The hungry i was originally a nightclub in North Beach, San Francisco. It was launched by Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, who sold it to Enrico Banducci in 1950.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Name
How the club's name came about is something of a mystery. According to one story, the lower-case "i" was meant to represent "intellectual". Banducci swore that it was literally Freudian and was short for "the hungry id". In another story, the sign was not finished in time for the club's opening, and next-day reviews in the San Francisco papers cemented the name for all time. "I was going to call it the Hungry Intellectual, but I ran out of paint" for the sign, Nord would tell interviewers. In another story, artist Mark Adams came up with the name. "It (the lowercase 'i') designated the first-person singular, with all of its various cravings," he explained in a 1985 interview quoted in a 2007 obituary for him.
Ira Blue Video
Club
Founded in 1950 at the corner of Kearny and Columbus, in 1954 the club was moved to the basement of the International Hotel, nicknamed "the I-Hotel." The hungry i and Banducci were instrumental in the careers of actor/comic Ronnie Schell, comic Bill Cosby, comic Lenny Bruce, and minister Malcolm Boyd. Musically, The Kingston Trio recorded two noted albums at the hungry i, including the first live performance of their version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Tom Lehrer's final satirical album That Was the Year That Was (1965) was also recorded there, as well as The Limeliters' album Our Men in San Francisco (1963).
Jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi, folk singer Glenn Yarborough, the Gateway Singers, and comedians Godfrey Cambridge, Professor Irwin Corey, Joan Rivers and Mort Sahl were also given career boosts from their appearances at the hungry i, as well as Dick Cavett and Woody Allen. The folk-rock group We Five were signed to A&M records after Herb Alpert saw them perform there.
John Phillips (of The Mamas & the Papas fame) and his The Journeymen were the house band in the early '60s.
The young Barbra Streisand begged Banducci for a single night at his nightclub, insisting that she would soon be a huge star. Banducci agreed to sign the singer, who had never performed professionally but was soon starring in I Can Get It for You Wholesale on Broadway. The resulting concerts (March-April 1963) were well-attended, giving Streisand nationwide acclaim.
The comedy and folk music scene wilted in the mid-1960s. In 1967 Banducci closed the club at its International Hotel location and moved to Ghirardelli Square; it was mainly a rock music venue, and closed in 1970. Banducci and many of the club's performers, including Mort Sahl, Jonathan Winters, Professor Irwin Corey, Jackie Vernon, and many others, reunited in 1981 for a one-night performance with Banducci present, captured in the nationally televised documentary hungry i Reunion, produced and directed by Thomas A. Cohen and featuring separate reminiscences by Bill Cosby and Maya Angelou, who had frequently sung in the guise of a Caribbean singer at the hungry i at the beginning of her career.
Exhibition
An exhibition on the history of the hungry i opened March 28, 2007 at the San Francisco Performing Arts Library, now the Museum of Performance & Design, and was on view through August 25, 2007. Alumni who performed at the hungry i during its heyday--as well as club owner Enrico Banducci and his daughter--gathered for an opening celebration March 27. Among those reminiscing about their appearances at the club were Orson Bean, Shelley Berman, Father Malcolm Boyd, Travis Edmonson, Tom Lehrer, The Kingston Trio, Mort Sahl, Ronnie Schell, Ernie Sheldon, and Glenn Yarborough.
Radio
The San Francisco radio station KGO broadcast several talk shows live before an audience from the hungry i in the 1950s and '60s, notably hosted by Les Crane and Ira Blue. Mort Sahl was KGO's overnight announcer in the 1950s.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
EmoticonEmoticon