RICH LUPO opened the first incarnation of his Heartbreak Hotel in 1975, at age 26, and his name has been closely linked to the local music scene ever since. Lupo's remains a major downtown destination and a mecca for many of the touring bands passing through Providence. Plans to develop Westminster Street as a residential section of downtown Providence, however, led Lupo to consider moving his landmark club last year. Regardless of the outcome, the 53-year-old club impresario is likely to remain a big part of the local arts and entertainment scene.

Phoenix: What is the strangest thing that's ever happened at your club?
A: It was Paul Butterfield. Paul Butterfield was the first show I ever saw. I was a sophomore in high school. The Paul Butterfield Blue Band -- they changed me, they just really affected me heavily. I love the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. I saw them at the Unicorn in Boston in about 1963 or 1964. So finally, Paul Butterfield's playing at Lupo's. Unfortunately, his career is in a spiral. He's about to take the stage and he just wouldn't do it. He said, 'You have to help me out here.'

Clearly, he had stage fright, so we went down to the basement and we got on our hands and knees together, and prayed to the Lord for his set. And I prayed with him, and I prayed and I prayed, basically, that he would do his set. And after he was done, he got up. He was good.

Is that strange?

Q: That's suitably strange.
A: You don't realize something. Lupo's basement was so disgusting, you can't imagine. There was water condensation that happened in front of our beer cooler that eventually became known as Lake Lupo. To cross into one section or the other of our basement, you had to walk this little ledge, and you deal with Lake Lupo. And many, many musicians fell in Lake Lupo, and we were right there.

Q: Approximately, what year was this?
A: It was probably the early '80s.

Q: What's the latest on possible plans for Lupo's to relocate somewhere away from Westminster Street?
A: What I kind of have to do, and I'm happy to do it, is be totally cooperative in looking with my landlord [Arnold "Buff" Chace's Cornish Associates] in looking for new locations for my club. Right now, I'm looking at two different locations, one north and one south of the inner city [downtown core].

Q: When will there be some resolution of this question of whether you might be moving?
A: I think that's a good question. If it happens, I think it's going to happen pretty fast, because my landlord is under incredible stress to get Lupo's out of there, and he really wants to get Lupo's out of there by next summer. So I think it we resolve this, it has to be pretty quickly. Otherwise, I suspect that we'll try to stay there.

Q: How do you respond to those who say the club is an obstacle to remaking Westminster Street as a residential area?
A: I think the city is better off with Lupo's than people living in the apartments above it. I think that because we bring about 300,000 people a year downtown, and the whole live music thing, that's what makes the city alive. So I think the idea that 60 people should live in that [Peerless] Building is ludicrous. What it is, in my opinion, is that my landlord has propagated a propaganda that there's a critical mass necessary to enlarge the residential mass of downtown. If you look at downtown, they talk about thousands of people walking around the city. But there's really only room for probably 80 more or 100 more, I think, downtown dwellers, maybe 200, and that in itself does not make a little town and a neighborhood. I don't think you could even support a newspaper stand with the amount of people that would be living downtown. So I don't think that getting Lupo's out of there creates a critical mass, a critical threshold, necessary for the development of downtown residential.

Q: What kind of music are you listening to these days?
A: I've moved in the last year or so from mid-'50s Southern R&B to Maryland R&B from about 1952. Right now, I've been listening to Sonny Till and the Orioles. Last year, I was listening a little more to the Five Royales. I'm going backwards.

Q: How did you get into the club business?
A: Music helped me to get through my childhood. I looked at the R&B and rock 'n' roll records while I was socializing, and I leaned on it really heavily, and it became something that I cared about. I actually opened up a club wanting to get live music maybe once or twice a week, and to make everyone listen to my R&B and rock 'n' roll records on the jukebox.

Q: Who have been the best and worst musicians to work with?
A: By and large, any musicians from the British Isles are the hardest to deal with, by a mile. They're very demanding and they're pretentious -- not all of them -- but it's very difficult to tolerate their demands. They're just obnoxious and they bother the crew. It's sort of a natural pretentiousness. They don't mean it. I'm just thinking now that their culture places layers in socializing, so that they treat services in a demeaning fashion. It's just the way they're brought up.

Q: What convinced you to stay in Providence after graduating from Brown?
A: I fell in love with Providence the first few days I was here. I was 17. I just loved the city -- it was like a small-town metropolis. I love going to Haven Brothers at three in the morning, and I love going into a drug store and recognizing somebody. It was small town, but there was always something to do and there was a sense of thrill that you couldn't get in a suburb.

Q: What does the future hold for Rich Lupo?
A: I'm kind of at a crossroads. I don't know if I have the strength to start over in a way, with moving the club. But I love Providence. I think my greatest thrill right now is projects and getting something done, so I'm kind of excited about investigating relocation and it would be a real long-term commitment.

Q: Will it happen?
A: I think it's about 50-50. I'm also having a very happy life right now and very happy to keep the club where it is, and we have five-and-a-half years left on our lease. I think that if I don't choose to relocate the club, I'd like to think that my landlord will be unable to get rid of the club.

Issue Date: October 25 - 31, 2002