Several people have talked about where they first performed, which is naturally linked to the first songs you performed. I had been playing guitar and singing for close to ten years before I first sang on stage. In 1961, I was taking guitar lessons from Dave Van Ronk, and he ran a Monday night Hootenanny at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, in New York City. If Dave could have worked it out, he would have had guests doing the whole night while he sat upstairs in the Kettle of Fish, drinking with his cronies. Dave was the one who encouraged me to get up and sing, and it was one of the most frightening things I ever did. I did one song..

"Come along with me in 1913
To Calumet, Michigan in the copper country
I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall.."

Starting out with a Woody Guthrie song was as good a way as any to begin performing.

Jerry