This playlist on NTS is a real blast from the past! Dig the 2-hour playlist with selected recordings from a who's who of the 1960s folk music scene in NYC's Greenwich Village and Washington Square. (Warning: contains Alan Ginsburg chanting and harmonium playing.)
I was amazed at how many of these recordings I had — and still listen to — and yet also found some new-to-me treasures, like Maria Muldaur singing Dylan's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" with banjo whiz Bill Keith playing pedal steel guitar.
This CUNY website has a good capsule history of the Greenwich Village folk music revival. Excerpt:
Folk music came to the Village in 1945 when a printer named George Margolin started performing near the Washington Square Park fountain. By 1960, the Park was teeming with hundreds of young aspiring musicians. In its first years, the Greenwich Village folk scene adhered to the labor theory of value. Most musicians sang and played for free in Washington Square and passed a basket for change in coffeehouses. In the late 1940s, coffeehouses had popped up all over the area, featuring folk music.
