He’s Happy to Have the Blues

When Isaac Tigrett opened the House of Blues in West Hollywood two years ago, he wanted the club to be “the greatest live music hall in America.� These days, with the faux juke joint on the Sunset Strip regularly drawing near-capacity crowds, Tigrett’s aims are not nearly so modest.

The Hard Rock Cafe co-founder harbors global aspirations for the House of Blues far beyond the restaurant-nightclub business. Having already moved the company into merchandising, publishing, interactive multimedia and TV and radio production, he’s now mapping plans for tour promotion and sports marketing divisions . . . and, eventually, a hotel in Chicago.

The launch of his most recent expansion project--a House of Blues record label--will be celebrated Thursday with a concert at the club featuring gospel singer Cissy Houston and several blues-related acts.

Where is this leading?

“Hopefully to where it was designed to go, which is to become an international media brand associated with live music and entertainment,� Tigrett says. “We will be the only brand synonymous with live music through every form of media on an international basis.�

Starting a record label, he says, is a logical step in his quest to spread the gospel of the blues.

“We want to support obscure musicians,� says Tigrett, whose label roster includes the veteran gospel group the Blind Boys of Alabama. “We see these artists having a much better chance to sell records and get exposure through our whole media program.

“What other record company can say to an artist, ‘We will put you on the radio, we will put you on TV, we will create a Web site for you on the Internet and we will put you in the hottest venues in the country’?�

Tigrett, 46, laughs when asked if he’s worried about spreading himself too thin.

“I’m a seven-day-a-week, 18-hours-a-day worker,� says Tigrett, who plans to add about a dozen more House of Blues clubs to the West Hollywood, New Orleans and Cambridge, Mass. outlets. “And I have a wonderful, wonderful family of friends and cohorts here who help me pull it off.�

HOB Entertainment Inc. employs about 900 people in its various divisions. Total revenues last year were nearly $50 million, according to Nathaniel Lipman, senior vice president and general counsel for the company. (He declined to reveal figures on the West Hollywood club.)

And while the House of Blues’ various projects might seem divergent, Lipman says, “they’re really not when you think of them as ancillary to the core business, which is live music. . . . They’re all synergistic.�

*

But synergy couldn’t stop “Live From the House of Blues,� the company’s self-produced television show, from getting axed in January by TBS, which canceled the show after airing it for a year. A spokeswoman for the cable channel said it was unable to build an audience for the show because of numerous conflicts with late-running sporting events--mostly Atlanta Braves baseball games.

The House of Blues, which hopes to find a home for its TV show on VH1, has fared better on another medium.

The weekly “House of Blues Radio Hour,� hosted by Elwood Blues (a.k.a. Dan Aykroyd), is distributed by the CBS Radio Network to more than 140 stations nationwide and is syndicated worldwide by Armed Forces Radio.

“It does great,� says Mike Morrison, program director at KSCA-FM (101.9), which airs the hourlong show on Sundays at 9 p.m. as a lead-in to “The Dr. Demento Show.� “Sunday nights are one of our biggest ratings nights.�

Tigrett, borrowing a line from the 1980 movie “The Blues Brothers,� claims the House of Blues is “on a mission from God� to introduce the blues to a mainstream audience, but critics say that what he’s doing is co-opting African American culture for his own gain. According to a New York Times article published late last year, detractors say his club “reduces one of the most profound forms of American music to a Disney cartoon.�

Tigrett, though, continues his mission. This summer, the House of Blues will present a pair of concert tours--one package starring Joe Cocker, Buddy Guy and the Fabulous Thunderbirds and another, which is being called a “black Lollapalooza,� featuring the Fugees, Ziggy Marley, Cypress Hill, Spearhead and D’Angelo.

“That’s a strong package,� says Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks the concert business. “It stands out because there isn’t really anything out there like it in the same musical genre.�

Bongiovanni calls it another bold step by the House of Blues, which since its opening on May 1, 1994, has booked a diverse lineup of artists, ranging from John Lee Hooker and Johnny Cash to Ice Cube and Eric Clapton.

*

Two years in a row, Pollstar has honored the House of Blues as its nightclub of the year. And both years the club’s booker, Ken Morrow, has been honored as the talent buyer of the year.

Purists, however, have questioned the club’s eclectic lineup, saying that blues isn’t heard often enough at the House of Blues.

“I wish to God that I could do blues every night and pack the club, but it’s not going to happen,� Morrow says. “About the only shows we’ve done that don’t do the numbers we have to do are the blues shows. It’s really sad. Everybody talks about how they want more blues, but the reality is, they don’t go out and support it.�

Still, Bongiovanni says it’s hard to find fault with the artists featured at the House of Blues.

“You really only have to look at the kind of acts that are going in there and playing to get a sense of how important that club is in the marketplace,� he says. “It’s been obvious since the club opened that it was the golden place to play.�

* Cissy Houston, Jimmy Rip and other House of Blues Music Co. artists play Thursday at the House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, 8:15 p.m. $12.50. (213) 650-0476.