It is yet another Washington institution that has vanished. Gone with the likes of the Cellar Door, the Bayou, Desperados, the Psychedelly, Mr. Henry's, Emergency, the Keg and others it almost seems like a relic of a simpler time. The Childe Herold opened originally back in 1967 as a simple restaurant and bar on 20th Street in Dupont Circle. Named after a Lord Byron poem called Childe Herold's Pilgrimage the Childe would mature along with its young musical brethren into adolescense adulthood and finally into senior citizen status when it closed down this month after 40 years.
Those of us from Montgomery county would start the musical bar hopping at Bethesda's Psychedelly and after last call at 1:00am would proceed to the Friendship Heights Tenley Circle area of Mr Henry's or Friendship Station and inevitably close out the night and usually most of the next day at the Childe. It was after hours and after closing time in the attic of the Childe where DC debauchery would soar to new heights.
Much of it was inspired and promulgated by a true Washington legend who will never be found in any museum monument or history book. His name was Bill Heard and he owned the Childe. Bill liked to drink a lot and in his state of inebriation was never one to mince words or refrain from expressing how he really felt. Bill would insult some of the highest and the mightiest and in this town you were a nobody unless you were on the receiving end of a berage of Bill Heard insults.
Some of the finest musicians got their start as nobodies at the Childe Harold and learned to weather the Bill Heard storm. A young Emmy Lou Harris played the Childe as a folk singer just about the time she was discovered here in DC by Gram Parsons. The Blues singing Bonnie Raitt could match Bill not only with the bottle but with her acerbic tongue as well. Some of the giants of the Folk scene would have their pacifist leanings compromised by a ranting Bill Heard. I remember one evening at the Childe when the most stately Grande Dame of Folk Odetta was chasing Bill around the club screaming with her fists clenched in an ominous pose. Or the night that the late Dave Van Ronk one time mentor to Bob Dylan was frantically swinging his prized Martin guitar at Bill's head.
I never thought of the Childe Herold as Washington's answer to CBGB's since it mostly featured folk blues and roots acts but one band that played some of it's first dates in DC there was the Ramones who appeared at the Childe at about the same time they recorded half of Rocket to Russia with Jon Bon Jovi's cousin Tony BonGiovi at Track studios in Silver Spring. It seems the Ramones and Bill heard were both Punks at heart.
There were many transcendent performances at the Childe. Professor Longhair performing with a trio evoking the spirits of Mardi Gras was one. But of course the Childe Herold will forever be known as the place where Bruce Springsteen and the evolving E street band played some of their earliest Washington dates in front of about 70 people. You see that's all about the Childe could hold. There was no stage and the band would play in a corner in front of a window overlooking 20th Street. Billy Hancock who played bass with Liz Meyer and opened those legendary dates was recently on the morning show recalling meeting Bruce for the first time at the Childe. He says Bruce asked him where the stage was and Hancock promptly pointed to the corner near the window. No really Bruce said where is the stage? That is the stage Hancock said. Well how are the E Street band all gonna fit there Bruce replied. Very carefully Hancock exclaimed.
The Childe Herold was a place of legends unlike any monument in Washington.
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