![]() Ed Simon, the owner of The Four Winds, reopened the Gaslight in 1968. John Moyant bought the club in 1961, and his father in law Clarence Hood and his son Sam managed the club through the late 1960s. Opened in 1958 by John Mitchell, the Gaslight showcased beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso but later became a folk-music club. The Gaslight was originally a ‘basket house’ where unpaid performers would pass around a basket at the end of each set and hope to be paid. Also known as The Village Gaslight, it opened in 1958 and became notable as a venue for folk music and other musical acts. After the riot at Washington Square Park in 1961, the younger musicians began coming into their own, and folk music would see a new burst of popularity as the 1960s and 1970s went on.“ The Gaslight Cafe was a coffeehouse in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. This was not to be the case for much longer, however. As Van Ronk recalled, ‘There wasn’t anything else.’ (Kip Lornell, Exploring American Folk Music: Ethnic, Grassroots, and Regional Traditions in the United States, 298) The Folk Singers Guild organized a few small concerts there, and musicians gathered there on Sunday nights to play before Gerdes Folk City opened in 1961. Café Bizarre, a tourist trap at 106 West 3rd Street was another of the first establishments to book folk musicians, but they got most of their experience playing at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, at 181 Sullivan Street. It became a folk club in the early 1960s, and the Kettle of Fish became a folk hangout since its location made it a convenient place for performers to relax between sets. The Gaslight Café had opened in 1958, and hosted readings by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gregory Corso early on. Paul Clayton worked as an ethnomusicologist in Appalachia, finding traditional musicians and folk songs, many of which he brought back to the Village folk scene.Ĭlayton, Van Ronk, Luke Faust, Len Chandler, and others performed at the Gaslight Café at 116 MacDougal Street, downstairs and next door to the Kettle of Fish at 114 MacDougal Street. ![]() He and his friend Paul Clayton were also mentors to Bob Dylan, who spent a good amount of time crashing on Van Ronk’s couch. (The block where he lived at 15 Sheridan Square is now named ‘Dave Van Ronk Street’ in his honor.) He became a great inspiration to Joan Baez, who at the time was still getting her start singing in Boston and Cambridge, and a mentor and proponent of Joni Mitchell. Van Ronk, who had come to Greenwich Village in the mid-1950s, was known as the ‘Mayor of MacDougal Street’ for his leadership in the folk community. He met Dave Van Ronk there, and Young himself produced Dylan’s first concert at Carnegie Chapter Hall in 1961. Bob Dylan was known to sit in the back room of the store, listening to records and reading books. It became a hangout of sorts, where musicians met and were introduced to each other. Dave Van Ronk, ‘The Mayor of MacDougal Street.Įarly in 1957, Izzy Young opened the Folklore Center at 110 MacDougal Street, selling records, books, and sheet music near the park. ![]() In Greenwich Village, they were still able to meet in Washington Square Park, and sustain a community that continually drew in younger musicians. The result was the ‘ Beatnik Riot.’ Cohen recalls it as ‘one little glitch with the cops,’ with no other interruption in the singing and playing in Washington Square Park (which today, does not require a permit).Īfter Pete Seeger was blacklisted in the early 1950s, and his fellow Weavers placed under FBI surveillance, folk music was largely driven underground. When the musicians got to the park, the police were already there. Among them were David Bennett Cohen, Izzy Young (who had submitted the application in the first place, and was now organizing the protest), Dan Drasin (who filmed the protest with borrowed equipment), and, some say, a nineteen-year-old Bob Dylan. The official reason was never given.) They gathered all the same, on 9 April, to protest the rejection. (Some speculate that the city was concerned that the musicians were attracting undesirable elements, like beatniks and interracial couples, to the neighborhood. A permit was required at this time, but was considered a formality until 1961, when the ‘folkies’’ application was rejected with no explanation. The park had become a gathering place for them starting in the 1940s, when the likes of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie began singing and socializing there. On Sunday 9 April 1961, Washington Square Park was full of folk musicians and their friends. Dan Drasin’s ‘Sunday’ documented the ‘Beatnik Riot.’ ![]()
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