Brad Wheeler found out his longtime friend and Salt Lake City music scene staple John Paul Brophy Jr. was dying in an email from the man himself.
Brophy’s farewell email was deeply personal, Wheeler said, so much so that it prompted him to make sure Brophy was recognized for his enduring legacy in the Utah music scene. Wheeler wrote to Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, who went on to proclaim April 23 as “John Paul Brophy Jr. Day” in recognition of his contribution to the culture and music scene in the state.
Brophy, one of the owners of the iconic local blues bar The Dead Goat Saloon, died on April 28 at the age of 74 from prostate cancer.
Even though the bar closed over 20 years ago, it’s not just a footnote in Utah’s music history, thanks in large part to Brophy. The same can be said about Brophy’s influence on the music scene in Salt Lake City.
Under Brophy’s and his business partner Michael Ricks’ direction, the bar became the “premier venue for blues” music, though acts from all genres stopped at the hidden venue — from Buddy Miles to Mick Taylor of The Rolling Stones to Levon Helm.
“[Brophy] and Otto Mileti at The Zephyr Club really were the backbone of live music in Salt Lake City,” Wheeler said. The Dead Goat Saloon became a music hub for those looking to learn about the history of blues and Americana music.
Wheeler met Brophy through their shared love of blues music at another bar in Salt Lake, but Wheeler already knew of Brophy through reputation: this was the co-owner of the bar that broadcasted live music on KRCL on the last Monday of each month.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) A composite 2003 photograph of The Dead Goat Saloon on a quiet night in Salt Lake City.
“It was a weird bar. You had to walk down an alley and then go down in the basement and go underneath this other building to get to it,” Wheeler, who later worked at Dead Goat as a manager in the late ‘90, said. “When you searched it out and you went in there, it was a unique experience, because the whole world was in there.”
The Dead Goat Saloon was established in 1973. Brophy bought an ownership stake in the bar around 1990, while he was writing music reviews for The Salt Lake Tribune and writing for City Weekly (under the pen name J. P. Gabellini).
Wheeler said that Brophy was a steward of music history and gave “a lot of these old guys that couldn’t get a gig in the rest of the United States a place to come and perform.”
The bar remains in the performer’s memories, too, like Texas blues musician Carolyn Wonderland, who said she played nearly a dozen shows at The Dead Goat Saloon.
“Going to play for John Paul at The Dead Goat Saloon was a highlight on tours,” Wonderland said. “There’s something magic about that place, and the fact that he brought in a community. We’d go play places as a band that nobody’s heard of, and we would come to Salt Lake City and be like, ‘We know at least we’re gonna have John Paul and his friends at the radio station.’”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) A composite 2003 photograph of The Dead Goat Saloon on a quiet night in Salt Lake City.
Dead Goat closed in 2003 while under new ownership. It had been turned into a strip club. Wonderland wrote a song about the bar’s demise with guitarist Scott Daniels.
“We danced our cares away underneath the Utah moon / All night at The Dead Goat Saloon,” the lyrics of the chorus go.
Wonderland has only demoed the unreleased song, but is “highly tempted” to play it the next time she comes to town to honor Brophy – who heard it on a broadcast when Wonderland performed it at the High Sierra Music Festival in California.
“He always brought a family around him,” Wonderland said of Brophy. “To be a safe haven for touring bands, and at the same time, be supporting your local artists the way he did … It was great.”
In Mayor Mendenhall’s proclamation, she wrote, “Under [Brophy’s] mentorship and advocacy, The Dead Goat Saloon served as [an] incubator for young Utah bands.” Bands like The Tempo Timers, Megan Peters and Big Leg, and My Sister Jane had “formative gigs” at the bar.
Brophy and Ricks would also sponsor “New Band Night” midweek to support local musicians.
Charles Thorpe, who founded Anchor Stage Management and runs Space and Faders — a rentable space where musicians and bands can practice or record — was hired at Dead Goat at the end of the ‘90s. But the first time he went to the bar was long before that – at the age of 18 when he moved to Utah from Pennsylvania.
“To end up years later, working there was kind of surreal,” Thorpe, who describes Brophy as a “father figure” said.
Thorpe is now a stage manager for concerts at Red Butte Garden and Sandy Amphitheater, and has been entrenched in the local music scene for years. He said what Brophy was able to accomplish all those years ago laid a strong foundation for music in Utah.
“He paved the way for what is kind of going on now [in the local music scene],” Thorpe said.
“[Brophy’s] ethos is still strong in this city,” Thorpe said, tearing up as he detailed Brophy’s legacy. “What matters is that nobody forgets, because they say that you’re only truly dead when someone stops saying your name.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Gigi Love performs at the Dead Goat Saloon in Salt Lake City in 2000.
Brophy was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 24, 1951. He is preceded in death by his wife Wendy Whitney, brother and mother. At the age of 20, Brophy got into a motorcycle accident that left him with a lifelong spinal cord injury.
He is survived by his daughter Rachael MacLaughlin and his beloved white Scottie, Willie.
MacLaughlin said she was the only one who didn’t get an email, but rather a face-to-face message on Easter, when Brophy had his last meal. She and her dad shared a connection over music.
“My life will be forever different,” she said. “He’s going to be missed by me and a lot of other people.”
Services for Brophy will remain private, but MacLaughlin is planning a celebration of life event with details to come.