Scene: Folk Music in Greenwich Village, Early 1960s
From hootenannies in Washington Square Park to coffeehouses and nightspots dotting Bleecker and MacDougal streets, New York City’s Greenwich Village was a hotbed of folk music in the early 1960s. This quaint section of lower Manhattan had already welcomed waves of nonconformists, from anarchists and communists in the early 20th century to Beats and artists in the late ’40s and ’50s. Music played an important role – jazz clubs and coffeehouses featured poetry readings, and these venues soon became the perfect settings for folk singers and acoustic combos playing throwback sounds of rural American music. College students attending neighboring New York University, as well as fledgling folkies who found cheap rentals in the traditionally Italian working-class quarter, filled the pass-the-hat houses.
Israel Young’s Folklore Center, Irwin Silber’s Sing Out magazine, Mo Asch’s Folkway Records and Jac Holzman’s Elektra label (founded in his Village apartment) also served as beacons for young singers with big dreams who flocked to New York. The Newport Folk Festival, which originated in 1959, inspired artists and audiences to look to America’s musical heritage, including old-timey string bands, bluegrass, Delta blues, Appalachian balladry and Cajun fiddle tunes. These styles were embraced by performers appearing at Village clubs, including the Gaslight, the Bitter End, the Village Gate and Gerde’s Folk City. The Sunday afternoon sing-alongs and pickin’ parties near Washington Square Park’s fountain featured banjos, mandolins, fiddles and acoustic guitars. Old-guard folk singers such as Pete Seeger welcomed the new generation, led by Joan Baez, whose crystalline soprano took nineteenth-century ballads to new heights.
In 1961, when an upstart from Minnesota with a thing for Woody Guthrie showed up at open-mic nights in the Village, the times they were a-changin’. Bob Dylan, whose first paid gig was opening for bluesman John Lee Hooker, was soon signed by Columbia Records’ John Hammond, who’d long frequented the Village clubs. After his “Blowin’ in the Wind” became a smash for folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, it was only a matter of time until Dylan was hailed as “the voice of his generation” with a long line of “new Dylans” trying to follow in his footsteps.
