Dave Van Ronk with "Dink's Song" in the early 1960's.
I just picked up a new book at the library, Talkin' Greenwich Village, by David Browne. It's an incredibly well researched look at the folk singing scene that emerged out of Greenwich Village, in New York City, from the late 1950's, through the 1960's. This scene was full of young singers and guitar players, enamored by the earlier folk musicians like Woody Guthrie, and the folk musician tradition in the U.S. that went back 100 years or more before then. From public singalongs at the fountain in Washington Square Park, these young musicians began to perform the songs they heard from Guthrie, The Kingston Trio, and a whole slew of the folk and blues players of the early 20th century.
By 1957, when the book dives into the scene, the Greenwich Village district in New York City had a history as home to several prominent writers, going back decades. At the time, the small clubs and coffee houses of the Village were where jazz greats like John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk performed in small clubs while in NYC. The coffee shops were the stompin' and reading grounds of the beat poets, Jack Kerouac being the best known to most of us now. The young folk singers began to play gigs at these clubs and coffee houses, which were often hassled by police and city officials, because of neighbors complaining about the noise.
A legendary scene evolved, as more young folk singers were drawn to the scene. They all played music, drank, argued, worked odd jobs, fell in love, broke up, marched in protests, and got followed by the J.Edgar Hoover FBI in some cases. Most of them were on the far Left side of the political spectrum, often socialists and in some cases, actual communists. I'm more interested in the music scene, but the politics of the time was a part of it all.
In the early 1960's, with Village newcomer Bob Dylan being one of the first, they began writing their own folk songs, in addition to singing the classics. Ever heard of Dave Van Ronk? Neither had I. But he was an early and constant part of the scene, and taught several others to play guitar when they showed up on the scene, as well as writing many songs. The book marches through the happenings, and Van Zonk is a major thread in much of it. Browne chronicles the comings, goings, interactions, and key events of the main musicians in this scene, year by year.
I picked up the book for a couple of reasons. As a goofy, young kid in Ohio, I was a fan of guitar playing singer/songwriters. The first album I asked my parents to buy me as a gift (Christmas or birthday, can't remember), was John Denver's Greatest Hits, Volume 2. Our family had moved to a farmhouse outside the tiny burg of Shiloh, Ohio. Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" became my theme song. OK, we didn't actually work the farm, we just rented the house, but I wandered that farm, the creek, and woods every day. I did have to help chase the cows back into the pasture two or three times, when they got out. That was the extent of my actual farm life.
At 8 or 9 years old, I was a fan of bluegrass that I heard on Hee Haw, like Grandpa Jones, Roy Clark, and Glen Campbell. While I didn't like most of the country music coming out of my mom's radio in the kitchen, I did really like the music of Johnny Cash. So acoustic guitars, folk music were my favorites in my grade school years.
The other reason for picking up Talking Greenwich Village is because as a BMX freestyler in the 1980's, I developed an interest in what I call "Creative Scenes." To me, a Creative Scene is any group of people who come together on a regular basis to do something creative. That can range from a couple of skateboarders at a skatepark, to people like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak creating Apple Computers in the 1970's. Art, music, creative businesses, action sports, there are creative scenes in all these things. I witnessed the early scenes of the BMX freestyle world, when there were little pockets of riders in different locations, promoting our weird, new, little sport. Since I moved around, and became a part of several different BMX and skateboard scenes, I saw how they helped riders and skaters progress, and how these scenes ultimately influenced many other people, and helped the sports grow and evolve overall. Over several years, I realized there are all kinds of different Creative Scenes, and that most of the progress in society comes from various Creative Scenes that spring up and thrive for a while.
The Greenwich Village folk music scene of the 1960's was one of the most influential musical scenes in the history of the United States, and that influence continues to ripple outward, in today's young singer/songwriters, like Alice Phoebe Lou, Jenn Fiorentino, and many more, covering the songs they grew up on, and then writing and performing their own. Generations of singer/songwriters in the U.S., and around the world, were influenced and inspired by the 1960's Greenwich Village folk scene.
I'm only about halfway through the book, but it has already turned me on to a whole bunch of singers and musicians I had never heard of. First, here are several of the people who inspired the early Greenwich Village folk music scene, people who were in and around the Village, coming out of the 1950's. Then I've linked a whole bunch of the early musicians that were part of the Village folk music scene in that era. If you have an interest in folk music, Greenwich Village, U.S. music history, or guitar picking, Talkin' Greenwich Village is well worth the read.
The inspirations
Greenwich Village scene folk singers of the early and mid 1960's
Carolyn Hester- "I'll Fly Away" (with Bob Dylan on harmonica)
Bob Dylan Live at the Gaslight (recorded at the Gaslight, in Greenwich Village, in October 1962)
Harry Belafonte- "Midnight Special #1" (With Bob Dylan on harmonica)
There are no paid links in this post.
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