Historic Eli's Blues Club Closed In Oakland

Eli's Mile High Club, a historic piece of the West Coast blues scene, closed its doors on May 1, 2008, possibly for the last time. The club was originally opened in 1974 by Eli Thornton. In a tragedy worthy of its own song, Thornton was shot to death by his jealous mistress, a blues singer. Blues musician Troyce Key picked up the torch a few years after Thornton's death and ran the club with mixed results, but after Key's death in 1992, subsequent owners had a tough time making ends meet, and the club was auctioned off seven times between the years 2000 and 2005, when Sam Marshall bought Eli's for $50,000.

Marshall had a hard time making the club profitable from the very beginning. When blues audiences weren't large enough to pay the bills, Marshall added a weekly karaoke night, Sunday night blues jams, and other gimmicks to try and draw larger crowds. Three years later, with a significant rent increase looming, Marshall decided to close the club once more. Although the owners of the Depression-era building have offers on the table to re-open the space as a restaurant or a punk club, it's unlikely that the legendary Eli's will return as the blues club that has hosted artists like B.B. King, Etta James, and James Brown.