Summer of love at The New Penelope
Image: Ad for Owed To The Blues appearance at The New Penelope. The Montreal Star newspaper, July 29, 1967
Transcription: NEW PENELOPE / 378 Sherbrooke St. West / 844-6773 / SAT. & SUN. / Owed To The Blues / Coming Sept. 4-16 / Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
Credit: ARCMTL collection. Interview was conducted in Montreal on June 3, 2021 with Jim Mathewson by Louis Rastelli, Director of ARCMTL.
Duration: 1:01 min
In this interview excerpt, Jim Mathewson, former band member of Owed To The Blues, recalls playing regularly at The New Penelope during the summer of 1967.
Transcription:
Jim Mathewson: Our band, the Owed To The Blues, somehow we never did a main gig at the New Penelope, but they gave us a gig on Sunday nights, which was probably about what we were capable of pulling off.
And we had, I mean, we had a very good singer, but we went through personnel changes too. But, anyway, so we played quite a number of times. I don’t know, we probably played eight or ten times or something over the summer of ’67 on Sunday nights.
We didn’t get paid much. But they let us come in, we got to come in to a lot of the shows for free, which was great. And we certainly came in and spent time with Sidetrack and with Andy, and we were friends.