Click MAP to locate destinations preceded by yellow numbers.

14 The Boom Boom Room (1601 Fillmore St.; 415-673-8000) opened in September 1997 by one of America's most revered bluesmen, the late Delta blues original John Lee Hooker. The club instantly attained status as a focal point for the Bay Area blues scene. The name derives from Hooker's biggest hit, the 1962 "Boom Boom," and the club oozes tradition.

15 Biscuits & Blues (401 Mason; 415-292-2583) features live blues nightly, and is one of San Francisco's two top blues emporia. Cuisine and decor are charmingly Southern, the concert and supper club seating first-rate, the sound system terrific. Major regional and national blues performers (Duke Robbilard, Tinsley Ellis, Rusty Zinn) are booked nightly. B&B absolutely demolishes all stereotypes of the generic rough-tough blues club.

16 The Saloon (1232 Grant zve.; 415-989-7666) features tough, electric jump blues by local luminaries like Lisa Kindred, Nick Gravenites and Johnny Nitro & the Doorslammers. The atmosphere isgritty and non-yuppie, the drinks honest, the volume l-o-u-d. Billed as the city's oldest drinking establishment, est. 1861, the club seems out of place amid North Beach's elegant Italianate/post-Beatnik trappings. When the Doorslammers take the stage, looking as if they just pulled off their coveralls and drove straight to the gig from their garage-mechanic day jobs, you'd swear you were in a Vallejo roadhouse.

17 Slim's (333 11th St.; 415-522-0333) was opened by soul & blues crooner Boz Scaggs more than a decade ago to feature his kind of music, meaning blues plus rock, country, conjunto, Irish, reggae, Tex-Mex, in roughly equal measure. When blues is on the bill, Slim's is an excellent place to tune in; reverence for the music and the musician is both ethic and the practice here.

18 Lou's Pier 47 (300 Jefferson; 415-771-5687) features 18 live bands a week, many of them blues bands. During September 1997, coinciding with the S.F. Blues Festival, Lou put on her own megablues festival: 30 straight days, band after band after band. "The First Lady of Fisherman's Wharf," as Lou modestly bills herself, is full of surprises, and says she's likely to surprise us with another blues month.

John Lee Hooker's
Boom Boom Room

Lisa Kindred Blues Band
at The Saloon

Anson Funderbaugh
at Biscuits & Blues