Little known '60s Folk Singers

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Cool Beans
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 10:33 AM

Len Chandler played the Ann Arbor Folk Festival in 1992. He was living in Los Angeles, teaching and writing and leading songwriting workshops. Don't know about now. He wrote "Beans In Our Ears," which many people think is a real folk song.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Duke
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 10:13 AM

Two more I just thought of. Bruce Farwell and Kit Snow. Both Americans and both introduced me to a: new songs and b: new guitar styles. I often wonder where these people are now.

On another note, I once had a one on one with tex in a chinese eatery and it must have been an off day for tex as I held my own pretty well.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Peter T.
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 10:18 AM

Mudcat has a thread (and a remembrance) on Tex, which went up when he died, complete with eulogies and reminiscences.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Big Mick
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 11:08 AM

Maybe one of Mudcats best threads ever. It is wonderful that these names are set free from the imprisonment of time. I will be looking up their music for quite a while. Thanks, everybody.

Mick

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Arkie
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 12:25 PM

Len Chandler also did two other songs that are favorites of mine to this day, "Loving People" and "My Father's Grave".

One name I have not seen here is Jamie Brockett whose showpiece was a version of the "Titanic" or is he too well known.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 12:33 PM

California guys, Joe & Eddie.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Cool Beans
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 01:11 PM

Jamie Brockett. He's a good one. Not well known, except for New England in the, what, 70s? Is his "Titanic" the one that keeps referring to the sailor with 100 feet of (hemp) rope?

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Arkie
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 02:39 PM

In his 13and 1/2 minute version of the Legend of the Titanic, Jamie Brockett had the opportunity to cover several subjects including hemp rope.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Betsy
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 06:47 AM

There was a great concertina player Lea Nicholson in the 60's only saw him once at Whitby festival and at the end of his marvellous set he had the nerve to finish with "I'm the Urban Spaceman ".
The audience (most of them) thought it great combining the concertina with a modern song , a bit tongue in the cheek / fun , but it didn't go down too well with the powers that be , and I THAT was that last I heard of him.
Pity really.
Cheers

Betsy.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Crane Driver
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 06:07 PM

Lea Nicholson is the man responsible for turning me into a concertina player (I name the guilty party!) He was back at Whitby in 1971, and I bought my first concertina three weeks later. The rest is history (or more likely geography, since I was all over the place)

Andrew

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Steve-o
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 07:25 PM

Note to Duke: I was Bruce Farwell's singing/playing partner in a duo that lasted from about 1985 to 1995- he was great then, and still is. Bruce is a wonderful fingerstyle player, and can sing harmony like nobody I've sung with since, and he has a great love for folk music. Our "group" was called "The Final Draught", and we played around So. California a lot- both folky songs and Irish songs. His current music partner is his wife, and they are living happily in Simi Valley, CA.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 12:26 AM

Judy Bright in Chicago had a uniquely lovely voice. Made one LP for Dot Records. Figure Judy Collins mixed with Eartha Kit. I treasure my tapes of Judy from the 60s and 70s. Lately, she is Judy Stine.

Doc Stanley. A good picker and off the wall singer. I remember his "Deep Elm Blues" fondly. Heard of his being incarcerated for something... And never heard of Doc again after that.

Tim Dawe---made an LP in the late 60s---was produced by Frank Zappa. Now in California last I heard.

Johnny Long---a lanky blues guy white kid in the early 70s Chicago scene. Married to Becca---but that dissolved. Just today I found a new album by a JOHN LONG reviewed in Sing Out magazine. Might be the same fellow----30 years further on down the road.

Dodi Kallick in Chicago 40 years back. She's the mom of bluegrasser Kathy Kallick. Both have genetic traits to their phrasing that give each away as being related to the other.

Martha Burns, a solo Old-Timey singer in Chicago circa 1972 with that biting vocal style that made you definitely remember her, and wonder where she'd gone, and why you haven't heard more of her in this era of Alice Girrard and Laurel Bliss and Ginny Hawker...

