Speaker 1 00:00:34 You are listening to Right On Radio on Kfa I 90.3 FM and streaming Live on the
[email protected]. I'm Sam on tonight's program, Liz Olds talks with Talk with Richard Barone, a recording artist, performer, producer, professor, and author of Music Plus Revolution Greenwich Village in the 1960s for a part two discussion that will take up the full hour. Barone enrolls a freewheeling historical narrative, prepped with personal stories and insights from those who are there. Music Plus Revolution celebrates the lasting legacy of a pivotal decade with stories behind the songs that resonate just as strongly today, all of us and more. So stay tuned to write on radio.
Speaker 2 00:01:20 Pretty good. We're sticking tonight with Richard Barone, author of Music and Revolution. We had such a good time last week that we decided to have him on again this week. Welcome to Write on Radio again.
Speaker 3 00:01:32 Well, thanks Is, uh, thanks for having me again. Great. How's your ho? How are your holidays going?
Speaker 2 00:01:38 Oh, they're going great. They're going great. What about you? Good.
Speaker 3 00:01:42 Very good.
Speaker 2 00:01:43 Oh, that's
Speaker 3 00:01:44 Good. Good time of the year, but cold. Of course.
Speaker 2 00:01:47 Yes. It's been very cold here too.
Speaker 3 00:01:49 Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 00:01:51 Music and revolution. For the sake of people who might not be been tuned in last week, why don't you tell us a little bit about what the book is about?
Speaker 3 00:01:59 Well, it's about Greenwich Village in the 1960s, and it's something I've been wanting to write. Um, it's a book I've been wanting to write for a long time, but I, I am a musician and I go on the road and I also teach, I'm a professor of music at the new school here in Manhattan. So writing a book was difficult time-wise for me to do until the pandemic. And that time, that period nine, uh, by 2020 to 2021, really gave me a chance to put all a lot of thoughts together about, uh, folk music, about the folk musicians who I have met in my life and what they taught me, and the stories of this neighborhood that I happen to live in, uh, where many of them lived going back to the 1940s. You know, this was a folk mecca in many ways. I know other, other cities around the country and in Canada and other places, uh, had folk centers. But Greenwich Village, I felt, and I feel, you know, had a certain, uh, maybe just the, the numbers of folk singers per per square, my per square inch <laugh>. You know, there were just so many, it was so much just on these blocks where I live, they so many musicians lived. So it, I had to write this book as a musician. It, the stories were just, they were flowing in through me, you know, when I played the songs and I wanted to write, write them in a story form.
Speaker 2 00:03:21 What do you think grew the youth to Greenwich Village in the first place? It was young people who started this all off, correct? For the most part.
Speaker 3 00:03:30 Yeah, it really was. I mean, and, you know, young is a, is a, is a, a word that can be, you know, it means a lot of things for, to, uh, it young can be someone who's in their eighties, nineties, whatever, two. But yes, it was, it w it like even Pete Seger, when he first started really, uh, teaching and playing folk music. He was in his teens. He was 18 or so working for the Lom Maxes, John and Ellen Lomax, who were collecting folk music. And Pete Seger worked for them as an archivist and helper. And through the Lo Maxes who were Als Aax was also quite young. I think he was also 18 or 19 years old, the the son of John Lomax. And they were, uh, hired by the Library of Congress to collect folk music. Um, so this is going back to the beginning. This is where my book starts really, is the th this idea of finding folk music and then bringing it into the urban, bringing into modern the modern world. Uh, and Pete Seger was a strong believer in the power of folk music, as was Lan Lomax. And through the Lomax, uh, Pete Seger met Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. And that's really in a way where this book starts, even though that's certainly not the 1960s, that's the forties. My, the first chapter deals with this era. That is the first wave of the folk revival.
