The Bayou nightclub

Nightclub

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

 of Georgetown

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

Georgetown is a neighborhood located in northwest Washington, D.C., situated along the Potomac River. Founded in 1751, the port of Georgetown predated the establishment of the federal district and the City of Washington by 40 years...

, Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, was a rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

, and reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 club.

In the late '90s, the Bayou was owned by Dave Williams (Cellar Door Productions), who was also responsible for putting on the concerts at DAR Constitution Hall

DAR Constitution Hall

DAR Constitution Hall is a concert hall in Washington, D.C. It was built in 1929 by the Daughters of the American Revolution to house its annual convention when membership delegations outgrew Memorial Continental Hall. Later, the two buildings were connected by a third structure housing the DAR...

 and the Capital Centre

Capital Centre

The Capital Centre was an indoor arena located in Landover, Maryland, unincorporated Prince George's County, Maryland; a suburb of Washington, D.C. Completed in 1973, the arena sat 18,756 for basketball and 18,130 for hockey....

. Williams also was the GM at the Nissan Pavilion

Nissan Pavilion

Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia, is an outdoor live performance amphitheater in suburban Prince William County, about 35 miles west of Washington, DC...

.

Location

The Bayou occupied an old building at 3135 K Street

K Street

K Street can refer to:* K Street , a street located in Washington, D.C.** By metonymy, the U.S. lobbying industry, many of whose firms have offices on this street* K Street Project, a lobbying effort by the Republican Party...

, NW, in Georgetown, under the Whitehurst Freeway for forty-six years. The club opened in September 1953 on the site of a former Dixieland

Dixieland

Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...

 nightclub called The Pirates Den. The club featured Dixieland jazz until the early '60s when the format changed to rock and roll.

The club included a balcony level, with tables and chairs, and two standing room only bars. The main floor bars were fed bottled liquor from a "tap" room that was situated above the entrance. Bottles placed upside down into funnels feeding long tubing led to the downstairs bars.

Clientele

Though the Bayou generally attracted an older crowd , the club also featured a diverse following including college students from Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

, men and women from the many military installations in the DC area and The Pentagon

The Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

.

The Bayou was a stop on the national tours of middle-range musical groups and solo artists. The club hosted late 20th century bands such as Foreigner, U2

U2

U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

(2nd show in the United States, , the Dave Matthews Band

Dave Matthews Band

Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...

, Hootie & the Blowfish

Hootie & the Blowfish

Hootie & the Blowfish is an American rock band that enjoyed popularity in the second half of the 1990s. They were originally formed in 1986 at the University of South Carolina by Darius Rucker, Dean Felber, Jim Sonefeld, and Mark Bryan. The band has recorded five studio albums to date, and has...

, Kiss

KISS (band)

Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...

, and other artists that influenced the evolution of rock as well as rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 from the '60s through the '90s.

Timeline

• Opened 1939.
• Changed to the Bayou in 1953 with Owners Mike Munley, Vince and Tony Tramonte
• Converted to Rock ‘n’ Roll September 1965, The Telstars played the Bayou as a house band for 3 years.
• 1980 The Tramontes sell the Bayou to Cellar Door Productions
• In September 1996, Eva Cassidy
  Eva Cassidy
  Eva Marie Cassidy was an American vocalist known for her interpretations of jazz, blues, folk, gospel, country and pop classics. In 1992 she released her first album, The Other Side, a set of duets with go-go musician Chuck Brown, followed by a live solo album, Live at Blues Alley in 1996...
  
  performed for the last time with "What a Wonderful World" at The Bayou.
• Closed 1998, and is currently the site of Loews Cinema
• Razed 1999

The Bayou will be the subject of a documentary that is being produced by Metro Teleproductions Inc. Maryland Public Television has agreed to air the documentary. The air date is tentatively scheduled for late 2012.