Jerry Rau---a Minnesota minstrel --- the epitome of what a road songster is in my mind. A real folksinger. I spent some wonderful nights listening to Jerry.

Mark Silber----Perry Letterman----Mark Dorinson---Mike Slawson----Roger Luzwick----Stu "Darsono" Ramsey----Bob Hoban---Adam Cochran...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 05:37 AM

I'd like to put in a little reminder of the late John Dunkerley who played guitar, banjo and doubled on keyboards occasionally with the Ian Campbell Group. As I remember he also did gigs with Geoff Bodenham of 1812.

John was a truly great accompanist. I used to love his plaintive banjo on The Unquiet Grave, and very neat picking on Peggy Gordon.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Shirtlifter
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 05:26 AM

I saw a great folk singer at Les Cousins in the late sixties "Roy Parker" he was brilliant and had a great rapport with the audience. He done a long song called "I hate the night". I've searched and searched all my life and never found anything by him although he did mention that he had records out?

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 08:33 AM

Mike Miller, Billy Vanaver's heart attack was back in March, and it appears he's back gigging.

Somebody mentioned Jackie Washington. He's still performing and recording with Scarlett, Washington & Whitely

As for me, the 60's were Smothers Brothers, Pete Seeger, PP&M, and, "No, you can't go to Woodstock."

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Duke
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 09:07 AM

There was also an American Jackie Washington who did more folk than OUR beloved Jackie Washington. Of course I really don't want to get into what is folk and what is not!

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 09:49 AM

There was a Geordie lad a trainee teacher I believe, who used to frequent the Hanging Lamp in Richmond-upon-Thames in the late 60s His name was Frank McSomething, I can't remember his full name, but he was a good guitarist and I thought he'd go far.
Giok

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 12:31 PM

Duke, who was the other Jackie Washington? I thought there was one!

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 12:37 PM

Never mind... bad brain day. (They're BOTH on that last page I linked to.)

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: BK Lick
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 11:58 PM

Don't think anyone's mentioned Dwain Story, writer of Wendigo (of which there's a free mp3 available here).

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 12:41 AM

Lea Nicholson did a great version of All For Me Grog, if I remember rightly.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: lamarca
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 06:17 PM

Jackson C. Frank - I only knew of him from his cut "Blues Run the Game" on the original Electric Muse compilation, a song I loved. A couple of years ago, his only LP was re-issued on CD and I bought it - it's wonderful stuff.

Frank lived and performed in the London scene of the mid-sixties, associating with Paul Simon (who produced his first LP), Bert Jansch, Al Stewart, etc. He supposedly pushed Sandy Denney to give up her day job as a nurse and encouraged her to make music a full-time job.

Sadly, his album flopped in the States, and he returned to the US, where he wound up homeless and mentally and physically ill. A curious fan managed to track him down, and helped him to get some state aid and some belated royalty checks. Frank died in 1999, at the age of 56.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Crane Driver
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 06:21 PM

Of course, when I come to think of it, I was a little-known folk singer in the 1960s myself - and I'm STILL a little-known folk singer.

Andrew

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 08:48 AM

'Little known 1960's Folk Singers' - a tautology, surely? (That is you, isn't it, Shirley?)

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: moongoddess
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 08:53 AM

Lucky me, I still get to see Paul Geremia in Newport at Billy Goode's every once in a while when he is in town and not touring.
    What about Bonnie Dobson who sang "My Mother Chose My Husband", or is she too well known for this thread?
    Of course another great singer /group from the 60's is Jim McGrath and the Reprobates. Jim still lives in the Newport area and is still playing at Billy Goode's with various former Reprobates. He still has that charisma that can suck you right in to any song he is singing.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Mike Miller
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 12:39 PM

Back in 1968, I shaved off my beard because I had forgotten what I looked like without it. When I looked in the mirror, I paniced and hid out at Dodi Kallick's in Evanston until there was enough darkness on my face to distract from the extra chins.
I shared the Philadelphia Folk Festival programming duties with Paula Ballan, that year, and Bruce Farwell was a frequent guest at her NYC walkup but, then again, who wasn't. The list of 60's folksingers who had keys for Paula's would make a worthy addition to this thread, Ray Frank, Saul Broudy, Steve Goodman, Steve Mandel, Joe Heany, Carolyn Hester, Roger Sprung and me, just to name too few.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: DannyC
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 09:43 PM

Moongoddess:

I am glad to hear that The Reprobates are still at it. I found a good few nights of song with them - nothing polite mid ya - scurrying from a gig to get locked into Ed Kane's Dockside Bar (Balto.) before the shades went down tight and the iron latch thunked into place.