Speaker 2 00:04:57 Let's talk about Harry Smith
Speaker 3 00:05:00 Ah, yes. About
Speaker 2 00:05:01 His anthology. Yes. I'm always, I've always been curious. I know kind of why he did it and how he did it, but I'm wondering how it became so popular among people,
Speaker 3 00:05:12 So popular and, you know, um, I interviewed about 80 people for this book. I did over 80 interviews, and some were multiple of the same person, but certainly a lot of people, and almost all of them mentioned the Harry Smith anthology has being like their go-to it. You know, let me just just rewind a moment. There's a big difference between what Alan Lomax was doing mm-hmm. <affirmative> with his father. Uh, they were collecting music from people's backyards and front porches, uh, and the fields. They were going into fields, and they were going into prisons. That's, that's where they found their, their material that they then put on recordings through the Library of Congress. And people, uh, learned and heard the music with Harry Smith. He was a filmmaker, an, uh, independent filmmaker, and also a music fan who collected records, actual recordings. So the Harry Smith anthology, I think I, in the book, I refer to it as like a, these were ready made, ready to serve songs that people could go perform.
Speaker 3 00:06:16 The, the Lomax recordings are field recordings, and you got raw material. But when the Harry Smith box set, which came out in the Myth, uh, I believe it was, oh, I don't have the year in front of you, but I would say the early 1950s, maybe 53 or so, uh, that rings a bell. Uh, I think that, uh, those were, I know that those were finished recordings. Those were already arranged performances that you could then, that people could emulate and copy and play on the stage. So a lot of artists like Da Dave Van Roc, and Gee, a lot of like, uh, Peter Stale who was in the Holy Modal rounders, they, this is where they got their source materials to perform on stage often was the Harry Smith collection. Cuz the songs were, uh, edited, arranged, and ready to serve, like I said, for, uh, in to the Modern Audience of the 1960s. You know, it was a very great collection. I think there were 80 songs on it, 81 or so. And, uh, Dave Van Ron, his claims, he learned every single one of them and performed them, you know,
Speaker 2 00:07:21 You know, uh, just kind of off top here for a second, the, um, there has come out now all the B sites, they're on a collection of all the b sites of those things. It's really so great. Kinda amazing. Yes. It's, it really brings it all back.
Speaker 3 00:07:35 And, and one more thing is, I just wanna mention the year also that those were songs from the 1920s and thirties. For listeners that may not know the Harry Smith anthology, I think most of the songs are from the 1920s and thirties. So it's interesting how those styles then transplanted themselves into the sixties, like the Jug Band sound and, and sounds that had been popular in the twenties. Were now 40 years later becoming popular again through that anthology.
Speaker 2 00:08:01 Now I have a kind of compare and contrast question, which has to do some with controversy. Sure. There was the Kingston Trio who kind of were very popular and kind of helped bring the folk music back after the loss of it, after the, uh, blacklist. And then there's the new Los City Ramblers who, um, used Terry Smith a lot. And Yeah. And I'm wondering, see, there was controversy about both of these groups. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, you write about that. And I'm wondering also, uh, if you could compare and contrast and also maybe compare and contrast to people who were listening to those folks.
Speaker 3 00:08:43 That's such a good question. You're so smart and you really understand folk music to ask me that, um, you know, there was a huge difference and yet there wasn't. It's <laugh>, this is very complicated because the, the Kingston Trio were a very commercial trio, uh, of Fellas Col, you know, very, uh, collegiate fraternity boy looking, I mean, just visually, uh, characters from the on, on the West Coast, the Newcity Ramblers on, on the e on the here on the East Coast, were scholars, I think maybe more seriously minded scholars of folk music, let's put it that way. I think it seems like in watching videos, and I watched a lot of videos of these groups while I was writing, you know, the Kingston Trio had the air, let's put it this way, not to criticize cuz really, they were good. And people even, you know, men, most people like say Bob Dylan, they all liked the Kingston Trio as well.
Speaker 3 00:09:41 Many of them, not all. Uh, the controversy came with the purest of folk music who felt that the Kingston Trio were kind of popularizing it, but not really taking it seriously and not taking the songs or the original artist seriously. And certainly in some ways they didn't, in that they didn't, they often did not even credit the original songwriter, the folk writers who wrote the songs mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That that's a real serious issue for me as a musician, is not, is people not being credited properly. I just think that's a shame and it shouldn't happen. Even Pete Seger who had written Where of all the flowers Gone when the Kingston Trio first were getting ready to release their version of it, they had their own names as the writers. Luckily Pete, yes, Pete Seger told me this. And when I did the research later after he passed, uh, I found the whole story.
