David Slutes was sitting on the Hotel Congress patio last Tuesday morning, soaking in the midmorning sun peaking through the trees.
Most of his adult life has been centered in the historic building, where business deals are brokered over hotel coffee and eggs over easy in the Cup Cafe and day drinking is not entirely discouraged in the lobby lounge. You can get nostalgic Clove, Black Jack and Beemans chewing gum from the front desk counter, which still has that turn of last century ambience.
But Slutes’ fingerprints are most evident in the iconic Club Congress. Slutes transformed what was a small footprint in the late 1990s into a thriving regional venue that hosts near nightly concerts from local, national and international musicians.
“Club Congress is the jewel of the downtown music scene much to his credit,” said Rich Hopkins, the longtime Tucson musician who was a Sidewinders/Sand Rubies bandmate of Slutes. “Dave has done a lot for the Tucson music scene.”
For the longest time, Slutes could never imagine leaving.
But here he was on that Tuesday morning, explaining how after 27 years as the front face, cheerleader and consummate champion of live music downtown, he was leaving.
“I feel like this is the right time,” he said. “I’ve given it as much as I can.”
Slutes, 59, will remain in his job as entertainment director through May and has booked shows in Club Congress and on the Plaza through the end of the year.
Where he is going next is yet to be announced.
In an early April Facebook post, Slutes would only hint that his “third act” will involve Tucson music.
His announcement hit hard among those who have tagged along on Slutes’ journey, either behind the mic on the Congress stages or watching from the sidelines.
“You were oil to the machine for many years, sir,” pined Slutes’ former Hotel Congress entertainment colleague Matt Baquet. “Thank you for so many amazing memories and opportunities. You have impacted so many, more than you will ever know.”
“You’ve been a living treasure for as long as I can remember, contributing so much creativity, passion and glorious music to our beloved downtown Tucson,” chimed in longtime Tucson businessman Doug Biggers. “Thank you, David, for everything you have endured, enjoyed and engendered. The likes of you can never be replaced.”
Slutes arrived at Hotel Congress in 1997, when owners Shana and Richard Oseran asked him to run the hotel’s cyber cafe. It was back in the day before laptops were the norm and a good decade or so before the arrival of smart phones; cyber cafes provided the only access to a computer for travelers.
The Oserans were in year 12 of owning the hotel, which they bought in 1985 to save its heritage and history. Shana Oseran said they learned early on that a historic landmark is only as good as what’s happening inside those walls here and now, so they created Club Congress and started putting on performances.
Slutes’ Vegas Boys was the first band booked on the Congress stage, opening for Tucson cowpunk rocker Al Perry. It was the first-ever concert at Congress.
Slutes went on to front the Sidewinders, which landed a major record label deal and was on the cusp of a national career when a legal snafu over its name derailed its success. The band changed its name to Sand Rubies and within a few years, had thrown in the towel. Slutes continued performing in local bands but when the Oserans asked him to take over booking acts for Club Congress in the late 1990s, he took the leap.
David Slutes, second from right, was the lead singer of the Tucson band The Sidewinders, which had a major record label deal in the 1990s.
“He was very talented. ... And you gotta remember that he kind of grew up in the music here and he was following that wave,” Shana Oseran said. “David was instrumental in the music area. We were the stewards because we liked this kind of venue that we were going into, but I think that it became more than that. People met there and got married there. They broke up there.”
From the start, Slutes was the idea guy. He took the annual re-enactment of John Dillinger’s capture in Tucson and turned it into Dillinger Days, two days of events including the re-enactments and a Speakeasy concert with bands performing swing-era jazz and pop for an audience dressed in their best 1920s flappers and prohibition finery.
Back in 2005, when Club Congress celebrated its 20th anniversary, Slutes brought back bands that had played the stage in its first 20 years, including Perry. He dubbed it HoCo Fest, a family reunion of sorts that carried on every Labor Day weekend with different bands from different Congress eras. The festival ran 17 years before Slutes decided that last year’s event would be the last.
“Let’s end where it makes sense to end,” he said at the time.
He also introduced the Taco Drop on New Year’s Eve and Mezcrawl, which for some is the highlight of the annual Agave Heritage Festival taking place this weekend.
“It’s hard to imagine anything downtown without the seed planted by Hotel Congress,” said longtime retired businessman and Rio Nuevo Board Chairman Fletcher McCusker. “They were the first to have live music. They were the first to have CD release parties. They were the first to have national acts stop by. They were there long before the Rialto and Fox were music venues. It started with Hotel Congress.”
And behind most of those endeavors was Slutes, McCusker added.
“David has been involved in every aspect of that, as a performing musician to a booker to the guy who sets up the amplifiers,” he said. “He does it all.”
Entertainment director David Slutes, seen here in 2006, is preparing for his third act, requiring him to step away from Hotel Congress.
“It’s an end of an era,” said Tucson singer-songwriter Brian Lopez, whose bands XIXA and Mostly Bears found a home on the Club Congress stage since the early 2000s. “I think the thing that sticks out the most with David is his approach. He’s a musician himself so he knows how to speak to musicians. But he was able to be so creative and ... kind of able to build that place within his own personality. ... He’ll give anybody a chance to get your foot in the door and that’s what you want as a young artist coming into the scene.”
Slutes said his goal has always been to make Congress a place for everyone, which could explain why in 2012 he reached out to Susan Holden shortly after her music-producer husband Jonathan passed away. Jonathan Holden and his Rhythm & Roots series was the leading promoter of Americana and acoustic concerts in Tucson.
“When Jonathan died, David came to me and said, ‘Come to me. I will help you.’ If he had not done that, Rhythm & Roots would not have survived,” Holden said.
For years now, the Congress Plaza stage has welcomed the series’ big name Americana artists from James McMurtry and Jim Lauderdale to homegrown singer-songwriter Lisa Morales and actress (“Mozart in the Jungle,” “Gone Girl”)/country singer Lola Kirke, who plays the Plaza on Thursday, April 25.
“He just makes it easy,” Holden said of Slutes. “It’s a great partnership.”
On Tuesday, Slutes walked into Club Congress and pointed to a corner where the stage had been when he first arrived. Over here in the middle, he tells a guest, is where he had it moved years later before it was finally set up in the back of the small space that can fit a few hundred, standing-room only.
“The creative energy is the first thing you feel when come here,” he said. “We’re that public space. I think I’ve been a good steward of that.”
But leaving was not an altogether easy decision, he said.
“I met all my girlfriends and my wife here. My whole life, I’m part of it,” he said. “I just love this place. It has that incredible big city vibe and a lot of creative energy.”
Tucson Landmarks: Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St., opened in 1919 as a luxurious mainstay for visitors arriving in the Old Pueblo.
The downtown landmark has kept much of its history alive in the past century, while also bringing modern amenities to Tucson natives and tourists.
Video by Riley Brown / For the Arizona Daily Star
