Press
What the papers say.
“With his new House of Blues club chain and the unique philosophy on which it’s based, Hard Rock Cafe founder Isaac Tigrett has already started creating an international stir.”
“What do Sir James Goldsmith, Dan Aykroyd, An Indian Guru, and Harvard University have in common? Answer: A restaurant impresario named Isaac Tigrett.”
“L.A.’s club scene may be off its pace, but maybe that’s because everyone’s packing into House of Blues.”
“Since young Isaac Tigrett left Jackson, Tenn., and invaded England, the Hard Rock Cafe has startled staid London with such American ‘truckstop’ treats as ‘Down Home Doubleburgers’ and homemade apple pie.”
“HOB provides high-school seniors with college scholarships in the arts, underwrites a resident-artist program for blues musicians to present workshops to kids, and supports a training center for teachers interested in the blues.”
“Save the Planet became the cafe’s credo while the world was still hooked on aerosols. ‘The Hard Rock Cafe had great karma,’ Tigrett says.”
“Tigrett has a flair for interior design. It was his eye that chose the memorabilia that turned the Hard Rock Cafe into a cult gathering place, and he selected every detail of the decor of the stunningly cluttered House of Blues venues.”
“London’s most popular of them all, and the current ‘in’ spot where people queue for as long as an hour for a table, is the Hard Rock Cafe, whose hamburgers are said by some connoisseurs to be not only the best in London but the best in the world.”
“Chicago is the home of the blues. To be able to go there and try, in our way, to promote the culture–to create the first blues-themed hotel–is very exciting.”
“The Hard Rock was about celebrating culture, and the House of Blues is really about creating culture.” – Isaac Tigrett
“It was a clear cut message, a directive. My master said many doors would open … that Hard Rock was high school and this, House of Blues, was going to be the University.”
“Isaac Tigrett was commended publicly on the floor of the United States Senate by former leader of the Republican Party, Dr. Bill Frist, for his worldwide contribution to American Culture, Blues and Rock & Roll, now archived in the United States Congressional Record.”
“Isaac is out to build rock and roll museums that also happen to be restaurants. He’s really become a force perpetuating rock and roll.”
“Notable House of Blues investors include [Dan] Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, [John] Goodman, Carly Simon, Isaac Hayes and the late River Phoenix.”
“The Hard Rock in New York seats only 240 but serves 2,200 meals from 11:30 a.m. to 4 a.m.”
“Archbishop Desmond Tutu accepts his National Civil Rights Museum International Freedom Award from Isaac Tigrett and J.R. Hyde III”
“In 2014 alone, more than 172,000 people attended concerts there. So many big names graced the intimate stage: KISS, Johnny Cash, Guns N’ Roses, Etta James, Stevie Wonder, Lil Wayne, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Bo Diddley, Alice Cooper, The Damned, Aretha Franklin, The Cramps, Kendrick Lamar, Eric Clapton, Social Distortion, Lil Kim, Gwar, D’Angelo… to name just a few. In 2011, Prince played three shows in one night.”
“The idea to set up the temporary HOB (at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games) came after Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell challenged HOB founder and chief executive officer Isaac Tigrett to build the hottest place for entertainment.”
“Monday-night jam sessions are the hottest ticket when impromptu appearances by Prince or Springsteen send the throngs into a frenzy.”
“The founder of the House of Blues once contemplated an ashram existence, but discovered he could express his spiritual views through the universal language of music. His rewards have been out of this world.”
“Tigrett’s private Foundation Room launched an ambitious master chef series with the Beard Foundation, signing up Emeril Lagasse, Dean Fearing, Todd English, Sam Choy, and Larry Forgione, among other international culinary stars.”
“If education is to build character, it’s the quality of experience that shapes the individual. Not to have art and music in the school system is criminal.” – Isaac Tigrett
“I died in a hotel room in 1976 in Colorado and came back from everyone what I consider to be a death state. I know that death is a celebratory transition that everybody is going to dig a whole lot, but of course you grieve the personal loss of the physical form of your relative or loved one.” – Isaac Tigrett
“In life, many blues legends toil in anonymity. In death, they attain holiness. In New Orleans, they’ve even got a chapel.”
“Hard Rock Cafe creator and self-styled bodhisattva Isaac Tigrett is an impresario for our age.”
“A long line of customers waits under a canopy to get in for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, London’s biggest, poshest, and noisiest hamburger joint.”
“In 1971, it was Tigrett’s then-Marxist idea to put a Tennessee truck stop in the middle of Mayfair and open it to everyone. The room indeed was filled, as promised, with the famous, from Miss America through Warhol with starletti Diane Lane, Matt Dillon, Ron Wood in between.”
“When London’s famed Hard Rock Cafe opened a branch on 57th Street, droves of celebs from Andy Warhol to Walter Cronkite celebrated the opening.”
“Who would have guessed that a partnership among wild ‘n’ crazy actor Dan Aykroyd, 32, stage Legend Yul Brynner, 69, and London socialite Isaac Tigrett, 35, would have produced New York’s rockingest restaurant, the Hard Rock Cafe?”
“Isaac Tigrett, an elegant amalgam of Euro-sophisticate, Old Southern charmer and New Age dreamer, calls his restaurants “museums of popular culture.”
“Club’s walls covered with ‘raw expression of emotion.’”
“‘This place is going to be the mini-Smithsonian of rock-and-roll!’ declared Dan Aykroyd. The Hard Rock Cafe is New York’s newest and most electric night spot.”
“Politicians, educators, business people, lawyers, and, yes, even a couple of bluesmen crowded the house of blues in Cambridge Tuesday to kick off the Massachusetts House of Blues Foundation. Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of Afro-American studies at Harvard University, heads the Program Committee of the foundation.”
“The Sathya Sai Hospital, financed by Isaac Tigrett, provides high quality medical care on a no cost basis to all people, irrespective of caste, creed, religion, nationality and financial status. Infusing spiritual values in the practice of medicine, it honours the patient as a human being and not merely as a diseased entity.”
“Several lives being saved is a godly intervention and I am blessed to be a part of it.” – Isaac Tigrett, financier of the 500 bed free surgical hospital in Andra Pradesh, India
