STEP BACK IN TIME TO 1960. Boston and Cambridge are home to the folk music revolution, where a generation of students are rediscovering the many basic forms of American folk music. And the heart of the revolution in Cambridge is 47 Mt. Auburn Street, where a failed antique store has been turned into a coffee house by Paula Kelly and Joyce Kalina. It is known simply as Club 47. This is where the fire began and on any night you can hear history being made. This evening’s program opens with Eric von Schmidt, a graphic artist who has finished his tour in the army. Eric grew up in Westport, and one day he heard “this incredible voice coming right out of the radio. I couldn’t believe it. It was honey-smooth but had the bite of a buzz-saw cutting through a cement block. It was Leadbelly ‘live’. And it changed my life.”
Debbie Green is a student at Boston University, and she is an eager student of Rolf Cahn, who teaches guitar, but with her own style and ability to make people fall instantly in love. Jackie Washington is a student at Boston University as well, and he’s also a member of the Boston Folk Trio, along with Irene Kossoy and Tony Saletan. Tom Rush is a student at Harvard and, in fact, is in the same English 165 course with Peter Stanley on folksong and ballads. Tom is heavily influenced by white country blues, and he has already developed a distinctive style of his own. Tom will go on to a full time career in music.
Rolf Cahn is the grand old man of the group. Rolf’s family moved from Poland as Hitler rose to power, then he fought with the Army in WWII. Cahn teaches flamenco guitar at the YMCA, and later wrote a book “Self Defense for Gentle People.” Always the teacher. Everyone remembers their first meeting with Geno Foreman, who “entered a room with the delicacy of a bazooka shell” according to Eric von Schmidt, who later called him “a one-man army at war with the establishment, with authority, with squares, and with his own tendencies to self-destruct.” Indeed, only a few years later, he died in London. Too much booze. Too many drugs. But he’s in fine form tonight, and he joins Joan Baez and Bob Siggins, of the Charles River Valley Boys, in “All the Good Times Are Past and Gone.” Then Joan takes the stage. She’s a student at Boston University. Her first record is a hit, and she’s already a sensation. Tonight she opens with “Bloody Well Dead”, a raucous anthem of rebellious youth. “Emmet Till” is a protest song about racial injustice, and Peter Stanley later used the tune for his “Tender of the Wheel.”
Buzz Marten takes a turn with “Nine Pound Hammer”, and next to the microphone is Jim Kweskin, a student at Boston College and one of the most respected musicians among the group at Club 47. Gordy Edwards joins Jim on the harmonica. Finally, Jim introduces Peter Stanley, a psychology major at Harvard, and together they bring the evening to a close. Ah, if only we could make time stand still, and every night could be like this.
For additional reading, the best account of the Cambridge folk years is “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” by Eric von Schmidt and Jim Rooney, Anchor Press / Doubleday, Garden City, New York 1979. This book is now back in print and available at tomrush.com. Highly recommended—indeed, many of the photographs here come from the book. Club 47 is now operated as Club Passim (www.clubpassim.com). Special thanks to Tom Rush and Eric von Schmidt for their assistance. |
