In The Twilight Of The Folk Minute- Peter Seeger And Arlo Guthrie In Concert
“Jesus, they charged me fourteen dollars each for these tickets to see Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. Remember Laura when we saw Pete for five bucks (and the price of an expresso coffee for two people and maybe a shared piece of carrot since he had been on a date, a cheap date when he didn’t have much cash and the guy was expected, expected on a heavy date anyway to pay) at the Café Nana over Harvard Square and Arlo gave a free concert out on Concord Common back in the day,” said Sam Lowell to his date Laura Peters and the couple they were standing in line with, Patrick Darling and Julia James, in front of Symphony Hall in Boston waiting for the doors to open for the concert that evening. Sam continued along that line saying “things sure were cheaper then and people, folkies for sure, did their gigs for the love of it as much as for the money, maybe more.
And that reference got Julia thinking back the early 1960s when she and Sam went “dutch treat” to see Dave Van Ronk at the Club Blue (Sam and Julia had despite dorm Julia BU dorm roommate rumors had never been lovers). Club Blue located in that same Harvard Square that Sam mentioned also had the Café Nana and about five or six other coffeehouses. Coffeehouses then where you could see Bob, Joan, Eric (Von Schmidt), Tom (Rush), Phil (Ochs) and lots of lean and hungry performers working for the “basket” passed among the patrons and be glad, at least according to Van Ronk when she had asked him about the “take” during one intermission, to get twenty bucks for your efforts that night. Coffeehouses where for the price of a cup of coffee, maybe a pastry, shared, you could wallow in the fluff of the folk minute that swept America, maybe the world, and hear the music that was the leading edge then toward that new breeze that everybody that she and Sam knew was bound to come what with all the things going on in the world. Black civil rights, mainly down in the police state South, nuclear disarmament, the Pill to open up sexual possibilities previously too dangerous or forbidden, and music too, not just the folk music that she had been addicted to but something coming from England paying tribute to old-time blues with a rock upbeat that was now a standard part of the folk scene ever since they “discovered” blues guys like Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Bukka White, and Skip James. All the mix to turn the world upside down. All of which as well was grist to the mill for the budding folk troubadours to write songs about.
She made her companions laugh as they stood there when she said that if worse came to worse and you had no money like happened one time with a guy she had a date with you could always go to the Hayes-Bickford and as long as you were not rowdy like the drunks, winos, panhandlers and hoboes who drifted through there you could watch the scene for free and on any given night, maybe around midnight you could hear some next best thing guy or gal singing low some tune they wrote or some poem.
…As they walked down the step of Symphony Hall having watched Pete work his banjo magic, work the string of his own Woody-inspired songs and of covers from the big sky American songbook and Arlo wowed with his City of New Orleans and some of his father’s stuff (no Alice’s Restaurant that night he was saving that for Thanksgiving) Sam told his companions that “fourteen dollars each for tickets was a steal for such performances, especially in that acoustically fantastic hall” and told the three that he would stand for coffees at the Blue Parrot if they liked. “And maybe share some pastry too.”
“Jesus, they charged me fourteen dollars each for these tickets to see Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. Remember Laura when we saw Pete for five bucks (and the price of an expresso coffee for two people and maybe a shared piece of carrot since he had been on a date, a cheap date when he didn’t have much cash and the guy was expected, expected on a heavy date anyway to pay) at the Café Nana over Harvard Square and Arlo gave a free concert out on Concord Common back in the day,” said Sam Lowell to his date Laura Peters and the couple they were standing in line with, Patrick Darling and Julia James, in front of Symphony Hall in Boston waiting for the doors to open for the concert that evening. Sam continued along that line saying “things sure were cheaper then and people, folkies for sure, did their gigs for the love of it as much as for the money, maybe more.
And that reference got Julia thinking back the early 1960s when she and Sam went “dutch treat” to see Dave Van Ronk at the Club Blue (Sam and Julia had despite dorm Julia BU dorm roommate rumors had never been lovers). Club Blue located in that same Harvard Square that Sam mentioned also had the Café Nana and about five or six other coffeehouses. Coffeehouses then where you could see Bob, Joan, Eric (Von Schmidt), Tom (Rush), Phil (Ochs) and lots of lean and hungry performers working for the “basket” passed among the patrons and be glad, at least according to Van Ronk when she had asked him about the “take” during one intermission, to get twenty bucks for your efforts that night. Coffeehouses where for the price of a cup of coffee, maybe a pastry, shared, you could wallow in the fluff of the folk minute that swept America, maybe the world, and hear the music that was the leading edge then toward that new breeze that everybody that she and Sam knew was bound to come what with all the things going on in the world. Black civil rights, mainly down in the police state South, nuclear disarmament, the Pill to open up sexual possibilities previously too dangerous or forbidden, and music too, not just the folk music that she had been addicted to but something coming from England paying tribute to old-time blues with a rock upbeat that was now a standard part of the folk scene ever since they “discovered” blues guys like Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Bukka White, and Skip James. All the mix to turn the world upside down. All of which as well was grist to the mill for the budding folk troubadours to write songs about.
She made her companions laugh as they stood there when she said that if worse came to worse and you had no money like happened one time with a guy she had a date with you could always go to the Hayes-Bickford and as long as you were not rowdy like the drunks, winos, panhandlers and hoboes who drifted through there you could watch the scene for free and on any given night, maybe around midnight you could hear some next best thing guy or gal singing low some tune they wrote or some poem.
…As they walked down the step of Symphony Hall having watched Pete work his banjo magic, work the string of his own Woody-inspired songs and of covers from the big sky American songbook and Arlo wowed with his City of New Orleans and some of his father’s stuff (no Alice’s Restaurant that night he was saving that for Thanksgiving) Sam told his companions that “fourteen dollars each for tickets was a steal for such performances, especially in that acoustically fantastic hall” and told the three that he would stand for coffees at the Blue Parrot if they liked. “And maybe share some pastry too.”
