After a five-year search, including an interruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Delaware Rock and Roll Society will soon have a new home – at the Smyrna Opera House.
It’s going to take the rest of the year for the pieces to fall into place, but Ken Boulden, the politician, singer and Opera House board member who helped broker the arrangement, says “it’s a win-win situation” with the society receiving a venue for a museum and hosting performances while the opera house broadens its market and audience base.
It’s also great news for George and Paula Wolkind, president and executive director of the organization they founded nearly six years ago. As they struggled with their search, Paula Wolkind says, “we got the idea that our tiny apartment [in Bear] was always going to be filled with Delaware Rock stuff.”
Fortunately, she says, “a lot of people knew we were looking for something,” and one of them was Boulden, the former New Castle County clerk of the peace who now sings with the Del-Vikings, a quartet that reprises the 1950s and1960s doo-wop hits of the similarly named Dell Vikings, known for such chart-toppers as “Come Go With Me” and “Whispering Bells.”
Shortly after Boulden’s group performed at the Opera House last summer, he struck up a conversation with Brian Hill, the Opera House’s managing director, and Hill invited him to join that organization’s board of directors. Boulden soon filled Hill in on the rock society’s activities and needs, and brought him to the society’s induction program at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington in October. Hill was impressed.
After the program, Paula Wolkind recalls, “Brian Hill came up to me and said, ‘I’ve got a home for you,’ and I filled up with tears.”
Details still had to be ironed out, and it took a few more conversations before the Opera House’s board voted in December to approve the arrangement.
“We’ve talked about ideas, how closely they were in line with our vision,” Boulden said. “All the pieces have come together perfectly.”
“We’re still in shock” that the society has found a home, said George Wolkind, onetime lead singer for Snakegrinder and the Shredded Fieldmice, a 1970s Newark group that drew a strong following among local Grateful Dead aficionados.
Here’s the deal
The Opera House, built in 1870, nearly destroyed by fire in 1948 and eventually restored in 1998, has served multiple roles in Smyrna’s history: town hall, jail, theater, library and the area’s social and community hub. Its current operator, the nonprofit Smyrna-Clayton Heritage Association, is trying to establish the facility as a regional hub for entertainment and the creative arts.
The opening for the Rock and Roll Society developed with the start of construction for a larger, new Smyrna Regional Library to replace the town library now housed on the Opera House’s first floor.
With the library vacating its space, the Opera House managers were making plans to use part of the first floor as a restaurant or café with a small stage for entertainers to perform. Bringing the society into the building means those plans are being adjusted and the Opera House board has hired an architect to modify the first-floor layout, Boulden said. The new vision includes a café with space for entertainment, a museum-like area for the society to display memorabilia and plaques recognizing Delaware’s rock stars and possibly a small retail area.
“They’re going to move walls, to move mountains for us,” Paula Wolkind added.
For the Rock society, best of all is that it won’t have to pay for the renovations, or any rent either. There will be some charges – still to be negotiated, Hill said – like paying a share of the opera house’s utility bills.
“It’s amazing what they’re going to do,” said Tim Cleary, the rock society board member designated as its liaison during the first-floor remodel.
In addition to the first-floor museum and display space, the opera house is giving the society use of the building’s theater, which seats nearly 300, and its banquet room – providing a venue for annual induction ceremonies and social activities.
The Opera House board has offered the rock society the rent-free deal because it views the society as an asset as it strives to broaden its reach, Boulden said.
With the society under its roof, he explained, the Opera House anticipates greater success in applying for grants from philanthropies and arts organizations because the society is a statewide organization that adds another artistic genre to its portfolio.
“This will make us more of a destination,” Hill said. “We want to do it all, to be a place for all the arts.”
Rock’s roots in Delaware
While Delaware doesn’t have any performers who consistently scored with Top 40 hits, the state does have a rich rock legacy. Today’s music fans are likely familiar with George Thorogood, the Brandywine Hundred native best known for “Bad to the Bone,” and Wilmington’s Johnny Neel, the singer-writer-keyboardist known for his work with the Allman Brothers Band.
But the state’s rock roots run much deeper. Teens from Wilmington regularly danced on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” show in Philadelphia in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and Wilmington guitarist Johnny Kay played with Bill Haley and the Comets, whose 1954 release of “Rock Around the Clock” inspired a generation of young musicians.
Also, reggae artist Bob Marley lived in Wilmington and worked at the old Chrysler assembly plant in Newark in the 1960s and Bob Dylan married Sara Lownds, a Wilmington resident formerly known as Shirley Noznitzky.
The roster of rock stars that shone brightly in the state during the 1950s and 1960s includes Lue Cazz, better known today as Lou Casapulla of the sub shop chain; Teddy and the Continentals, the Hurricanes and the Five Diamonds. Later on would come groups with more staying power, including Gary and Wayne Watson with their Watson Brothers Band, Al Santoro and the Highlighters, and the still-rocking Sin City Band.
Long before the Firefly music festival came to Dover, the state has had its share of prominent rock venues, including the Stone Balloon in Newark, Kahunaville in Wilmington, and the Buggy Tavern in Brandywine Hundred.
Their desire to preserve this rich heritage prompted the Wolkinds, with a little help from their friends, to establish the Delaware Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, with its first induction ceremony that July at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington. A branding challenge from the national Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame prompted the name change from “hall of fame” to “society” while the Wolkinds and fellow board members continued to search for a permanent home for the organization.
They arranged temporary exhibits at the Newark National 5&10 and the Newark Historical Society and explored possible sites in Wilmington on the Riverfront and along Market Street.
When the pandemic struck in March 2020, “we kind of let [the search] fall away,” Paula Wolkind said.
Looking ahead
“Imagine, driving on Route 1 near Smyrna and seeing a sign that says ‘Delaware Rock ‘n’ Roll Museum and café... It’s been five years and now we’re here to stay.”Delaware Rock and Roll Society President George Wolkind
The society has not yet announced its 2024 inductees to its hall – or wall – of fame, but it’s planning to hold its annual ceremony on September 8 in the theater at the Opera House. Hill already has bigger ideas, like possibly making it a two-day event with a gala fundraiser and more musical performances.
Paula Wolkind hopes to be able to stage a couple of smaller events this year – kind of a warmup to the induction ceremony – even before the first-floor renovations begin.
And Hill said the opera house would consider adding a rock ‘n’ roll camp to its schedule of youth-oriented summer activities.
“The ideas are just rolling,” Paula Wolkind said.
George Wolkind marvels at the society’s good fortune in finding such a central location. “From anywhere in Delaware, you’re less than an hour from a good show,” he said.
“Imagine,” he adds, “driving on Route 1 near Smyrna and seeing a sign that says ‘Delaware Rock ‘n’ Roll Museum and café.’”
The vision is coming closer to realization.
“It’s been five years,” he says, “and now we’re here to stay.”
