Walk of Fame

Inducted: 2025

Herb Spivak is the pioneer Philadelphia jazz and rock concert promoter and the Co-Founder/Owner of The Showboat Jazz Theater, the original Electric Factory rock club, Electric Factory Concerts, the Bijou Café, The Tower Theater, and The Theater of Living Arts. Herb started out in the Philadelphia entertainment industry working alongside his two brothers Jerry and Allen, managing the family business of a handful of taprooms scattered around the city.

The Spivak brothers were barely out of school in 1955 when their father Harry “Speedie” Spivak died and left them to run his four bars called Speedies. They grew the business to seven bars, some with hotels on top of them that they also operated. In 1964, the Spivak brothers bought the Douglas Hotel on Lombard Street – just off Broad Street, which housed in its basement the closed down Showboat Jazz club. Herb revitalized the Showboat and reopened it in 1964. He was responsible for operating and booking its jazz acts which showcased jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Thelonious Monk, Dinah Washington, Ramsey Lewis and many more. Herb briefly changed the Showboat into a singles bar called Chances Are. It was retooled again into a performance space called the Bijou Café and showcased emerging stars of all entertainment genres.
  
In the mid-1960s, brothers Herb, Allen, and Jerry Spivak were some of the top names in live-music entertainment in Philadelphia. Never one to sit idle and with an eye on expanding their live-music business, Herb asked Ed Snider – the owner of the soon to be completed Spectrum, if he could book the opening of the new arena with a jazz festival. Snider agreed and the Spectrum celebrated its grand opening with the 2nd Annual Quaker City Jazz Festival on September 30, 1967. Spivak booked the two-day event that opened with Dizzy Gillespie playing the Star-Spangled Banner on trumpet.

Sensing the rise of rock and roll and decline of live jazz music, Herb – his brothers Jerry and Allen, Larry Magid, and Shelley Kaplan opened the legendary Electric Factory in a converted Goodyear Tire plant at 22nd and Arch on Feb 2, 1968 in Philadelphia. Herb found and leased the tire plant from one of his old friends and launched the Electric Factory with The Chambers Brothers and Woody’s Truck Stop to a packed house of fans. The Electric Factory was a big hit and featured Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Who, and Cream as just a few of the rock superstars that graced its original stage.
  
In 1969, Herb had been hearing about the Miami Pop Festival and the Woodstock Music Festival. On his way to the Jersey shore one weekend, he instinctively pulled into the Atlantic City Racetrack and asked its owner Bob Levy if he could book the racetrack for a rock and roll festival. On a hand-shake deal, Spivak secured the racetrack and borrowed money to promote the legendary festival. The Atlantic City Pop Festival took place just two weeks before Woodstock on August 1, 2 and 3, 1969 to great success with highlight performances by Joni Mitchell, Little Richard, Santana, B.B. King, Joe Cocker, and Santana and Janis Joplin.
 
The Electric Factory rock club was not quite three years old when it closed in 1970. But while its namesake and club may have been gone, The Spivaks and partner Larry Magid continued with regional and national promotions of live music entertainment under the Electric Factory Concerts moniker. They also produced Broadway theater shows. In the 1970s and 80s, Electric Factory became a powerhouse in the concert promotion business.  It expanded its business with the purchases of the Tower Theater and Theater of Living Arts and promoting concerts outside the Philadelphia area.

Herb Spivak remained part owner of Electric Factory until 2000, when it was bought by SFX Entertainment (now Live Nation). Herb Spivak is considered one of the early architects of the modern concert business – the multi-billion-dollar industry we know today.
   
Herb has been married to Marcia Spivak for over 60 years and has four children and nine grandchildren.