[HossC]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

This is a snapshot from 1973. The marquee on the location does not look as though it says Art LaBoe's and all sources I've read, including their website, say that The Comedy Store opened there in 1972.


NickFaitos/Flicker

Art Laboe's sign was yellow, as shown in the image below, so it could be his sign in the photo above.

Originally Posted by HossC

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Originally Posted by Martin Pal

On L.A. Curbed's "Mapping Radio Legend Art Laboe's Los Angeles Through the Years," their paragraph about 8433 Sunset Blvd. says: "Early in Art's L.A. career, he did a stint interviewing celebrities at this Sunset Strip restaurant. Later, in the 1970's, Laboe bought Ciro's (then an ailing special events venue) and turned it into the Art Laboe Club. Old photos make it look like he shared the building with a smaller version of the Comedy Store; the building is entirely the Comedy Store now."

Source: https://la.curbed.com/maps/mapping-r...ough-the-years

I do not find any source that LaBoe had purchased the Ciro's location. This source had a link to the website that it said "old photos make it look like he shared it with the comedy store", and two other sites I looked at have the website as a link but it is not working as of now.

The 1974 article from Billboard that I posted above mentions Laboe's interviews there and a 1967 New Year's Eve party. Although it doesn't say that he owned the venue, he opened his club in June 1972, and opened an upstairs section in October 1972 which he was still using when the article was written in 1974. Here are a few paragraphs to save you scrolling up - the full excerpt is here.

"At one time Larry Finley and I had done an interview show in the lobby of Ciro's, a popular club on the strip. We talked to movie stars like Clark Gable, Tyrone Power, Gary Cooper and so on.

"Anyway, the club had run through a succession of failures and by 1967 was being used primarily for private parties. I went to a New Year's Eve party there that year and decided that I wanted to do something with the club. But I was busy with the label at the time and a group called Dyke & the Blazers, so I temporarily shelved the idea."

In June, 1972, however, Laboe opened Art Laboe's Club. It was launched as an oldies club, open 8:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. weekends, featuring as many as eight acts a night and including a $3.50 admission price with no requirement to buy food or drink once inside.

In October, 1972, an upstairs section of the club opened and ever since, Laboe has been broadcasting from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. weekends over KRTH-FM, an oldies station. He takes dedications just as he did in the old days.