VALLEY WEEKEND : ROCKTALK : After 43 Years, Palomino Fades Into the Sunset : Last month’s closing of the legendary honky-tonk ends an essential chapter in L.A.’s music scene. ‘It was <i> the</i> country nightclub’ in the region, Dave Alvin says.

Last month’s closing of the “world famous” Palomino honky-tonk in North Hollywood ends a long musical legacy few West Coast clubs can claim.

Since its opening 43 years ago, the club has hosted a parade of country, rock and pop talents that includes performances by Hank Williams Sr., Ernest Tubb, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Roger Miller, Linda Ronstadt, Jerry Lee Lewis, Neil Young, Elvis Costello, Hoyt Axton, Glenn Campbell, Emmylou Harris, Bo Diddley, John Fogerty, Waylon Jennings, Charlie Rich and on and on.

“I feel sad about it,” said Ronnie Mack, a local country singer-guitarist and longtime host of the weekly “Barndance” shows, which were held at the Palomino until last May. “It’s the second most important building in country music in the United States, next to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.”

Not even the old West Hollywood rock clubs such as the Whisky and the Troubadour enjoy as deep a history as the North Hollywood venue, which opened in 1952. But after some recent lean years, an effort to reclaim its place on the Southern California music scene was begun last year by Sherry Thomas, widow of co-founder Tommy Thomas.

She had returned to the San Fernando Valley after spending eight years in Oregon with her two sons, promising to again focus exclusively on local country music. Her plan was to take control by buying out the 50% share owned by her nephew Billy Thomas, son of the late co-founder Bill Thomas.

“Everybody thought she was going to make a big splash out of it because she wanted to go back to the roots of the club: all country all the time,” said Billy Thomas, who had been running the club since his uncle’s death in 1985. “That’s how the club started. I knew that no way can that work. I tried to help her, and she didn’t want anything to do with that.”

But he now insists the club won’t be closed for long, promising to reassert his interest in the Palomino. “It’s too bad that it’s non-functional right now,” he said, “but it’s going to open up again. . . . It’s not going to just die. If I don’t sell it, someone [else] is going to be running it.”

Sherry Thomas, who has since moved back up to Oregon and had listed the club for sale, was not available for comment. “The problem is that no one knows where Sherry’s at,” said Billy Thomas. “We want to do things properly. We’re going to wait a certain amount of time, and if we still can’t find her we’re just going to go in.”

During its long heyday, which essentially lasted through the late-1980s, the Palomino was as much a hangout for local players as a venue for their music. “There’s some brain cells of mine on the floor there,” joked Dave Alvin, who has played at the Palomino as a solo artist, a sideman and as a member of the Blasters.

The Palomino was the sort of place where people like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison and other musical figures could be found hovering by the bar. On one night in the mid-’80s, Harrison, Dylan and Fogerty stepped on stage to jam through a few songs. On another night, Dylan happened to be watching when the Blazers from East L.A. were playing, and ended up inviting the young band to open one of his concerts the following week.

But the old Palomino was mainly home to many of the city’s best local players of country, rock, pop and the blues.

“When the Club Lingerie closed last year, it was sad because I have a lot of memories there,” said Alvin. “But with the Palomino it’s not just the memories of the local music scene, it’s also the memories of when it was the country nightclub in Southern California. It says something about where country music has gone.”

In some ways, mainstream country music has outgrown clubs the size of the Palomino, which now has a legal capacity of about 400. Countrypolitan singer Reba McEntire can fill the Universal Amphitheatre, while country-pop star Garth Brooks sings in sports arenas. Country artists like that, says Alvin, “don’t need to play roadhouses anymore.”

Country singer Dwight Yoakam (who is himself now a regular player of amphitheaters) performed some of his earliest shows at the Palomino, and returned the favor in November by playing a benefit concert there.

But even the most recent generation of critically acclaimed country artists have found their latest gigs elsewhere--at newer venues such as Jacks Sugar Shack and the House of Blues in West Hollywood.

“Those are the kinds of people who should be playing (at the Palomino),” said Mack, who has now moved his “Barndance” to Jacks Sugar Shack. The problem, he explains, was that Sherry Thomas wasn’t enough of a music expert to make crucial booking judgments. “Junior Brown should be playing there. Kelly Willis should be playing there. But [Thomas] didn’t have a clue as to who those people are.”

Mack had played at the Palomino since arriving in Los Angeles in 1976, and hosted the “Barndance” there for the last seven years. Not that he hasn’t been enjoying his newest home at Jacks Sugar Shack. Just three weeks ago, Springsteen himself joined him on stage to jam through “Long Tall Sally” and other rock classics.

But he’ll always have a deeper emotional attachment to the Palomino, he says. “My last night there, I’ll tell you, I bust out crying. I really did,” he said. “Sherry and I just talked. I went back thinking about when I was a kid living in Baltimore dreaming of seeing L.A. and reading Billboard about Jerry Lee Lewis at the Palomino. I loved the music so much.”