The Dream Bowl

Once I told someone that I had been in a house band at a dance hall. They asked “what’s a dance hall?” I remember two in the Bay Area in the 1950’s, the Garden of Allah on the Niles-Alvarado Road in southern Alameda County, and The Dream Bowl, on state highway 29 between Vallejo and Napa.

Buck Owens died shortly after performing a show, at age 76, on March 25, 2006. I assume Johnny Cash had been disabled for a while before his death at age 71 on September 12, 2003. They had a lot more in common than appearing at the Dream Bowl, but being at the Dream Bowl is having a lot in common. Johnny Cash mentioned the place at a show he and June Carter did in Marin County on October 16, 1993. I was surprised he remembered the Dream Bowl. It was a small stop on a big tour in 1959. Black Jack Wayne and the Roving Gamblers was the house band. Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two (Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant) were the featured performers the one and only night I ever went to the Dream Bowl. After Buck Owens passed away, though, other people came out with recollections of the Dream Bowl. Buck Owens appeared there a few times, according to what they said. Well it makes sense. Johnny Rodriguez the Texan appears mainly in Texas - why shouldn't Buck Owens the Californian appear in California? As far as I can tell, the building is still there. Over the years it had housed a furniture store, and I suppose other businesses. An environmental monitoring company is there now. A little north of Napa is the California Veterans' Retirement Home in Yountville. My sister lived there for twenty years. Every time we visited her, it was my custom to point out the Dream Bowl as we passed by.

The Dream Bowl was still in business in 1969. The Grateful Dead had a gig there in February that year. You can find lots of material on the internet about that night, including recordings of the show.