History

Mister Kelly's was a nightclub

Nightclub

A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

 on 1028 North Rush Street

Rush Street (Chicago)

Rush Street is predominantly a northbound one-way street in the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...

 in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 which operated from 1957 to 1975 that specialized in live performances, notably by popular jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 artists.

The location formerly occupied by Mister Kelly's is now Gibsons Steakhouse.

There is a club in Osaka, Japan named "Mister Kelly's" but it is no relation to the original club in Chicago.

An outside shot of the club was shown during the opening credits

Opening credits

In a motion picture, television program, or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There...

 of the TV series Crime Story

Crime Story

Crime Story is a 1993 Hong Kong action crime film starring Jackie Chan and directed by Kirk Wong, who also stars in the film.Unlike nearly all of Chan's other films, which feature a combination of action and comedy, Crime Story is serious-minded and dramatic , with action scenes that are violent...

. The series was set in 1963 Chicago, and the club was no longer in business when the show debuted in 1986.

Performers

Artists who performed at Mister Kelly's included:

Musicians

• Blood, Sweat and Tears
• Jerry Butler
  Jerry Butler (singer)
  Jerry Butler is an American soul singer and songwriter. He is also noted as being the original lead singer of the R&B vocal group, The Impressions, as well as a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.Butler is also an American politician...
  
  
• Clarence Carter
  Clarence Carter
  Clarence Carter is a blind American soul singer and musician.-Life and career:Born in Montgomery, Alabama on 14 January 1936, Carter attended the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega, Alabama, and Alabama State College in Montgomery, graduating in August 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree...
  
  
• Harry Chapin
  Harry Chapin
  Harry Forster Chapin was an American singer-songwriter best known in particular for his folk rock songs including "Taxi", "W*O*L*D", and the number-one hit "Cat's in the Cradle". Chapin was also a dedicated humanitarian who fought to end world hunger; he was a key player in the creation of the...
  
  
• June Christy
  June Christy
  June Christy , born Shirley Luster, was an American singer, known for her work in the cool jazz genre and for her silky smooth vocals. Her success as a singer began with The Stan Kenton Orchestra. She pursued a solo career from 1954 and is best known for her debut album Something Cool...
  
  
• Nat King Cole
  Nat King Cole
  Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
  
  
• Natalie Cole
  Natalie Cole
  Natalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...
  
  
• Bobby Darin
  Bobby Darin
  Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
  
  
• Miles Davis
  Miles Davis
  Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
  
  
• Sammy Davis Jr.
• Duke Ellington
  Duke Ellington
  Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
  
  
• Cass Elliot
  Cass Elliot
  Cass Elliot , born Ellen Naomi Cohen and also known as Mama Cass, was an American singer and member of The Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, she released five solo albums. Elliot was found dead in her room in London, England, from an apparent heart attack after two weeks of sold-out...
  
  
• Frances Faye
  Frances Faye
  Frances Faye was an American cabaret and show tune singer and pianist. She was born to a working-class Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City. She was a second cousin of actor Danny Kaye.-Career:...
  
  
• Ella Fitzgerald
  Ella Fitzgerald
  Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
  
  
• Erroll Garner
  Erroll Garner
  Erroll Louis Garner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad "Misty", has become a jazz standard...
  
  
• Buddy Greco
  Buddy Greco
  -Biography:He was born Armando Greco in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Greco began playing piano at the age of four. His first professional work was playing with Benny Goodman's band. Most of Greco's work has been in the jazz and pop genres...
  
  
• Billie Holiday
  Billie Holiday
  Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
  
  
• Lainie Kazan
  Lainie Kazan
  Lainie Kazan is an American actress and singer.-Personal life:Kazan was born Lanie Levine in Brooklyn, New York City, the daughter of a Russian Ashkenazi Jewish father who worked as a bookie and a Turkish Sephardic Jewish mother, Carole, whom Kazan has described as "neurotic, fragile and...
  
  
• B.B. King
• Morgana King
  Morgana King
  Morgana King is an American singer and actress. She is a noted jazz singer, who is regarded as a "musician's singer." The musical œuvre of her stylized vocal artistry spans a period of more than four decades and has an "appeal that bridges generations, tastes and life styles"."She is, like all...
  
