The Town Crier: Lounging

Published 8:15 am Saturday, May 24, 2025

I’m not much of a nightlife kind of guy. My number one evening pastime has always been to go to the movies.

There was a short period of time, maybe 15 years, when I did go out dancing back when “the kids” danced, but that was always with a group of friends or existing girlfriend, so going into a place, I knew I had someone to dance with. There was none of that “their eyes met across the dance floor,” leave it to chance business for me.

But while I was sitting in a darkened theater watching the silver screen, plenty of folks around here were enjoying live music, an adult beverage and sometimes billiards. In the Wild West there were saloons, during prohibition there were speakeasies, and in the seedier parts of the big cities there were “dive bars.” Here in a small Southern town, where things are a bit more genteel and we weren’t that far from being a dry county, we had lounges.

The lounge scene here was closely connected to the motels and hotels here. And the motels and hotels gained ground once the interstate came through in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

The old motels along Highway 41 were more for the tourists on their way to or from Florida and were focused on people staying one night only. There might be a cafe connected with it, but that was just to make a buck or two more off of travelers passing through and not wanting to hunt down a place to eat.

Just ahead of the coming of the interstate was the boom in the carpet industry. As motels and hotels came in along the interstate, there was a need for industry visitors to stay multiple nights in town. They might be regional salesmen in for a meeting, buyers from out of town that had carpet outlets in other parts of the country, or even international visitors looking to sell European-built tufting machines to the local companies.

And even if they were coming in for just a day or two, there was the need for nice places for lunch. The Downtowner Motor Lodge on Thornton and places like the Holiday Inn and Lee’s Inn along the interstate provided the accommodations and the dining room. But they also saw the need for entertainment at night. Hence the lounges and live music.

For eons, the only music there was live music. And even with the coming of the phonograph, bands and live music still flourished.

There were plenty of cover bands in the region for the lounges to book for folks to listen and dance to. The lounges gave locals a place to go, relax, blow off steam, meet friends or make new ones, and listen to music.

The few times I went to some of the local lounges the setup was similar. The band was up front somewhere, maybe on a stage or maybe just on the far end of a dance floor. Then there was the dance floor, usually tile so you could slip and slide in a manner suggesting you knew something about the latest disco turns, line dances or Michael Jackson moves you thought you could pull off after watching MTV.

Then, in the back half were the tables and booths where the patrons sat. The more you were interested in talking the further away from the band you sat. I’ll say this, I never went into a lounge where the band didn’t think it wasn’t all about them. They would keep turning the amps up as the night wore on, and bringing their “chops” to bear on their favorite songs. They seemed to think they were on tour in world capitals or that the lounge here in Dalton was a mini-Woodstock. On the other hand, I do know of several band members who went on to work in the music industry or continued to play well after their 20s heydays.

One place I went to numerous times was the lounge at Lee’s Inn at the Rocky Face exit. It’s been under several different names and is now the Econo Lodge. And yes, the same wags that came up with calling Burr Park “Burrasic Park” came up with the nickname “Sleaze Inn” for Lee’s Inn back then.

Anyway, some of my hi skool buddies had a band in the early ‘80s called The Fits and they really had it going. I’m not sure they were the house band there but they were there quite often. Talk about successful, they had T-shirts with the band name on them! I would go there to see them and they certainly got the crowd up and dancing. Their big number was “Riding the Storm Out” by REO Speedwagon, a song I didn’t even know until I heard them play it. They threw in a couple of original songs in their sets, but it was the top 40 radio hits they covered that brought the people in. I didn’t know the drummer, but he was pretty talented. He could drum and make flirty eyes with the ladies at the same time.

When a band like that played regularly they could develop a loyal following and people would come week after week to see them. Shouted-out requests were obliged by the bands, and the band would hang with their fans during breaks.

At the Downtowner they had a large lounge and a stage for the band. And at least one of the musicians from back in the day there went on to play with Mark Chestnutt, the country star.

None of the lounges I’m familiar with had really good lighting but they did what they could. Hey, it’s showbiz!

I’m definitely out of the loop, but I haven’t seen a live band advertised in a lounge here in some time. Maybe Saturday night I’ll make the rounds!

Mark Hannah is a Dalton native who works in the film and video industry.