Press release from The Orange Peel:
The Orange Peel, the Southeast’s preeminent live music venue, which opened its doors in 2002, will debut a new permanent exhibit in its front gallery space on Biltmore Avenue on Wednesday, June 26. The exhibit tells the history of the building from its construction to the present day, including the highlights of the modern Orange Peel, and will also cover the story of some of the previous tenants of the building, such as the Jade Club and the historic funk and soul club, the original Orange Peel, which operated in the space during the late 1970s and featured iconic acts like the Commodores with Lionel Richie, the Chi-Lites, and the Bar-Kays.
The venue is also launching free tours to the public Wednesdays through Fridays, twice a day when show schedules permit, allowing visitors to access behind-the-scenes spaces in the historic music club, while learning more about some of the Orange Peel’s biggest shows past and present. Tours will end in the new history exhibit area, allowing guests to go at their own pace viewing the historical concert memorabilia, photos, newspaper articles, and firsthand accounts that are featured.
“Researching the building’s downtown history has been such an interesting experience,” said the club’s assistant marketing manager, Robb McAdams, who worked with a team of other Orange Peel managers to complete the project.
“We found so many interesting photos and articles while working through the historic records we found,” says McAdams.
“A highlight for us has been meeting with many of the important local musicians and participants in the Asheville music scene from back in the era of the original Orange Peel and the Jade Club, such as James (Omar) Brown, Michael Miller, Sammy Bowman and J.C. Martin. These guys were members of bands like Bite-Chew & Spit, the Royal Primes, and The Innersouls, which were huge at the time and played this building frequently. We also got to meet Mr. Jim Robinson, who founded Asheville’s first black radio station, WBMU, which used the original Orange Peel deejay booth as a training ground and development space for their on-air deejays. It has been such an honor to interview these gentlemen and include their stories in what we are producing for the mini-museum; they were incredibly generous to share their memories with us.”
The history exhibit will cover the building from its initial construction as a roller-skating rink in 1946, to its time as a soul and R&B club, to its empty days in the 1990s, through to its renaissance as the modern day Orange Peel, which has hosted legendary artists of all genres in its 17 years in operation, including Bob Dylan in 2004, the Smashing Pumpkins in 2007, Ms. Lauryn Hill as well as Ice Cube in 2011, and Dave Grohl with Warren Haynes this past December 2018.
The exhibit space will be open for ticket holders to peruse during most show nights year-round, and also during the day as part of the venue’s new free guided tours. Interested participants must sign up for tours in advance here; each tour has limited spaces. For more information or exhibit previews, email the Orange Peel’s marketing director, Liz Whalen Tallent, at liz@theorangepeel.net.
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