We'd sing past dawn - lived like a troupe of immortals until the cruel sun would crack over us like a watchman's baton.   I hated that life-sapping orb...

I think of them often... especially when I am out singing somewhere.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 11:37 PM

Fran McKendree, Buddy Bohn,Bob Lind, Blair Hull and Jim Roche, Eric Frandsen, Michael Strange, Borden Klotweiller, Poor Howard Stith.

The list is endless.

Don

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 12:47 AM

Wow, Don - Bob Lind.
The Elusive Butterfly man himself.
Good one!

Seamus

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: pdq
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 09:48 PM

Great thread. Let's keep it going.

Actually, many people who sang in folk clubs in the sixties became famous, just not recognized as folksingers. The 'renagade picker' Steve Young is one, the lady who saved County Music, Emmylou Harris, is another. Even a member of the Pre-fab Four, Peter Tork. All sat on that lonely bar stool in a Greenwich Village folk club, guitar in hand, and learned to connect with an audience.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Peace
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 10:10 PM

Peter often worked at The Four Winds, one of the better basket houses in the Village. He was a good musician and very nice guy.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Mike Miller
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 11:10 PM

Hey, I remember The Four Winds. I played there a couple times. It was around the corner from The Caricature, wher I played bridge in the back room. I used to go down there after a session at Assosiated Recording on 6th Ave. I would meet Tex there and we would go for Chinese. Some of the others in that crowd were Carol Hunter, Mark Green and John Stauber who was Leon Bibb's accompanist in the late 50's.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 09:14 AM

I `ad that Alex Campbell in my cab once. I says "Where to, Alex?"
`e says "The Lord Portman club". I says "Cor blimey, that`s the worst club in the world" `e says "`ell yeah, I know"
What am I like??

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 03:02 PM

I saw Peter Tork several times in the 1980's at The Golem, a folk club in Montreal.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Cool Beans
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 05:48 PM

Serrafyn Mork. Went by Serrafyn only. I believe he died prematurely. Not sure of me spelling either. Good voice. Memorable name.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Marc S. Silber
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 10:41 PM

hello and it is a nice website you have. I owned the music shop called FRETTED INSTRUMENTS in Greenwich Village,NY City, from 1963-67 and knew many of these lesser known performers. I also traveled a great deal from 1960 until the mid 1980s and met many as I was also in the U.K., France, and North Africa.

I was in a group with Artie Traum in 1961 in Boulder, called THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, and later with Artie and his brother Happy Traum and Eric Kaz(and others) called the Children of Paradise. I knew Mark Spoelstra, Steve Mann, Fred Weisz (later of Goose Creek Symphony, who worked for me at Fretted Instr.), Karen Dalton (& Richard ???, her partner), Judy Roderick, Harry Tuft, Peter Stampfel, Steve "Richmond" Talbot, Peter Berg, Paul Siebel, Rick Turner, Andy Cohen, Charlie Chin, Jay Unger, well, I could list a hundred who never made it to the real big time, and I knew them all. When I have time I will send more names in and maybe talk of them a little.

I am currently still dealing in instruments, and singing and playing
in Berkeley, California. I have 3 CDs, and my website is www.marcsilbermusic.com. There is a lot of gossip on my website also.

