Uh oh...
It appears that you're using a severely outdated version of Safari on Windows. Many features won't work correctly, and functionality can't be guaranteed. Please try viewing this website in Edge, Mozilla, Chrome, or another modern browser. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused!
Read More about this safari issue.
One sure sign of a truly enduring tradition is when it has been going on for so long, no one can quite pinpoint exactly when it started. When it just kind of becomes engrained in the culture. When it becomes what we do, because it is what we’ve always done.
There are a few examples of this we can think of in Fayetteville. The first person to call the Hogs, we’d imagine, has certainly been lost to time. That tradition has become so synonymous with the state that it is something we teach our children as soon as they can raise their hands and wiggle their fingers, but we don’t know know exactly who started it.
Who drank the first beer on Dickson Street? Who picnicked on the first blanket on Old Main Lawn? Who swung on the first swing at Wilson Park? Somebody knows, or knew, but it’s certainly not us.
That’s kind of how it has been with live music every Friday night at quittin’ time at George’s Majestic Lounge for the past several decades. Somebody knows how, or when it got started, but it’s not the current owners of Fayetteville’s most storied live music venue.
“I have been asking about when and how it started and have struck out so far,” said Brian Crowne, who has owned the bar with his wife, Day since 2004. “I know I played my first happy hour show on a Friday in late 1989. You played from 5-6 p.m. for a $1 cover, then played 9 p.m. until 1 a.m. for a $5 cover back then.”
That, of course, was 35 years ago, but the tradition goes back at least a little further than that.
“I started going to George’s in 1972 to get out of the Sigma Nu house and shoot pool. I don’t think there was a beer garden or happy hour back then,” longtime local attorney, musician, and live music supporter Neal Pendergraft recalled. “When I moved back to Fayetteville in 1982, George’s had the garden and always had good music.”
That narrows it down a bit, we suppose.
Like some of the best traditions, the formula is simple and repeatable. For happy hour at George’s, all you need is an early show on a Friday night, some good, often familiar music played by a talented group of musicians, an affordable cover charge, and a lovable cast of characters ready to shake off the cares of the week on a crowded dance floor.
Ultra Suede will celebrate 30 years of performing together later this month, and the band also has the fondest of memories playing happy hour.
“When we first started playing, there was no roof (in the beer garden at George’s), just a patio,” recalled Chaddie Platt, one of the founders of Ultra Suede. “We would play 6-7 p.m., then come back for the later gig. It was aways so hot out there, I would have to go home and change and come back in a new outfit.
“I also remember that rock floor out there,” Platt said. “You had to be careful out there when you were dancing.”
The bands
The Cate Brothers / Courtesy
Of all the bands that have graced the inside or garden stage at George’s Majestic Lounge over the years, there is one unquestioned king of happy hour bands at George’s. Or kings, we suppose. Twin kings.
Legendary group The Cate Brothers, featuring twin brothers Earl and Ernie Cate, have been packing the venue on Friday nights for decades.
The band, who has been active since the 70s, has long been synonymous with happy hour at George’s. They play several times per year, including every December for the brothers’ birthday.
For many in Fayetteville, a Cate Brothers happy hour show at George’s is an event not to be missed.
“In 1989 I took my wife on our first date to see Earl and Ernie. Since then we rarely missed a Cate’s show,” Pendergraft told us. “Earl is one of my favorite guitar players ever.”
Longtime happy hour patron Mark Blackwood echoed Pendergraft’s sentiment.
“The bands were mostly great and familiar. Of course you had the Cates,” Blackwood said. “I’ve tried to see the Cates every chance I got for decades now.”
The Cates’ other projects, including The Traveling Wheel Bearings, Earl & Them, and others, have also become mainstays on the happy hour stage. Earl & Them just played last weekend.
Continue reading at Fayetteville Flyer
We do the work.
You check your email.
Sign up for our weekly e-news.
Get stories sent straight to your inbox!
Like this story? Read more from Fayetteville Flyer - Dustin Bartholomew
When the Olympic games kick off next week in Paris, Razorback fans won't...
Summer officially lasts until Sept. 22, but in terms of the college...
It’s official. Hall of Fame coach John Calipari is the head coach of...
Join the Conversation
Leave a Comment