Hard to Have the Blues at a Raging Party

The Scene: Thursday’s party launching the House of Blues Music Co. at its Sunset Strip club. The evening was a potent combination of zealous record industry schmoozing plus a sampler concert of the label’s ebullient gospel and blues acts.

Who Was There: Every exec, record store clerk and radio contest winner the music industry could muster. The performers included Cissy Houston, the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Gales Brothers, Paul Black & the Flip Kings, Jimmy Rip, John Mooney and Becky Barksdale. Guests included Mick Jagger, John Goodman, Vince Spano, Chazz Palminteri and the actress with the righteously pious name--but not exactly the career--of a gospel singer: Traci Lords.

Ambitions: Founder Isaac Tigrett on music from his hometown: “I’ll sign any band out of Memphis. The last No. 1 hit out of Memphis was in the late ‘70s--Rick Dees’ ‘Disco Duck.’ We gotta wipe that record out, man.”

Gospel Truth: Clarence Fountain of the Blind Boys of Alabama, who’s been singing with gospel groups since 1937, on career adjustments: “Now we’re playing blues venues and jazz venues and any place you can get some money. When you go commercial, it’s automatic good--the checks are bigger.”

Quoted: Co-owner Dan Aykroyd: “These artists have been playing this music for most of their lives. They’ve been on the road doing 200, 300 gigs a year. I want this label to be a home for them, a place they can be properly and fairly compensated for what they do.”

Chow: Hors d’oeuvres with an emphasis on steak tartar, which evoked vivid images of “mad cow” disease among the British guests. There were wonderful Monty Python-style moments when Englishmen stared at appetizers as though they were Ebola burgers.

Pastimes: During the gospel acts, jaded music industry veterans were getting religion. “If only Passover could be like this,” said one.

Overheard: “These things are wasted on me,” said a woman who described herself as “an aging groupie.” “I can’t tell if these people are famous or I dated them in the ‘70s.”