Wednesday, January 15, 1964: Whisky a Go Go

The Los Angeles club's opening night features Johnny Rivers as the headlining act. The club quickly became famous for its music (rock 'n' roll), dancing (the patrons on the floor and the go-go dancers inside elevated glass cages) and the Hollywood celebrities it attracted.

Note: Some references list opening night as Saturday, January 11. I went with January 15 based on comments by Johnny Rivers (linked below) and a January 5 item in The Los Angeles Times announcing the opening date as January 15 (thanks to Larry Harnisch of The Daily Mirror, a site about Los Angeles history, for providing that clipping).

-- Photos by Julian Wasser (website: @)

* Entry from "Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture" (2012): @ 
* Video (clip from 1992 documentary "Twist"): @
* "Live at the Whisky" (David Kamp, Vanity Fair, November 2000): @

* "Discotheque Dancing" (Life magazine, May 22, 1964; Page 97): @
* "A G0-Go Can Get Mighty Tiresome" (Peg Bracken, May 1965): @
* "Johnny Rivers, Jimmy Webb celebrate Whisky a Go Go's 50th anniversary, plus a look back at the Sunset Strip" (Rob Lowman, Los Angeles Daily News, January 2014): @
* "Straight Whisky: A Living History of Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll on the Sunset Strip" (Erik Quisling and Austin Williams, 2003): @
* "Riot on Sunset Strip" (Domenic Priore, 2007): @
* "From Whisky A Go Go to the Royal Studios: Conversations with Johnny Rivers and Paul Rodgers" (2013): @
* Whisky a Go Go website: @ 

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