Old Time Rock 'n' Roll

Steven Rosen is a longtime Cincinnati arts journalist whose first book, Lost Cincinnati Concert Venues of the '50s and '60s From the Surf Club to Ludlow Garage is now available, with a foreword by Jim Tarbell.

Cincinnati during those decades offered an incredible number of of live music and entertainment venues that now are gone. Some, like Tarbell's countercultural rock club Ludlow Garage or Cincinnati Gardens, are familiar. Others, like the West Side's Surf Club, where incendiary comedian Lenny Bruce performed, or Babe Baker's Jazz Club, which hosted John Coltrane in what some who attended consider one of Cincinnati's greatest concerts ever, are not.

Some well-known places even had shows that are now fabled, like Iggy Pop at the Summer Pop Festival at Crosley Field or a young Rolling Stones with Brian Jones at the Gardens. The book also provides detailed coverage of The Beatles' two Cincinnati shows. We talked to Rosen about the book and those heady days of Cincinnati’s music scene.