The originalSweetwater在米尔谷是独一无二的among nightclubs in that it was a single room without a lobby. When concertgoers came through the door off the sidewalk, they stared directly into the eyes of the performers onstage. Look to the left and they were staring into the brown eyes of Jeanie Patterson, the proprietor, always seated at the end of the bar on a stool marked “hold for Jeanie.”

Patterson, who owned and operated the cozy wooden concert venue for 20 years, died Feb. 27, after suffering a heart attack. She had been tending the flowers she dug out of her Mill Valley garden and transplanted to her home in La Quinta, a desert resort town in the Coachella Valley (Riverside County). She was 75.

Patterson’s Sweetwater was notSweetwater Music Hall, which a group of investors including Bob Weiropened in the old Masonic Lodge in 2012 off Corte Madera Avenue. The original Sweetwater was not a lodge at all and barely a barroom. It had a low ceiling and walls maybe 20 feet apart.

Patterson singularly built it into the one place Marin County performers would book, out of loyalty, and stop by to listen or jam after playing the larger venues in San Francisco.

“It was a well-loved little music room that people knew about all over the world,” said Clare Wasserman, who was known as a Sweetwater regular with her late husband, Dan Hicks. “Sam Shepard would be at the bar. Robin Williams would come in after a show. Bobby Weir was there a lot. We were all really young, crazy people in Mill Valley.”

Located at 153 Throckmorton Ave., a block off the town square, Sweetwater had 81 seats. There was no separation between the stage and the audience, and no separation between the musicians and people who came in off the street.

“Music fans from the Mill Valley area and friends from around the world will probably share my sadness at the passing of dear JeaniePatterson,” wrote Grammy-winning musicianElvis Costello on Facebook. “My memories of ‘Sweetwater,’ her tiny but magical club, go back to my first visit in 1977. I spent very many, sometimes riotous, nights relaxing between Bay Area shows at that address.”

Also relaxing and sometimes sitting in with the nightly acts were Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Sammy Hagar,Marty Balin, Bonnie Raitt,Huey Lewis, Commander Cody,Jorma Kaukonen, Rob Wasserman and Norton Buffalo.

“Jeanie was so friendly, like a mother hen almost, ” said blues guitarist Roy Rogers, who shot a BBC documentary with John Lee Hooker,Ry Cooderand Raitt at Sweetwater.

Last November, Rogers was driving home from a performance in Phoenix, with his wife Gaynell, when they stopped in La Quinta and visited Patterson for half a day, just to reminisce with old stories.

“She created an environment that was caring,” Rogers said. “She treated artists like artists, not like bar employees.”

Jean Ann Tomlinson was born Aug. 14, 1943, in Evansville, Ind., and grew up in West Frankfort, Ill. She was a cheerleader and homecoming princess at West Frankfort High School, where she also acted in school plays. After graduating with the class of 1961, she enrolled at Southern Illinois University, but dropped out to move to San Francisco with a friend — even though she had never visited the Bay Area, said her older sister Mary Tatter of Watervliet,Mich.

She found an apartment in Palo Alto and worked at a savings and loan where she met her husband,Jay Patterson. They moved to Mill Valley where Jay sold real estate. He was approached to invest in an old bar called the Office, which had been renamed Sweetwater. He bought in, in 1978, and a year later the Pattersons took over, with Jeanie running the place even though she did not drink.

“People moved to Mill Valley to be closer to Sweetwater and the music scene,” said Jay, who is still in real estate. “I saw it right before my eyes.”

At the time, the Pattersons were living in a Victorian next to Mill Valley City Hall. Patterson would walk to work in the company of her dog Elvis, who stayed downstairs in the office while she went up to take position on her stool, always elegantly dressed in Italian boots, pressed jeans and a jacket.

“Jeanie was always immersed in the music,” said Wasserman. “When you saw her sitting on her barstool, all was right with the world.”

The Pattersons divorced in 1985, and she got the bar and the Victorian home. She often traveled to music festivals in search of bands to book, and took delight in bringing them to a tiny venue in a town they’d never heard of.

She saw bluesman Walter “Wolfman” Washington at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 1988 and decided to book him. “Walter don’t leave ‘Nawlins,” she was told by his manager. “Walter doesn’t know me,” she responded, according to a column by retired Chronicle pop music critic Joel Selvin.

But Patterson was under constant pressure from her landlord. She could not get a lease, and repairs were sparing. She seemed to lose her heart for Sweetwater and sold it in 1999 to Tom and Becky Steere.

She sold the Victorian, too, and packed her car and a U-haul.

“Jeanie introduced a lot of Cajun and blues acts that probably never would have seen the Bay Area, except for her,” said John Goddard, owner of the famous record store Village Music in Mill Valley.

Her older son, Tro, died suddenly at age 33 in Humboldt County in 2003, and her younger son, Taylor, was 30 when he died in 2006 in Chicago.

“She was devastated by the first one, and destroyed by the second,” said Austin de Lone, a longtime musician who knew Patterson for more than 40 years.

Sweetwater finally closed in 2007, the same day that Goddard closed Village Music. When the Sweetwater name was resurrected in 2012, attempts were made to get Patterson to come up for the opening party of the new music hall.

“他们试图to talk her into it,” said Goddard, “but she never set foot in Mill Valley after she left.”

Survivors include a sister, Mary Tatter of Watervliet,Mich.; a brother, George Tomlinson of West Frankfort, Ill.; four nieces and nephews; and nine grandnieces and -nephews.

At her request, there will be no services.