Speaker 3 00:10:32 And yes, it was ready to print on the record label that they, that song where of All the Flowers Gone was written by the Kingston Trio. Now they know, they knew that they didn't write it because they saw Peter Paul and Mary sing it. So when you see somebody already sing it, you know that you didn't write it cuz someone else is already singing it. So, uh, someone at the record company or the publisher, whoever was uh, in charge, noticed this this mistake and called Pete Seger and told him about it and said, Pete, this band is doing your song. They put their name on it as the writers. Uh, and Pete had his whoever attorney or somebody, whoever it was helping him, called them and corrected before it went to print. So all of the copies that were actually sent to the public had the name Pete Seger as the writer of that song.
Speaker 3 00:11:19 But it was a close call and another example, uh, uh, of how people would steal songs. And it's sad, uh, Kingston Trio had done that many times and had gone, had to go to court many times over songs that they took credit for. Sometimes maybe the 1920s or thirties or old songs may have seemed like that was an eternity ago. But the songwriters were still alive in many cases where the, on the other hand, the New York City, the New York, um, the Law City Ramblers, right, the new law city Ramblers, they, um, were very, I think, diligent in presenting the songs, uh, and telling who wrote it and, and actually bringing some people, certainly Elizabeth Cotton, uh, onto the stage with them to perform their songs. They were very much archivists. And, uh, Pete Seeger's brother, Mike Seeger was a member of that group so that, that lineage and that heritage was there to, uh, preserve folk music. But they were criticized for singing in the accents of the South, for instance. Mm.
Speaker 2 00:12:18 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:12:18 <affirmative>. And, and that's, uh, it's, it is interesting when you listen to them and they sound so southern and they really, they're all from New York City. It was a little, some people criticized them for putting on false, uh, false voices and false presentation that might have misled people. But as I wrote in my book, they also preserved the music. So yes, they did it in that they may have done it in a style that's, that was not authentic to how, who they were, but they did save the music and they presented it, I think, in a very good way. So they're very different. The, the Kingston Trio, very different groups. I, I wrote in the book how they both ended up at that first Newport Folk Festival of 19, well, I guess 1959. They both were there on the stage, you know, just doing their thing. Um, and, uh, and so both were accepted in by the mass public. I think they certainly, the Kingston Trio sold a lot more records and they had number one hits with, uh, uh, you know, uh, Tom Dooley and certainly big hits with where all the flowers gone and, and other songs. They did a good job with their arrangements, but very slick in comparison to the Velocity Ramblers
Speaker 2 00:13:33 Talk song about, it seems in your book, like Harry Belafonte had a big role in, uh, bringing this music to people. Uh, talk a little bit about him. Hello?
Speaker 3 00:13:50 You're freezing up there a little bit. Can you hear me okay?
Speaker 2 00:13:53 Yeah, you
Speaker 3 00:13:54 Froze up there a minute. Good, good. I did hear your question about Harry Belafonte, such an interesting character, um, and such a great survivor of the blacklisting, cuz he was certainly blacklisted right away. He's on that, I believe the first or second, I think the first blacklist that came out. Uh, and yet he, he couldn't be, his talent couldn't be denied. He was a all round performer. It was great on television and radio, and his records were on the, uh, were played so frequently. And he was, he had the first million selling record of any genre with his Calypso album. It's called Calypso, I think it was the title. Um, but, and he also was a believer like Pete Seger in the power of folk music to change things. Uh, he, even his Calypso songs, even the Simple, even a song like the Banana Boat song is really a political statement about workers, the treatment of workers and the, and the classes of people.
