THE COMBAT ZONE

By the mid-1960s, downtown Boston had an officially tolerated underbelly glowing just blocks from the Common: strip joints, burlesque houses, adult theaters, hustlers, sailors, politicians and neon that stayed lit long after respectable Boston went home. But the Combat Zone was also a working music district, where show bands and soul singers ground through set after set for some of the toughest rooms in town.

Roger Pace worked the major strip clubs, part of a parallel Boston music scene that existed far from Harvard Square, the British Invasion and the psychedelic ballroom. Follow the musicians through those doors and the Zone becomes something more than Boston’s notorious red-light district—it becomes another piece of the city’s musical DNA. Boston Babylon turns on the neon and goes downstairs.