50 years later, Charlotte’s storied Double Door Inn inspires a new book on ‘thin places’
Charlotte author Stephen Copeland felt an instant connection the first time he stepped through the doors of the Double Door Inn, once considered Charlotte’s home of the Blues and a linchpin for the regional music scene.
“It was 2013 and I was a young artist, scrambling and caught up in life, when my mentor asked me to meet him at The Double Door Inn,” said Copeland, 34, a full-time writer, storyteller and coach. “It was this tiny, hole-in-the wall, unassuming grungy place, and I couldn’t believe it was a music venue. It was the first time I experienced a sense of freedom to go deeper into the moment. I felt connected to the depth and beauty of life.”
Those soul-searching experiences at the storied music club set the stage for his new book, “In the House of Rising Sounds,” a thematic memoir seven years in the making that explores the significance of the Double Door Inn as a “thin space, where heaven and earth come strangely close to touching,” Copeland said, referencing Celtic lore.
The book will be released May 15, available in local shops including Park Road Books, Rhino Market and Main Street Books in Davidson. It can be pre-ordered online via Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Copeland’s work already includes positive local reviews: “The fascinating journey of a disheveled writer with a broken faith who finds inspiration in the blues/funk/soul/R&B sounds of the Monday Night Allstars and other legendary characters of the Double Door Inn, Stephen Copeland’s moving work soars with the nightly jams and wrestles with life after last call,” said Gary Schwab, former senior editor of The Charlotte Observer.
A release party, open to the public, will be held May 16 at the Neighborhood Theatre.
Double Door represented ‘a freedom of musical expression’
The Double Door closed in January 2017 after 43 years of bringing people together for countless blues, funk, country and rock shows, including nights when Stevie Ray Vaughan or Eric Clapton took the stage.
The club had become known for its “grimy, well-worn character,” with “creaky, beer-stained floorboards, the walls adorned in posters, the chairs covered in band stickers, and the portraits of artists who once performed there,” according to Clture.
One of those artists was Ziad, a saxophonist for the club’s famed Monday Night Allstars band. The Double Door Inn was the first music venue where Ziad sat in with a professional band, and those early experiences shaped his career.
“The Double Door Inn represented in this city a freedom of musical expression,” Ziad said. “It was a place where musicians could go and feel free to do their thing. The people who went there to listen had the same vibe. They were all sucked into this vortex of freedom, united under the banner of the music.”
It was a place where high level corporate executives and blue-collar workers came together.
“It stripped away everyone’s social identity, and they lay themselves bare in front of the music. It was a remarkable place. And it transcended Charlotte,” Ziad said. “I can’t count the times that I would run into someone in the audience who would tell me they lived in New York or California or some remote major city, and every time they come to Charlotte on business they would come here.”
In the final months of Double Door’s existence, Copeland went to the club twice a week to journal his experiences. He interviewed several people who would go on to become characters in his book, including Ziad, along with owner Nick Karres, Bill Hanna (Charlotte’s Godfather of Jazz who died in 2021), other Monday Night Allstars musicians, bartenders and patrons.
“It’s not a historical book, but I wanted to capture the spiritual significance of this place and how it really changed a lot of people’s lives, including mine,” Copeland said. “I and so many other Charlotteans experienced something similar at the Double Door Inn, a place where we not only had a good time but also seemed to encounter a truth about reality.”
Copeland hopes his own soul-searching journey, with the Double Door as his guide, will help readers become more “present and attentive to the thinness of reality as we walk with our feet on the ground and our soul in the stars,” he said.
50 years of memories
This year would have been the 50th anniversary of the Double Door Inn. The club’s Facebook page is still active, giving its 7,700+ followers a place to share memories. Among those:
“Missed greatly as a CLT music institution like no other as are a number of incredible local artists/performers lost in the past several years including Jim Lackey and John Alexander. This is what I think of when I imagine a city with a soul.” — Jenny Lundin
“So many important friendships made there. I miss the Double Door Inn all the time. Thank you!” — Brian Goolsby
“Left a hole in my soul.” — Mike Dew
“Saw lots of great music here beginning in the early 80s! The DD is sorely missed. Charlotte music is not the same.” — Chuck McClure
What are your favorite memories and stories from The Double Door Inn? Email your comments to CharlotteFive, and we may include them in a follow up story.
