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Gabe’s Oasis

Gabe’s Oasis

ADDRESS
330 E Washington St · Iowa City, IA 52240
PLACE TYPE
Happenings Haunts and Hangouts
NEIGHBORHOOD
Downtown

The legendary bar known as Gabe’s Oasis, first started as Gabe and Walker’s back in the early 70′s and, while it has gone through many transformations, it is strangely the same.  This place has operated for years bringing some of the best live music available to Iowa City. Gabe’s brings high quality local, regional and national shows to Iowa City, with a beer garden out back and two floors of music and social space.

Stories
Place

T.C Boyle: Gabe’s

I was a student at Iowa when I wrote ‘Stones in my Passway, Hellhound on my Trail’. The entirety of the research consisted of listening to the [Robert Johnson] album twelve million times, reading the liner notes twice, and deciding – seeing, knowing – the true version of Robert Johnson’s death. For period detail I went down to Gabe and Walker’s [now Gabe’s in Iowa City] where my friend Blue Phil Ajioka was taking a break between sets and asked, ‘Phil, what kind of guitar did Robert Johnson play?’ Phil said, in his bluesman’s basso, ‘That’d be a Harmony Sovereign.’ Story over.

Interview, Wag’s Revue, Issue 2: http://wagsrevue.com/Issue_2/#/12