That is it, Paul Borsodi and Paula. That little storefront coffee shop was the folk music center of New Haven in the late Fifites and early Sixties. There were never any paid performers and I don't remember anyone ever passing a basket, we all played for the fun of it. I guess it was the folk music equivalent of a piano bar.

One of hte people who played there was a young woman with a deep voicem, Maxine who inevitably was called Max. One of the songs she used to play often was called something like, "Oh, Babe It Aint No Lie". I think she'd learned it from a Texas Gladden recording.

Several years later, I was working in Paris, teaching English. One of my students asked me about my tastes in music. I explained patiently that I liked traditional American music and wouldn't expect that he would know much about the people or the songs. He insisted on asking for details. I mentioned the Carter Family Gid Tanner, The New Lost City Ramblers and for some reason I mentioned Max's song, "Oh, Babe It Aint No Lie". He brightened right up, "I know that song." I didn't believe him and sang a little of it to show that he really didn't know THAT song. It turned out that he really did. He insisted he'd heard someone singing it at a cafe in the Latin Quarter, a woman who played on the streets around there. When he described her, I figured it was Max and sure enough, when I went to the cafe a couple of times, I found out it was. I'd found a friend from Connecticut, in Paris, through a song from Texas. And it didn't seem all that strange.