"Baby Let Me Follow You Down", The illustrated story of the Cambridge folk years by Eric von Schmidt and Jim Rooney, University of Massachusetts Press. 2d ed.,1994. 320 pages.

Out of print for all these years, it is available at Amazon.com and other internet sites.

This was a labor of love. The first edition was published in 1979. Memories were fresh and the stories are full of excitement and energy. It is a vibrant picture of the people, places and time. It follows some of the group to New York and Europe. Most of the people in the book knew Geno.

There are four photos of Geno.

One is of Geno, Marci and baby Haydee taken the summer of 1966 at Villa Adriana, Italy. The caption underneath lists the date of Geno's death as 1965. It was 1966.

A full page photo by Charlie Frizzell is a close-up of Geno playing on stage. I believe he is with Rev. Gary Davis. He was very young because he does not have the beard.

Another full-page photo is by John Cooke. I believe he told me it was taken backstage at a Dylan concert.

The fourth is by Stephen Fenerjian. It is a recording session with von Schmidt and others. Geno's shoulder can be seen.

I've counted a total of 21 pages which have a reference to Geno.

There are many wonderful stories about him by:

Clay Jackson
Bob Neuwirth
Betsy Siggins
John Nagy
Peter Rowan
Eric von Schmidt

There is a delightful account by Bob Neuwirth about Geno's audition to the State Conservatory of Music in Berlin. Bob was there with him.
Geno broke all of the rules and still became an honored entrant. He never enrolled.

Clay Jackson recalled that in Paris in 1962:

"He'd gotten very saint-like and very quiet, and he moved as little as possible. He smoked a lot of grass and occasionally he'd been known to snort a little heroin but he refused to take the needle. Sometimes I'd wake up about 10:30 or 11:00 in the morning and I'd realize I'd already been listening to music for an hour. He'd be sitting there playing Thelonius Monk on the guitar, playing something like "Blue Monk", note by note perfect; very quiet but perfect. He'd always been very undisciplined on guitar, but toward the end he was playing the finest jazz, country, old time blues-just the finest stuff you ever heard. He never had much of a voice, but he finally got what little voice he had to where it started getting really funky and good-gravelly and rough and just great."

Peace,
Marcia