Published: September 10, 2009 06:08 pm      

DOWNTOWN: Singing the blues in the Falls

Former blues bar owner and friends compose the second annual festival

If the blues had a face, it might look something like Toby Rotella.

The Niagara Falls native’s life story is steeped with the ups and downs of a man who once ran one of the city’s most legendary blues clubs, paled around with blues legend Muddy Waters, lost part of his hearing driving race cars and holds an annual tail-gate at the cemetery in honor of his beloved deceased nephew.

In the blues tune of life, Rotella is at the rousing chorus and the City of Niagara Falls will enjoy the notes with him this weekend at the second annual Niagara Falls Blues Festival in the new West Mall downtown.

The festival, which officially debuted last year, has grown from the seeds of reunion events Rotella has hosted over the years to honor his long closed blues bar, The Imperial Garage. The bar built from an old car showroom featured some of the top names in blues in the early 1980s.

The back story of Rotella’s adventures in music began in the early ’70s after he stopped drag racing at the Niagara Drag Strip out near the airport.

As he remembers it, “my wife had quit me,” and “I didn’t have anything to do so I went to Toronto and met Muddy Waters.”

Waters, an international blues star, took a liking to the amiable Rotella. When Rotella eventually opened his blues bar on Third Street, Waters would headline, often stopping at Rotella’s house where Rotella’s mom Carmella would make him pasta and sweet potato pies.

The bar closed in 1984 after hosting a lineup of legendary blues and rock notables including BB King, Leon Redbone, Johnny Winter, Gregg Allman, Buckwheat Zydeco, Buddy Rich, and bands that ranged from Iron Butterfly to Herman’s Hermits.

“I didn’t make any money,” Rotella said. “I was too far ahead of my time. Everybody told me that. They’re still telling me that.”

If timing, as some say, is everything, than Rotella’s watch may hit just the right moment this weekend, at the two-day free live concert at the new West Mall downtown on the site of the old Wintergarten.

Rotella, who lives part time in Florida, comes back to his stomping grounds for the second year in a row to help create what he calls a blues tribute to his old bar.

He’s still not making any money, he said. “The money doesn’t go into my picket. The only money we make goes back into the economy here.”

Daria Sterner, who once worked as a bartender at the Imperial Garage is part of a volunteer trio of organizers who recently created a nonprofit organization with Rotella to spur the growth of the blues festival and create others.

“While the Imperial will always be a big piece of the birth of the festival, because a lot of people involved now come from the Imperial,” she said, “It’s grown way beyond that and we hope to grow it into a world class blues festival.”

The festival group, called the Niagara Festival and Entertainment Group, also includes blues lovers and Niagara area residents Bob Drozdowski and Sharen Kushner.

Drozdowski, who is also a director at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center, said the group is simply trying to produce an event “both the community and the tourists will enjoy.”

The city and local businesses have been a great support to the organizers, Drozdowski said. “It’s really a team effort and we’re all just pitching in to make this a huge event.”

“Our goal is to build this up to something like the Chicago Blues Festival,” he added. “We want to make this a festival people will talk about for years to come.”

Last year, at the first annual event held on Third Street, there were more than 2,500 people standing in wet, miserable weather, according to Rotella. “They were dancing in the rain until the end of the show,” he said.

This year, the festival group has upped the ante to two days, closing the event with an optimistic kick-off party at Legends Bar night for the 2010 Blues Festival.

In Rotella’s dreams, next year is a three-day event, and he’ll have started on his goal of bringing the blues into schools and growing a new audience of fans.

Rotella figures that unless he works hard to create more blues fans among the young people in the area the music that has played like a movie score throughout his life will no longer have a flourishing fan base in the region. His goal is to keep it alive.

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” he said of his hope to get young people listening. “I’m trying to hook ’em,” he said. “Because,” he adds with a nod for emphasis, “I’m not going to be here forever.”