Palomino Pals Bid Farewell to Tommy Thomas

Tommy Thomas--a nightclub owner who led country music artists to fame on his stage--led friends in a final tribute to him Friday at his Palomino club.

A 1 1/2-mile-long funeral procession followed the hearse carrying Thomas’ body as it detoured through North Hollywood to pass slowly by his famous Lankershim Boulevard nightclub on the way to graveside services in Mission Hills.

Thomas died of a heart attack at the age of 61 on Sunday. He had owned the Palomino since 1952 and helped launch the careers of such performers as Linda Ronstadt, Mac Davis and Glenn Campbell.

The nightclub became a country music mecca second only to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn., after Thomas mixed name entertainment with popular weekly talent nights.

“We thank Tommy for helping bring America’s music out of the closet and make it a lasting part of our heritage and culture,” state Treasurer Jesse Unruh told 300 mourners at St. Jane Francis Catholic Church in North Hollywood.

Unruh said the Pal, as it is known to music fans, offered work to struggling country music artists “even in the days when country wasn’t cool.”

‘Greatest Tribute’

“One of the greatest ongoing tributes to Tommy Thomas was to watch the stars--Emmylou Harris, Hoyt Axton, John Stewart--come back year after year to the Pal to be with Tommy, long after they needed to come back to the Pal,” said Unruh, a longtime friend of Thomas.

Thomas was eulogized by others from the church audience.

“There isn’t a man or woman on this earth that Tommy didn’t want to see smile,” said 295-pound Tiny Glover, the Palomino’s bouncer for 30 years.

Vilma Roth, a waitress at the club for nine years, said Thomas “fired me more times than I can remember . . . but he always took me back. I loved him very much.”

‘Great Sense of Humor’

Wanda Ellis, a cook at the club for 30 years, recalled how Thomas taught her son how to play billiards while the boy was still in diapers. “He picked him up and let him sit on the pool table while he shot. Tommy had a great sense of humor,” she said.

A musician who performed at the club stood up and said he would miss hearing Thomas tell him after his act that “you bombed.”

Thomas, a native of Indiana, started the club with his brother, Bill, who died of a heart attack in 1979. Thomas said earlier this year in an interview: “I’ve had three heart attacks already and I don’t know how much longer I’ll last.”

Thomas also told then of having to introduce blues music and rock ‘n’ roll acts to the Palomino to try to fill the 600-seat club nightly. He said a country music trend that hit the nation in the early 1980s “went away so fast you’d miss it if you blinked.”

Country Crowd

But it was a country music crowd that turned out for Thomas’ funeral Friday.

Veteran country singer Eddie Dean, who has performed at the Palomino since the 1950s, accompanied himself on the guitar as he sang several hymns during the service. “Tommy’s memory will always be with us because of so much he did for talent,” Dean said.

Singer Don Hunter agreed. He said Thomas gave him and his “Winds of Change” country-pop group “the opportunity to perform when we were nowhere.”

“Tommy is already missed.”