![]() “Developers were coming in and they wanted our property. Members of the Midtown Ponce Security Alliance flooded the City Council with complaints, alleging there was rampant drug use and prostitution taking place at the club. John Lewis, Cathy Woolard, Bill Campbell, Shirley Franklin and Vincent Fort also made speeches to the crowd.Įventually, some of those politicians who came to the club in the middle of the night and sought out the support of Backstreet voters decided it was time to do away with 24-hour nightlife in Atlanta and supported closing down such clubs.īackstreet’s last call was New Year’s Eve 2004 after the club lost a protracted legal battle to keep pouring at all hours. Barney Frank made a stop one night, Brown said. The club also was a popular stop for politicians stumping for votes and seeking the gay vote. “ was the grandmother club of Atlanta’s nightlife,” Brown said. They would come in incognito, with no fanfare, and enjoy the show and dancing just like everyone else. Plenty of other celebrities came to Backstreet and witnessed the showstopper that was Charlie Brown and his cabaret, including Elton John and even Janet Jackson, he said. “And it made it in Peach Buzz the next day,” Brown said. The crowd exploded with shouts and applause and security raced to see what was happening, Brown said. “I said there was no way Cathy Rigby would come to my show, so I told her if you’re really Cathy Rigby, do a back flip-and she back flipped all the way across my floor,” Brown said. In 1993, former gymnast Cathy Rigby was starring in “Annie Get Your Gun” and after a performance at the Fox took in some Atlanta nightlife at Backstreet. “We’d be standing out there in our beards doing drag all night.” and people would still be begging us to do more,” Brown said. ![]() Charlie Brown and Lily White (Courtesy photo) That same night, he was offered the third floor at Backstreet and in 1991 Charlie Brown’s Cabaret was born, featuring the best in Atlanta’s drag scene. But the star every night for more than 20 years was drag legend Charlie Brown.Ĭharlie Brown was doing a drag show at Tallulah’s, a lesbian bar in Buckhead, when he got the boot from that club. The disco stars always brought in huge crowds. “And years later I got to meet the Weather Girls when they performed at Backstreet.” “The first song I ever danced to with a guy was ‘It’s Raining Men,’” remembered Grooms. “I loved it because we finally had such a good reputation … it always had been like a family.”īackstreet earned national and international acclaim during these years and attracted some of the hottest acts of the time – Sylvester, Gladys Knight, the Weather Girls. “When we went 24 hours, crowds sorted and the straight people went upstairs,” Vara said. When Backstreet became a private 24-hour club around 1985 or 1986, the club truly took off, Vara said, and on a good weekend, some 6,000 people would pass through the front doors. “It was strictly gay and exclusive in the beginning.” I thought it was just wonderful,” Vara said, who later owned the club with her brother, Henry. Before it became a 24-hour club in the mid-1980s, Backstreet was known for its Sunday T-dances, Vara said. It was an incredible feeling being there.”īackstreet was purchased by Vicki Vara’s father in the mid-1970s and the club was first named Encore. “It was a place where we could be ourselves. “It wasn’t safe anywhere, but it was safe there,” Grooms said. The club became a home while the bartenders, the staff, the drag queens, the partiers were their family.įeatured on HBO, the Travel Channel, MTV, VH1 and numerous Atlanta TV shows, Backstreet welcomed everyone and provided that safe haven so many sought. It was something I never experienced before in my life.”Īsk anyone who danced at Backstreet during its heydays in the 1980s and 1990s and you will likely hear similar stories. “I thought I was the only person like me. I broke down on the dance floor,” he said. The expansive 47,000-square-foot building with three levels at the corner of Peachtree Street and 6th Street was alive with hundreds of men dancing together to booming beats under an electric light show and that unforgettable, giant shimmering disco ball. And when Grooms entered the legendary nightspot, he was overwhelmed by what he saw and felt. “That’s what we were called back then,” Grooms, now 56, said of the invitation. One Friday night, a co-worker told the 20-year-old Grooms, “I’m going to take you to a fag club.” It was 1983 and Mitch Grooms had just moved to Atlanta from rural Paris, Tenn., where he found work at a Krystal restaurant on Jimmy Carter Boulevard in Norcross.
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