The legacy of Dorothy Hill, the late, much-loved doyenne of blues and jazz in the Bay Area, isn’t the only thing being celebrated at Biscuits and Blues on Saturday, Oct. 26. Yes, the evening is billed as a tribute to Hill, who was an elegant, engaging presence and a supporter of the arts; she died in September 2023. The baker’s dozen of blues, soul, and R&B musicians convening for the event are set to honor her, as well as the downtown San Francisco spot where they’re playing, which just reopened in June after being closed for five years.
Steven Suen has been the man at Biscuits and Blues since 2006, when he stepped in to manage the venue; he and his wife Tina purchased it two years later.
“We were all pulling for Steve to reopen,” says guitarist and singer-songwriter Jeffrey James Horan, who’s been performing at the joint since the early 2000s, when he was still a high school student in San Jose. “This has been the best blues club in Northern California — with great sound, a really cool room, very intimate, where you’re right there, looking people in the face. And Steve and Tina have taken care of us. They’ve given us good food and drink, if you like that Southern cuisine — fried chicken, mashed potatoes, jambalaya, and of course, great biscuits.”
“It’s a nice setup at the club,” adds vocalist Tony Lindsay, who in the past appeared at Biscuits whenever he wasn’t on the road or recording as part of Santana, the band for which he was the lead singer for 25 years. “All of us musicians like working there. It’s right in the heart of San Francisco.”
Biscuits and Blues opened in 1995 on Mason Street, a block from Union Square, during what Tom Mazzolini, producer of the erstwhile San Francisco Blues Festival, refers to as “the blues resurgence.”
Mississippi-born chef Regina Charboneau, the venue’s founder, named it after one of her most famous recipes and her favorite musical form.
When the Hong Kong-born Suen, then in real estate, was drawn to the club a decade later, “it had gathered so much of a reputation, [receiving] awards. Everyone loved it, but it was not making money,” he recounts. “So I came in to rescue it.” He abandoned his real estate business “because you could not let your guard down. You had to work on [the venue] 24/7. Too many things had to go right. It was a beast that had to be tamed, and it remained a beast.”
After a decade of ownership, Suen became aware of a slow leakage coming from the club’s ceiling, over which ran the pipes for the second-floor toilets of the adjoining Jack in the Box franchise. By 2019, the leak had become an impending foul-smelling flood, and Suen was forced to suspend operations. “Because of that, we had to get into a legal battle with our neighbor,” he says. “It brought us down to earth.”
Suen sued Jack in the Box for the cost of repairs. The restaurant chain placed the onus on the property’s landlord, who in turn demanded payment from Jack in the Box. The struggle persisted for four and a half years.
“Me and Steve are pretty doggone close,” says Lindsay. “I told him, ‘They have so much money. They can keep you in court forever because they know you’re going to run out of money way before they do.’”
Ultimately, the parties agreed to a settlement, and Suen then spent eight months on restorations. Before the reopening of Biscuits in June, “I improved the audio. I installed a Meyer Sound system with speakers and amplifier.” Suen chuckles, “The only other major thing I changed is our own restrooms.”
Suen has recommitted to his mission of “connecting audiences with their favorite artists and finding artists before they become famous.” He admits that “I knew nothing about the blues when I first walked into Biscuits. I did not even know who Muddy Waters was.” To bolster his bourgeoning experience, “I now go to Memphis a couple of times a year, and I attend the International Blues Challenge, where all the artists compete. I basically go through the 130 bands in that week and decide which ones I want to spend more time on, which have more potential and talent. I love music and know what great music is, and I have an ear for it.”
Suen points out that he had invited the Oakland-based singer-songwriter Fantastic Negrito (born Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz) to perform at Biscuits even before the now world-renowned performer had assembled a band. “And he came back to play at Biscuits as a thank-you. And I booked Kingfish [guitarist Christone Ingram] when he was 16. He played every year here till he was 19, and then he took off. I believe in my instincts. I don’t book a band because they bring in people. In fact, there was a band that filled the house at Biscuits, and I didn’t book them again because they weren’t aligned with my reputation. They were really not that great. I’m looking at this like an art display.”
Since reopening, Suen has seen fans returning. “There was a couple who came in with their 6- and 7-year-old [children], and they told me it had been 10 years since their first date at my place. Celebrities show up here, too, but people don’t bother them because the beautiful thing is this place provides for the general public. It’s a community thing. Local people come, but there are also people from Europe and around the world.”
Echoing a refrain heard at other downtown music venues, like those involved in the Jazz Passport program supported by the city of San Francisco, Suen says business has been shadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a media focus on urban blight and crime. “But I say downtown is a few times better than during the pandemic,” he maintains, citing cleaner streets and greater police presence. “There was an exodus with people moving out of the city, and the convention center lost a lot of clients. All the big-pocketed people are waiting for change, and they’re not going to put money out [until after the November 2024 elections]. But I see some people moving back now.”
Suen hopes that this month’s Dorothy Hill celebration will help counter his impression that “70 percent of our fans still don’t know we reopened.” He says Hill was a faithful patron “from day one. When we had great shows, she was always here and felt this was her club. She was a lovely lady, and I do miss her.”
“If Dorothy didn’t come to your gig, you were worth nothing, and if Dorothy showed up, you knew you had a good deal,” comments singer-songwriter Lady Bianca, who’s been working Bay Area venues since the 1970s, including a stint as Billie Holiday in Jon Hendricks’s Evolution of the Blues revue in North Beach.
Bianca is scheduled to solo in the second of six sets of music and conversation on Oct. 26. “It was her persona,” the musician says about Hill. “She didn’t have to say anything. It was just that little lady with the white hair and the black-rimmed glasses. It was just, ‘If Dorothy’s there, you’d better show up.’ You knew you had something fantastic, and she’s going to be talking about you.”
Hill served for a time as president of the Golden Gate Blues Society (which granted Bianca a Living Legend Award in 2023) and was blues editor for the online publication JazzNow, as well as a contributor to other American and European outlets. She shot thousands of photographs of blues and jazz artists, many of them at Biscuits — a selection of which are being collected in book form by her son Tim, the producer of Saturday’s show.
The culminating set on Oct. 26 is expected to see all of the participating musicians packed together on the small stage for a rendition of “The Thrill Is Gone,” as made famous by B.B. King.
“My coming in for Dorothy will give me an opinion of whether I’d like to come back and perform at Biscuits,” says Bianca.
“I’ve been playing there solo,” says Horan. “And when a night opens, Steve may bring my Jeffrey James Trio in.”
“I have two different groups I work with at Biscuits,” adds Lindsay. “I know people love music, and they’ll seek out where the blues is at, and that’s never going to stop. You put some music on, and people will be dancing with each other, instead of fighting with each other. It allows you to make friends — for a little while, anyway.”
