B.A. to work at McDonalds now. I don’t even know how to open the cash register at Ethel’s, so I hire people who do.
(Laughs) ... I can’t think of a job other than Uber driver that I can actually do.
I always viewed you as a sort of streetwise Yoda. Your B.S. detector is off the charts.
I was able to figure out people really early and learned how to make things happen.
I wasn’t doing well in music class but I could go over to the music teacher’s house on the weekend and help him build a barbecue.
I was learning people management. I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t stealing. It wasn’t a con or B.S. I was taking a different path and getting the same result.
What were you like as a kid?
Probably an A — hole, but very inquisitive to some degree. I was the guy that attempted to make everyone laugh. I would do crazy s—t to get people’s attention, mouthing off, not paying attention and pulling my pants down and mooning the teacher ... (laughs) ... I might be making that up.
Why did you drop out in Grade 11?
I was just bored. If you know how to read, write, add, subtract, spell and are a decent, honest person, that’s all you need in life. The rest is up to you.
Given the failure rate in the hospitality industry, I figured you would be living hand-tomouth, without a penny to your name.
Not everybody that opens a restaurant is living in poverty. I’ve gotten a paycheque every day of my life since I was 16. I’ve never been on unemployment.
I thought you were going to ask me to loan you money.
You can if you like — if you have some spare disposable income.
Can I be your silent partner?
You’d be too crazy. You’d be following me around asking me questions all the time.
Years ago, as manager of an Odeon cinema in Peterborough, you became pals with rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins, whose band practised across the street. How did you end up house-hunting with him in a tiny village outside St. Jacobs 14 years ago?
We were sitting at Ethel’s when all of the sudden Ronnie announces, “THE HAWK SHOULD LIVE IN HAWKESVILLE!” So we get in my car and drive 10 minutes north of Waterloo.
I should point out that, as you’re telling me this, we’re bombing around the village of Hawkesville in your truck, headed for the same rural property you discovered with Hawkins, now owned by you.
We got out of the car and Ronnie takes one look at the property and says “WE’LL TAKE IT!” and goes back in the car ... (laughs) ... and the guy looks at me and goes, “Was that Ronnie Hawkins?”
So how did you get stuck you with the bill?
He couldn’t sell his Stony Lake residence in Peterborough. The thing is, I like the place. I don’t really want to sell it. I’m hoping he’ll forget I ever took him out here.
How likely is that?
It took us less than a minute to buy the place. I’ve already talked to you longer than that. I don’t think we’re gonna have a legal problem.
How often do people recognize you in the street, other than me?
Probably every day. I’ve been in business all my life — 44 years. When you’re in business all your life, and different types of businesses, and part of the community, it’s inevitable.
You have a house, restaurant and rural cabin filled with enough vintage pop culture memorabilia to stock a museum.
It’s stuff connected with blues music, the ‘50s and ‘60s stuff where they became more aware of design, colour and look. A lot of it takes you back to a particular era and time.
How do I put this delicately: you can’t take it with you.
It’s probably going to be a fabulous garage sale. I recommend everybody start saving now.
What will happen to John Belushi's shoes and socks, now showcased in an Ethel’s display window?
Maybe I should put ‘em on eBay. Probably an auction of some sort.
And your 1939 Rock-Ola jukebox?
If I ever croak, you could take (the mechanical) stuff out and use it as a coffin.
I find it amusing that ever since Pop the Gator closed in ‘94, people have been asking you, with a nostalgic glint, when it’s going to reopen.
It ran its course. The music had changed, times had changed. If I look at bands now I had at the Gator, 90 per cent of them are dead. It would be like trying to open a punk club like they did in the ‘70s or the Cavern Club in London. That time is gone. Some people want to remember it and for a moment go in and get a sense of the time, but it’s not viable as a business anymore.
Tell me about your latest passion, bee keeping.
I’m not an expert, but I’m starting to learn a little every day. The world needs honeybees for the great work they do pollinating fields.
I understand the honey they produce has become a profitable sideline.
I give it to all my friends. I thought I would make money. What I didn’t realize until later in life is that they’re all cheapskates ... (laughs) ... They like the product. They just don’t want to pay for it.
Freeloading moochers.
I give most of them nothing for Christmas.