The greatest guitarists I heard in those days were Perry Lederman and Bruce Langehorn, both from New York City.

peace without bombs, marc s. silber

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 11:43 PM

'Way back in '04 (up the thread), a couple of people mentioned Bruce Murdoch, of Montreal. Ten-fifteen years ago, I was principal of a small school in a small Cree community in northern Alberta, and not infrequently mail addressed to one Bruce Murdoch would come across my desk. He seemed to have been a popular personage in the community, had taught someone to play guitar, had sent someone a postcard, etc. A few years later, I met the man himself at an exam-marking fest in Edmonton. Told me he had been through heart surgery not too long before. As we chatted, it emerged that he been a full-time musician in an earlier life. Never got to hear him perform though!

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Mike Miller
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 01:47 AM

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Cool Beans
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 04:50 PM

Nice to hear the name Eric Kaz after all these years. He was in the Shaky Deal Jug Band with a bunch of my friends: Gary Lapow, Richard Blaustein, Chuck Mitman, Jay Small. Brings back memories, yes indeed.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 06:55 PM

Marc S. Silber- I enjoyed your bit of real Village history; I'm sure I was in and out of, "Fretted Instruments" many times in those days, and knew most of those you named. Greenwich Village was an innocent place then, comparitively- I loved all the little shops; my husband bought my wedding ring in one of them, "Unusual Wedding Rings," and I got measured for leather sandals at Alan Block's store- they have lasted all my life! Did you know Peter Carbone, who mended instruments, and Susan Reed's place, not far away? Thanks for the memories! Jean Ritchie, one of the little-known folksingers of the sixties.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: toadfrog
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 09:59 PM

In the very early 1960's there was a wonderful blues musician up in Portland named Mike Russo.    There are a couple mentions on Mudcat, but I have forgotten how to find and copy links. I finally located him 4-5 years ago; he had reminscences of playing with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Very unassuming guy with no ambition except to play music, and he no longer plays in public. He made a recording for Arhoolie which is well worth hearing, particularly piano blues. He also played 12-string guitar after Lead Belly--very well, but not so good as the original.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 10:06 PM

Toadfrog ... I'm also a huge Mike Russo fan. Early on, I caught a concert that he did with Jim Brentano (sp?). He always reminded me, in appearance, of Earnie Kovaks. What a great musician he is. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Mary
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 02:29 AM

Well hi Tom Hall, I remember you and most of the people you wrote about. They were all my friends. You forgot Drew Payton. I've just been in toudch with Paul McNeil who has a new website and is living in the Phillipines. I also hear from Kenny Girard and apparently he's still playing. Chris Smither is too. Alan Rotman died several years ago of cancer but I got to see him and say goodbye. I remember the open mic night at the Sword and the Stone when a kid named Livingston Taylor sang a bunch of songs written by his brother and we all wondered who his brother was. We found out his name was James. There was the Turks Head and the Riverside Cafeteria. What a time.
Peace,
Mary F., the tall skinny blonds who used to take photographs.
I still have them.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: curmudgeon
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 06:25 AM

Hi Mary Elizabeth ! How about joining Mudcat so that I can PM you? And if you pop back in here again, please post the URL for Paul's website -- Tom

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: bobad
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 09:55 AM

GUEST thurg

Bruce is a member here and posts under the name Peace (see 6 posts up). If you become a member you can PM him and get reacquainted.

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Mike Miller
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 04:52 PM

If Jean Ritchie is a little known folksinger, I'm a teapot. She was the sound of mountain music at every important festival. My fondest memories of Fox Hollow are falling asleep while she sang outside my tent. In fact, when Sara Grey asked me if I had caught her (Sara's) performance, I said, "No, I heard it last night."

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 05:15 PM

"If Jean Ritchie is a little known folksinger, I'm a teapot."

Hmmm - are you short and stout?

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 05:33 PM

Almost by definition ALL folksingers are little known folksingers!

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 05:46 PM

bodad - thanks for the head's-up -just noticed it -

Subject: RE: Little known 1960's Folk Singers
From: GUEST,Allan S.
Date: 14 Sep 06 - 07:01 PM

Dont forget Lori Holland She is still around We saw her at the festival Mystic sea port about 7-8 years ago   Also Anne Byrd and Margaret Wagner in the Village and the Yale hoots