Laura Mae Gross, a strong-willed Mississippi woman who came to the West Coast and founded a club that became a staple of Los Angeles' blues scene, died Saturday of heart failure, according to relatives. She was 89.
Gross, also known as “Mama," opened Babe's and Ricky's Inn on Central Avenue in 1964 and hosted legends such as Bobby “Blue" Bland and John Lee Hooker while serving cold beer and soda and drawing an integrated crowd.
On Monday nights, often the most popular, a $2 cover also earned patrons a fried chicken dinner.
Babe's and Ricky's moved to Leimert Park in 1997 after financial difficulties on Central Avenue, but the vibe stayed the same even when Monday's cover increased to $10, they started serving wine and the fried chicken dinner plate expanded to a buffet.
The club never made much money, but it earned a reputation as a nurturing ground for young musicians and as a place for the experienced to display their talents.
“The unique thing about that club, and always has been, is you can go down there on jam session night and it didn't matter if you were a total amateur or a seasoned professional," bluesman Ray Bailey said. “Everybody gave you the same respect."
Blues guitarist Keb' Mo' said Babe's and Ricky's was “the last club from the Central Avenue heyday."
“It was just a great vibe. It was a real blues club, a true blues club," he said. “If you were in there and you'd start playing anything but the blues, Mama law would come up to the stage and she would stop you. She'd say: 'Na, na, na.' She wasn't having no Top 40 club."
Gross was born in Vicksburg, Miss., in 1920 and moved to California about 25 years later with her husband, Riley Gross. He was killed about 10 years later during a robbery as he was cashing a paycheck, family members said.
Gross took over a club near the intersection of Central Avenue and 52nd Street several years later and renamed it Babe's and Ricky's Inn after her son and nephew.
When the club opened, the area was already in decline from its perch as the backbone of ballrooms, hotels and theaters that helped define black cultural life in Los Angeles.
“Hers is representative, in an authentic way, of the journey of African Americans in Los Angeles," county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said.
“Particularly in Leimert Park, that's the home of what's new and what's next in terms of African American culture and commerce. The arts center of African American life in this region and they punctuated it with the blues."
The county Board of Supervisors will adjourn in Gross' memory today.
