I grew up in the NYC area and spent some time playing and listening in the folk clubs in the early to late 1960s. I used to go and listen at the Cafe Wha, Gerdes Folk City and even played at the Bitter End as part of a folk group (we followed Woody Allen to the chant of "Bring Back Woody". The emcee was my friend Richmond Sheppard. I had the pleasure (if you could call it that) to jam with Bod Dylan before he was well known. Actually he borrowed my guitar on one occasion. I remember several wonderful folk singers/musicians that no one seems to mention here. One was Carol Hunter. I think the first open tuning I learned was from a friend (Ken Hoopes) of a friend of Carol. It was an exotic Gm tuning for the song Anathea. I also witnessed one of the greatest 5 string banjo players that no one seems to remember. Players like Eric Weisberg and Roger Sprung sat at Gerdes in amazement of this fellow who I believe came from Boston to play on the open performing night. His technique was different in that he played a series of notes like a scale but it sounded like Scruggs picking. Frankly he was the greatest banjo player I heard during that time. I seem to remember someone said he was wealthy and came in just to play the night from New England. Hopefully someone here knows who this is!!

I was a little known singer song writer in the NYC in the 1960s. I published my first songs in 1964 with Southern Music Publishing who also held the material of Donovan. I wrote mostly music in those days and my lyric partner was a fellow named Jay Rosenberg. At one point Peter Paul and Mary was possibly going to record one of our songs. As I remember it the group unfortunately broke up at the time do to a problem that Peter Yarrow was going through. No one showed up for the appointed meeting at a NYC Apartment) I did perform on several occasions with little known singing groups in the NYC area (The Wafaring Strangers, Dr. John and Abelard). I remember once being cut short at a major concert when the emcee told us that Ray Boguslav had just flown in from the West Coast and would need some of our time. We stalled until the hook came out. Does anyone remeber Ray?

In early 1969 I decided to quite my computer science job and try my hand as a professional guitarist/singer song writer. I was very lucky as Hamilton Camp was making a comeback and he took me on as his lead guitarist. Around the same time I also got to accompany a wonderful singer songwriter named Penny Nichols. She was Jackson Browne's girlfriend at the time and Penny and I practiced once at his apartment which I believe was in Silver Lake district of LA. Penny finally released a new album some 30+ years after the original one in the 1960s. She is known by many as a wonderful coach for singing and song writing. She is truly one of the underrated singer songwriters' of the 1960s. As a strange coincidence I went to school at SUNY at Stony Brook in the 1960s when Jackson Browne was creating his wonderful music. I used to see him in the H dorm (he did not go to school there but hang out). Later he would open for Hamilton Camp and our group (The True Brethren) in 1969 at the Golden Bear In Huntington Beach.   Frankly I don't believe we ever spoke to each other, which is strange given all the near crossings we had.

There were many incredible folk artists that were little known in the 1960s. Perhaps someone here remembers Norm Pederson. (I think that is the spelling of the name.) My friend Ken Hoopes was also a wonderful guitarist who introduced me to this wonderful instrument.    There were also some who were very minor folk performers in the 1960s who later became famous in other fields of music. I used to jam with a fellow named Jeff Kagel at Stony Brook. Much later he became the famous Krishna Das (Indian Kirtan singer and musician). Some even became well known in opera--Jane Olian. She wrote some beautiful songs in the 1960s and is now a famous singing coach and professor of music at several of the universities in the NYC area. There are others who I knew. I will post some more when I get a chance.

Waqidi Falicoff