The Grace Emily’s commitment to live music has been recognised with the hotel’s induction into the SA Music Hall of Fame
AN old-school bar on the wrong side of town that has nurtured some of our greatest talent, the Grace Emily has been officially recognised for its contribution to music. NATHAN DAVIES reports .
GRAB a pint in the front bar of the Grace Emily (a Coopers, it’s all they have) and you’ll notice a few things missing.
There’s no million-dollar retro-industrial fit out, no $25 hamburgers, no top-knotted “mixologists” preparing cocktails. And, perhaps most importantly, there’s no incessant electronic ping coming from the pokies lounge – because they don’t have a pokies lounge.
What the Grace does have is a small stage against the back wall of a space not much bigger than the average suburban lounge room, a stage that has hosted everyone from teenage troubadours playing their first public gig to some of the country’s most loved and respected musicians. It is the beating heart of this pub that time forgot.
Now the Grace Emily’s commitment to nurturing live music in all its forms has been officially recognised with the hotel’s induction into the South Australian Music Hall of Fame. The induction is a welcome pat on the back for co-owner George Swallow, who runs the pub with his business partner Symon Jarowyi.
George is the first to admit that there’s no fortune to be made running a live music pub – “Look at this place! It’s a dive!” he laughs – but the former drummer’s passion for what he’s helped to create at the western end of Waymouth St keeps him coming back every day.
“I’m the publican and I still pull beers – there’s not many of us left who still do that,” George says.
“I open that door in the afternoon, I close that door at the end of the night, I clean the toilets – it’s old school, but creating a place for live music has always been what we wanted to do.
“Getting those new bands in to cut their teeth and learn the ropes and be in an environment where there’s a decent PA system and a chance to learn, that’s why we’re here.
“Then there’s the opposite side of that, when we host the big national and international acts.”
George says the Grace’s philosophy of acceptance helped create a welcoming environment for musicians often used to playing in pubs where people are more interested in talking than listening.
“The Grace is about accepting everybody,” he says.
“It’s a community pub. Everybody who walks through that door is welcome.
“That’s why there’s all these things on the wall from different places – there’s Buddha, there’s Jesus, there’s Elvis, Chairman Mao, Anne Wills. It’s about family, and fostering that.
“There have been moments in here when you could have actually heard a pin drop, everyone is so focused on the music. Those are the nights when just closing the till drawer sounds so loud.
“When the audience is so attentive, so focused, that just blows the performer away.”
The Grace began its life in 1839 – just three years after Adelaide’s settlement – as the Launceston Hotel.
For a few years in the late 1800s it was known as the Whalers Return, before reclaiming the Launceston moniker. It was, George says, very much a working man’s pub.
“The West End has always been the West End,” he says.
“People say Hindley St is dodgy today, well it’s always been that way. There have been arrests here for people sleeping with ‘ladies of the night’, as they were called, in reports from the day. It’s had a colourful history.”
In 1998, the Launceston came up for sale and almost became the headquarters for a bikie gang, but their bid was knocked back by authorities.
That’s when music lovers and South Adelaide Football Club teammates Greg “Clanger” Kleynjans and Craig “Dewy” Dewhirst swooped in, bought the pub and renamed it the Grace Emily after their “footy mum”.
“Grace Emily was a great friend of the original owners,” George says.
“She looked after the boys, made sure they got to training on time, washed the guernseys.
“She was in tears when they named this after her, she was so proud of the pub.”
Grace died in 2004, but not before she’d called all of her pub “family” to her bedside to say goodbye.
“Grace rang up and said, ‘George, are you going to come and see me?’,” George says.
“So I visited her and she said, ‘I’m going to die tomorrow. Thanks for everything you’ve all done for me’. She died the next day.”
George, who started tending bar at the Grace in 1999, took over about six years ago when “Clanger” moved to Melbourne and “handballed the pub to me”.
Once the pub was his he set about changing ... absolutely nothing.
“I’d just get into trouble if I changed anything,” he laughs.
“I kept it exactly how it was – Coopers on tap, no kitchen, no food. Actually, we do have a barbecue at the Barbecue Jam, cooked by Jimmy One Leg, but that’s the extent of it.”
George knows the balance sheet might look better if the pub had a few poker machines, but it’s something he says he would never even consider.
“We can’t stand poker machines, we just think they’re evil,” he says.
“I’ve just heard too many stories and seen too many friends who have just lost so much to that addiction.”
The no-gambling ethos is relaxed, however, for one day every year.
“On Christmas morning our whole big Grace Emily family comes together for a barbecue out the front and we have a yabby race,” George says.
“That’s the extent of the gambling in this pub.
Billy Bob’s BBQ Jam has been running at the Grace every Monday night for more than 15 years.
The open mic night gives everyone the opportunity to sing three songs (usually – if you’re really bad you might only get one) in front of a live audience.
“You get a whole lot of shit and whole lot of gold,” George says.
“When Ringo Starr was playing in town we had his backing band playing, and Pink Floyd’s bass player (Guy Pratt) got up one night.”
Outside of the Jam, the Grace has played host to legends like Tim Rogers, Mick Thomas, Nick Barker, Justin Townes Earl and literally hundreds of others.
And if George has his way, that’s exactly what the pub will keep doing for decades to come.
The neighbourhood, however, is changing fast with apartments and student housing springing up at a rapid rate.
Directly across from the Grace workers are busily constructing a high-rise that will house up to 300 university students. George is nervous, but optimistic.
“If everyone knows that they’re coming to the city and the city has businesses in it and the city has night-life then there’s no reason why we can’t all get along,” he says.
“But if you move next to a live venue knowing that we do live music seven nights a week and you have an issue with this, then that’s a problem.”
The Grace Emily Hotel will be inducted into the SA Music Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the pub on Tuesday at 7.30pm