Abstract
This oral history interview with Henry Loconti, founder of the Agora Ballroom, explores his early life in Cleveland, his family’s immigrant roots, and his entry into servicing jukeboxes and, in 1966, launching the Agora concert venue that helped define the city’s rock music scene. Loconti reflects on growing up in a close-knit Italian American neighborhood in the 1930s and ‘40s, the entrepreneurial influence of his mother, and his experiences serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He provides detailed recollections of Cleveland’s social and cultural landscape in the 1940s through the 1960s, including neighborhood bars, music venues, gambling operations, and the role of jukeboxes in shaping popular entertainment. The interview also offers firsthand observations of racial tensions leading up to the Hough uprising of 1966 and the eroding sense of safety in the city. Toward the end of the interview, Loconti tells stories about a memorable 1978 concert featuring Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny, as well as when he hired a Case doctoral student to design a one-of-a-kind floor with customized lighting capabilities controlled by a teletype and a computer for the Rare Cherry, a disco club he owned in Willoughby in the late 1970s.
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Interviewee
Loconti, Henry (interviewee)
Interviewer
Calder, James (interviewer);Przybojewski, Ruth Rachel (interviewer), Tebeau, Mark (participant), Popovich, Steve (participant)
Project
History 304
Date
3-21-2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
82 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Henry Loconti Interview, 21 March 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 304001.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/399
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