  
• Eartha Kitt
  Eartha Kitt
  Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
  
  
• Anita O'Day
  Anita O'Day
  Anita O'Day was an American jazz singer.Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer"...
  
  
• Ramsey Lewis
  Ramsey Lewis
  Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis, Jr. is an American jazz composer, pianist and radio personality. Ramsey Lewis has recorded over 80 albums and has received seven gold records and three Grammy Awards so far in his career.-Biography:...
  
  
• Dorothy Loudon
  Dorothy Loudon
  Dorothy Loudon was an American comedy actress and singer. She won the 1977 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Miss Hannigan in Annie.-Early life and career:Loudon was born in...
  
  
• Barry Manilow
  Barry Manilow
  Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...
  
  
• Barbara McNair
  Barbara McNair
  Barbara McNair was an African American singer and actress.Born Barbara Jean McNair in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Racine, Wisconsin, McNair studied music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago...
  
  
• Carmen McRae
  Carmen McRae
  Carmen Mercedes McRae was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable...
  
  
• Bette Midler
  Bette Midler
  Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
  
  
• Liza Minnelli
  Liza Minnelli
  Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
  
  
• Arthur Prysock
  Arthur Prysock
  Arthur Prysock was an American jazz singer best known for his live shows and his baritone influenced by Billy Eckstine....
  
  
• Della Reese
  Della Reese
  Delloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese , is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You...
  
  
• Rufus
  Rufus (band)
  Rufus was an American funk band from Chicago, Illinois best known for launching the career of lead singer Chaka Khan. They had several hits throughout their career, including "Tell Me Something Good," "Sweet Thing," and "Ain't Nobody."-Origins:...
  
   (with Chaka Khan
  Chaka Khan
  Chaka Khan , frequently known as the Queen of Funk, is a 10-time Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter who gained fame in the 1970s as the frontwoman and focal point of the funk band Rufus. While still a member of the group in 1978, Khan embarked on a successful solo career...
  
  )
• Carly Simon
  Carly Simon
  Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...
  
  
• Nina Simone
  Nina Simone
  Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
  
  
• Frank Sinatra
  Frank Sinatra
  Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
  
  
• Carol Sloane
  Carol Sloane
  Carol Sloane is an American jazz singer born in Providence, Rhode Island, who has been singing professionally since she was 14, although for a time in the 1970s she worked as a legal secretary in Raleigh, North Carolina. She currently lives in Stoneham, Massachusetts.One of her early efforts was...
  
  
• O.C. Smith
• Barbra Streisand
  Barbra Streisand
  Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
  
  
• Mel Tormé
  Mel Tormé
  Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
  
  
• Sarah Vaughan
  Sarah Vaughan
  Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
  
  
• Dionne Warwick
  Dionne Warwick
  Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
  
  
• Dinah Washington
  Dinah Washington
  Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...
  
  
• Muddy Waters
  Muddy Waters
  McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
  
  

Comedians

• George Carlin
  George Carlin
  George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
  
  
• Woody Allen
  Woody Allen
  Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
  
  
• Kaye Ballard
  Kaye Ballard
  Kaye Ballard is an American musical theatre and television actress, comedienne, and singer.-Life and career:Ballard was born as Catherine Gloria Balotta in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Italian American family, the daughter of Lena and Vincent James Balotta.Ballard established herself as a musical...
  
  
• Shelley Berman
  Shelley Berman
  Sheldon "Shelley" Berman is an American comedian, actor, writer, teacher, lecturer, and poet.- Early life :Berman was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Irene and Nathan Berman.- Career :...
  
  
• David Brenner
  David Brenner
  David Brenner is an American standup comedian, actor, author, and filmmaker.-Career:Born and raised in poor areas of Philadelphia, Brenner found comedy a major source of relief from the daily trials and tribulations he faced in his youth. His neighborhood has been one of the top-ranked crime...
  
  
• Lenny Bruce
  Lenny Bruce
  Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
  
  
• Dick Cavett
  Dick Cavett
  Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues...
  
  
• Bill Cosby
  Bill Cosby
  William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...
  
