Duke, I know the guy who used to run the Village Corner in the late 50s to early 60s. His name is Mike Cavendish. We get together about once a week at a local song circle, and he is full of tales about those times. He says that the Village Corner was the first coffeehouse in Toronto to host the young Bob Dylan, and he's got many strange tales about Ian and Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, the TwoTones (Lightfoot and his early singing partner whose name escapes me at the moment), Buffy Sainte-Marie, David Whiffen, Maria Muldaur, Sonny and Cher, Cedric Smith, Joni Anderson (Mitchell), Joan Baez, etc...some of them may even be TRUE!!! ;-) Mike's quite a raconteur.

Mike kindly gave me an ugly little cap that Bob Dylan came to the Village Corner with one night in the very early 60s, and left it there. He was with Grossman that night, not playing, but just hanging out, and he was wearing the cap. I guess he maybe didn't like it that much, cos he left it there and never came back for it, so Mike kept it. It IS quite ugly, in my opinion, so maybe Bob was just looking for a handy place to leave it... ;-D

It looks like a Swiss mountaineering cap. And it's pretty dirty and scuzzy looking.

As for Fat Albert's, I used to go there from time to time. Saw Kristofferson and numerous others play the Riverboat.

I think the one on Avenue Road above Davenport was called the Purple Onion, wasn't it?

Some Toronto rock or blues groups I recall are Edward Bear, Whiskey Howl, Huron and Washington, and Kensington Market. Oh, and there were some folk groups too...like Stringband (Marie-Lynn Hammond, Bob Bossin, Grit Laskin).

And another folk place where you could play was Fiddler's Green, captained by the extremely annoying Tam Kierney (sp?) who had no time for mere mortals who dared to play anything that wasn't trad and from the UK or Ireland. ;-D