Abby, could your San Fransisco folk singer Tom be Tom Parrott? He wrote "The Freedoms We've Been Fighting For," which is in Broadside Magazine, and I think he's still alive. I'm pretty sure I looked him up on wikipedia once.

Many of the people whose names I've seen here appeared in Broadside Magazine. I'm too young to have been around in the '60's, and I always thought that anybody I knew the name of had to be well-known, otherwise I wouldn't know about them. But, there are several names in a Broadside songbook which my mother gave me that I've tried to look up online, and had no results. Of course, just because somebody isn't online now doesn't mean they weren't famous then, but I feel as if there would be some mention of their name somewhere if they were.

I've noticed that several people have posted about David Cohen (I guess there are three David Cohens). In my Broadside songbook, there is a David Cohen mentioned who wrote "The Cruel Years," and "More Good Men Goin' Down," both anti-Vietnam songs. I wonder if he is one of the same ones you all have talked about? Also in the songbook are Alex Cohen and Bob Cohen. Probably unrelated, since Cohen is a common name.

I'm going to list here some of the "little-known" song-writers who appear in my book, along with others whom I consider to be well-known:

Eric Anderson - He wrote "My Land is a Good Land," and had a record (1965ish) called "'Bout Changes and Things." I own this, and it's the only record of his I've ever heard of.
Rich Astle - He wrote "The Autumn Wind," which I love. I don't know what became of him, but I would like to know.
Ed Carl
Jimmy Collier - I think he was active in the poor people's movement with Fredrick Douglas Kirkpatrick "Everybody's Got a Right to Live."
Joan Cosman
Gail Dorsey and Emilie Gould
Richard Farina - played the mountain dulcimer. Mimi Farina's husband. He wrote "Children of Darkness," and died tragically in a motorcycle accident.
Bill Frederick
Ricardo Gautreau
Chris Gaylord
Guillevic
Carolyn Hester
Matt Jones and Elain Laron
Paul Kaplan
Mike Kellin
Peter Krug
Peter La Farge - I think this is who wrote "As Long as the Grass Will Grow," and worked for Native American causes. He died young, but I'm not sure why.
Julius Lester
Walter Lowenfels
Ernie Marrs
Ric Masten
Matt McGinn - He may be more well-known than I think. I've seen his name in other places besides Broadside.
Will McLean - He wrote several songs about the history of his home state, Florida. He was also a WWII vet, and older than many of the younger folk-singers of the time.
Jerry Moore
Ronnie Peterson
Vanessa Redgrave - A little-known singer, but a well-known actress and activist, I would guess.
Malvina Reynolds - I don't consider her little-known, but nobody else seems to know who she is. She's one of my favorites.
Norman A. Ross
Teddi Schwartz
Patrick Sky
Mark Spoelstra
Luis Valdez
Carl Watanabee
Billy Edd Wheeler
Elain White
Martin Wood
Woody Wright

If anybody has information about the people mentioned in this post, I'd like to know more about them. Feel free to correct me if I've listed someone who is actually quite famous as "little known."