  
• Rodney Dangerfield
  Rodney Dangerfield
  Rodney Dangerfield , was an American comedian, and actor, known for the catchphrases "I don't get no respect!," "No respect, no respect at all... that's the story of my life" or "I get no respect, I tell ya" and his monologues on that theme...
  
  
• Phyllis Diller
  Phyllis Diller
  Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
  
  
• Tom Dreesen
  Tom Dreesen
  Tom Dreesen is an American stand-up comedian.Dreesen grew up in Harvey, Illinois, south of Chicago. His family was one of the few white families in a largely African American community...
  
  
• Redd Foxx
  Redd Foxx
  John Elroy Sanford , better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American comedian and actor, best known for his starring role on the sitcom Sanford and Son.-Early life:...
  
  
• Shecky Greene
  Shecky Greene
  Shecky Greene is a comedian known for his nightclub performances in Las Vegas, where he has been a headliner for more than thirty years...
  
  
• Dick Gregory
  Dick Gregory
  Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur....
  
  
• Buddy Hackett
  Buddy Hackett
  Buddy Hackett was an American comedian and actor.-Early life:Hackett was born in Brooklyn, New York, New York, the son of a Jewish upholsterer. He grew up on 54th and 14th Ave in Borough Park, Brooklyn, across from Public School 103...
  
  
• George Kirby
  George Kirby
  George Kirby was an American comedian, singer, and actor from Chicago, Illinois.Kirby broke into show business in the 1940s at the Club DeLisa, a South Side establishment that employed a variety-show format and preferred to hire local singers, dancers, and comedians...
  
  
• Jack E. Leonard
  Jack E. Leonard
  Jack E. Leonard was an American comedian who made frequent appearances on television variety and game shows.-Biography:...
  
  
• Jackie Mason
  Jackie Mason
  Jackie Mason is an American stand-up comedian and movie actor.-Early life:Born Yacov Moshe Maza in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City....
  
  
• Bob Newhart
  Bob Newhart
  George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
  
  
• LaWanda Page
  LaWanda Page
  LaWanda Page , born Alberta Peal, was an American actress and comedienne best known for her portrayal of Aunt Esther in the 1970s TV sitcom Sanford and Son.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• Richard Pryor
  Richard Pryor
  Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
  
  
• Tim Reid
  Tim Reid
  Timothy L. "Tim" Reid is an American actor, comedian and film director best known for his roles in prime time American television programs, such as Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati , Marcel "Downtown" Brown on Simon & Simon , Ray Campbell on Sister, Sister and William Barnett on That 70's Show...
  
  
• Don Rickles
  Don Rickles
  Donald Jay "Don" Rickles is an American stand-up comedian and actor. A frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rickles has acted in comedic and dramatic roles, but is best known as an insult comic....
  
  
• Joan Rivers
  Joan Rivers
  Joan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...
  
  
• Mort Sahl
  Mort Sahl
  Morton Lyon "Mort" Sahl is a Canadian-born American comedian and actor. He occasionally wrote jokes for speeches delivered by President John F. Kennedy. He was the first comedian to record a live album and the first to perform on college campuses...
  
  
• The Smothers Brothers
• David Steinberg
  David Steinberg
  David Steinberg is a Canadian comedian, actor, writer, director, and author. At the height of his popularity, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was one of the best-known stand-up comics in the United States...
  
  
• Dustin Tooliver
• Jackie Vernon
• Flip Wilson
  Flip Wilson
  Clerow Wilson, Jr. , known professionally as Flip Wilson, was an American comedian and actor. In the early 1970s, Wilson hosted his own weekly variety series, The Flip Wilson Show...
  
  
• Hudson & Landry
  Hudson & Landry
  Hudson & Landry were an American comedy team who wrote and recorded four gold albums on the Dore Records label in the 1970s: "Hanging In There" , "Losing Their Heads" , "Right Off" , and "The Weird Kingdom"...
  
  

External links

• http://www.misterkellys.co.jp/roots/index.html Info page in Japanese with exterior photos
• Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s includes an excerpt about Mister Kelly's
• http://www.juilliard.edu/update/journal/554journal_story_0209.asp Bill Cosby talks about performing at Mister Kelly's