For more than 30 years Vern Washington has been one of the most familiar faces on Mobile’s music scene. So it’s no surprise to see that community rally around him following a near-fatal health crisis – but what is surprising is just how epic an upcoming celebration promises to be.

As an online fundraising drive seeks to help with ongoing medical costs during Washington’s recovery, an upcoming benefit concert will feature the long-awaited reunion of one of the city’s most beloved rock bands of the past quarter-century, The Ugli Stick.

“It’s gonna be rowdy,” said Maggie Smith, co-owner of Soul Kitchen Music Hall, where the double reunion show will take place. (The opener will be Triple 40, and it’ll be the first show in a long time for them too.)

“It’s gonna be a bunch of old-school Dauphin Street people,” said Smith. “It’s gonna be a lot of fun.”

The reason for the effort is laid out in a GoFundMe drive organized by Smith:

If you’ve spent time in downtown Mobile, you’ve likely been greeted by the warm smile and steady presence of Vernon Washington. As Soul Kitchen’s long-time box office manager and the trusted security at places like Brickyard, Monsoon’s, Pat’s, and Callaghan’s, Vernon has been the quiet guardian of our good times for years.

Six weeks ago, Vernon was rushed to the ICU with congestive heart failure and placed on a ventilator for over a week. It was a frightening time — we came close to losing him. But through sheer strength and the grace of God, Vernon pulled through.

Now, he faces a long road to recovery. He won’t be able to return to work for months, and the medical bills, medications, and everyday expenses are piling up.

Washington goes way back. Smith said that in the early ‘90s he was working at Southside, a bar that was a precursor to Soul Kitchen at 455 Dauphin St. Similarly, Noell Broughton said he was working at Monsoon’s before Broughton bought that club around 1996.

Calling Washington “the quiet guardian of our good times” sheds some light on what makes him special. Smith also refers to him as “our protector of the riff-raff.”

His principal role was working the door, which means handling money, tickets, ID checks and the occasional problematic patron. It’s a job that can be handled with indifference or antagonism. Washington was known for handling it with grace.

“I mean, he’s one of the nicest, kindest people you’ll ever know,” said Broughton. “He was so perfect at the door because number one, he’s honest and number two, he’s so mild-mannered and even-keeled that he can defuse a situation. There’s just nobody better than him at the door. I mean, he’s just, he’s just a great guy. There’s not enough good things I couldn’t say about Vernon. On top of all that, he’s one of my dear friends, too.”

“Vern has taught me so much about music,” said Smith. “He’s a Prince fanatic like I am, and soul music and Isley Brothers, and he listens to every band we have. He remembers everybody. … Vern is one of my best friends and I don’t think friends really covers it. He’s our family. I can’t think of anybody who’s bigger a part of the downtown scene than Vern Washington.

There was a period after he fell ill when he was not expected to survive, she said. Broughton said Washington’s recovery is progressing well, though it may be a while before he returns to his familiar late-night gig. The online drive is about halfway to a $5,500 goal; proceeds from the benefit – backed by Soul Kitchen, Broughton’s venue the Brickyard, and Callaghan’s Irish Social Club – will bolster that.

On the musical side, participants say that plans for The Ugli Stick’s reunion came together almost instantly.

“When Maggie and I were talking about getting something together … she was like, ‘I’m gonna reach out to The Ugli Stick,’” Broughton said. He knew the members had been kicking the idea of a reunion around for years, but because they lived in different areas and had busy schedules, it hadn’t happened.

“But those guys jumped up quick. I mean, she called me right back and said, ‘They’re in.’” (Smith said the members of Triple 40 were similarly quick to answer the call.)

To understand the excitement generated by the words “They’re in,” it helps to know that from 2000 to about 2012, The Ugli Stick loomed large on Mobile’s sonic landscape. A musically ambitious rock band whose members appreciated the rhythmic complexity of the era’s hip-hop, the group had the talent to cover a crowd-pleasing swath of pop music, from Cameo, Digital Underground and Eminem to En Vogue and Sade.

The Ugli Stick grew from a power trio to a quintet, then settled in as a quartet. It released a series of albums, building a catalog of original material that reflected its members’ eclectic tastes. It built a following on the Southeastern college circuit. It played at BayFest and other regional festivals. It toured U.S. military bases in the Mideast. And for about a decade, it seemed just a break away from making the big time. When members finally called it quits and moved on, they left behind a lot of good songs and a lot of fans with fond memories.

“We’re pretty pumped,” said guitarist-vocalist Eric Erdman. “A reunion was in discussion for the past five years, you know what I mean? But everybody lives in different parts. Quintin and I both live in Mobile, but I’m never there, so we don’t even live in the same place, even though we do. Tim lives in Birmingham, Dale lives in Tennessee. And it was like, well, if we’re gonna get together and do this big reunion, we want to do it properly. We don’t want to get together and just jam, we want to play the songs, and that means two or three rehearsals in a row. So that means we gotta have a week together in one city, wherever that might be. And it was just logistically a nightmare. We all wanted to do it, we just kept putting it off.”

“I’ve known Vern since high school,” said Erdman. “I’ve known him a long time. He was a familiar face when we were first playing downtown, even before The Ugli Stick. And then everyone in The Ugli Stick knows him as well. And he was the door guy, but he was more than that. He’s a friend of all of ours, more than just somebody that worked at the venues. He became a part of the family early on. To the extent that when I wrote the song about Monsoon’s burning down, ‘Old Friend,’ I mentioned Vern in the song.

“When we heard he was in need, it wasn’t really a question. It was more like, ‘Hey, Vern needs us,’” Erdman said. “And everybody said, ‘Yep.’ There wasn’t even a slight second of pause. It was just like, ‘When are we doing it?’”

Erdman said the show will feature most of the players who contributed to The Ugli Stick legacy. It’ll feature the latter-day lineup of himself, founding drummer Tim Stanton, guitarist Dale Drinkard and bassist Quintin Berry. He said that Brian Graves – the band’s founding bassist, who produced the debut album “Beatdown” and who later switched to guitar, also will take part. Erdman said two who can’t make it because of scheduling conflicts are bassists Brandon Whigham and Jimbo Hart, who toured with the band before later joining Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit.

Since the end of The Ugli Stick’s run, Erdman has sustained a career as a singer-songwriter. Revisiting his older band catalog has been interesting, he said.

“There are things I wish I could go back and rewrite lyrically with my 19-year-old self,” he said. “It’s not like I’m ashamed of the songs. I’m proud of them. Some of this stuff is far more elevated than I gave it credit for at the time. Like, it’s even bigger than I remember, basically. … There were choices we made in the songs both lyrically and in the music that were wildly different than I would do now. Some of it I want to fix, but some of them, it’s magic. It’s the youthful exuberance, the youthful rock and roll spirit that only happens when you’re 19 to 25 years old, when you don’t know the rules, so you’re not scared to break them.”

It’s probably safe bet that the show will include beloved songs such as “Leaving Birmingham,” “So High” and “The D.I.P. Song.” But Erdman said it might also include songs that the band never released, back in the day. He said he wasn’t going to give away too much ahead of time.

“Basically, the set list is a mix of things we remember as being crowd favorites and then songs that we were extremely proud of, that we wanted to put in there,” he said. “So it’s a little self-indulgent. But hopefully it’s mostly crowd-indulgent.”

“I haven’t talked to one person yet that’s not going to be there,” said Broughton. “They’re gonna give the city what they want. … I mean, I’m not going to miss one note of that.”

A benefit for Vern Washington featuring reunion performances by Triple 40 and The Ugli Stick will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2, at Soul Kitchen Music Hall, 219 Dauphin St. in downtown Mobile. Doors will open at 6 p.m. Advance tickets are $35.84 if ordered online through www.soulkitchenmobile.com. The event also will feature silent auctions and/or raffles.

Additionally, an after-party at the Brickyard, 266 Dauphin St., Lamont Landers and local artists will perform. Proceeds from that event also will benefit Washington.