Speaker 3 00:14:53 And, you know, there was a statement in there. There was this, there was me a message in, in that music, uh, that people as they sang along, maybe slowly infiltrated, like what it was really about, you know, as well as being a pop, uh, a pop song that you can sing along to. But he believed in folk music so much. He promoted acts like, uh, odea, for instance, uh, who was, uh, presented in the, maybe to her biggest, uh, her, her first really large audience on his television special that he did. Um, and I, that might have been 1960 or 19 59, 60, right at the beginning of that decade, uh, was the Harry Belafonte special, which featured folk music throughout all kinds of folk music, a lot of slave songs, and a lot of songs from that, the, the post-civil war era as well. Uh, and presented odea.
Speaker 3 00:15:47 And, and I think he really kept the flame of folk music alive between that, you know, when I talk about the, and you, both of us have talked about the two waves of the folk revival. And Belafonte was one of the artists, handful of artists who kept the flame alive between the two, those two waves where the blacklist had almost squashed the folk movement, you know, and he brought, may I, may I add too, when, when, uh, Dr. King, uh, br you know, had had his march on Washington, it's, it's Harry Belafonte who brought so many of the New York Greenwich Village folk singers to perform there, including odea and Peter Poland, Mary and Bob Dylan and others. He put, he sort of curated the, the music for the March on Washington, in which, uh, Dr. King gave his famous, uh, I ha I have a dream, I had a dream speech, I have a Dream speech. That one, that that event also showed the public the power of folk music. So that was Belafonte not only believing, but showing others and making others believe too, you know.
Speaker 2 00:16:56 Um, speaking of, well, let's talk about Peter Paul and Mary A. Little bit in the context of Camp <laugh>. Uhhuh. Yeah. I, you know, when I was 11, I went to camp and we sang Peter Paul, Mary Songs, and yeah, some of the, uh, uh, uh, musicians there were so good. They were singing things like The Great Mandela and stuff like that. Wow. I mean, we were very, very into the politics of it. And I'm wondering if you could talk about camp and how camp influenced
Speaker 3 00:17:24 Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:17:24 Called Mary Influenced Camp and vice versa.
Speaker 3 00:17:27 Oh, wow. And, and Pete Singer songs too, which, you know, the camps ca the camp summer camps, you know, this is where people heard, this is where folk music lived throughout blacklisting or anywhere. There was nothing you could touch camps, you know. And, um, and, you know, uh, when, when we mentioned where have all the flowers gone, that song was a super, uh, top favorite at, at camps. And some of the lyrics are actually added, and I don't have the name right in front of you, but it's in the book. Some of the lyrics were added by a camp leader. Did you know that? On Where Have all the flowers gone? Oh, yeah, yeah. Check it out. I know that. Yes, you, uh, so Pete Seeger had the, maybe three or four verses, but you know how it wraps around and that the lyrics then, so where of all the flowers gone, aware of all the soldiers Gone, where of all the graveyards gone, and it, it has a full circle, the lyric comes back to flowers again at the end. That was added by a camp leader. And Pete loved it so much, and he made that part of the official lyrics and credits that, that camp leader as his co-writer on the song, which I think is beautiful. You know, and it, it's something ca that came out of singing it, that this camp leader, uh, uh, leading the songs added verses to round out the lyrics that it's a full circle. Do, do you know what I mean? Well,
Speaker 2 00:18:43 That's, well, that's part of the folk process.
Speaker 3 00:18:45 Yes, exactly. So that's a, to me, that's a really fair example of the folk process, like what I was talking about before, where people just slap their name on the, as the writer, that is not the full process <laugh>, but that happens so much. And as you know, from my book, there's a lot of references to songs, and I say, look, I'm sorry, but that was actually written by, you know, I found the folk singer who first did it, and later a famous person may have their name on it, but it's not actually written by them. Well, that's a bad version of the folk process. I think the good way is when you add to it lovingly and, and graciously, and, you know, often with permission, uh, to alter the song, and, and to certainly taking old songs and adding to them is the part of the, is a big part of the fold process. It's just, I, my, my beef is when they, when people take credit for songs from contemporary writers or, or, you know, more current writers and just take it, you know, I think that's then, and they say it's the fold process that's, uh, a misuse of that word. Your, your use of it is correct, you know? Yes. The camp leader wanted to add more verses, and so he added more, and Pete loved it. And that's a beautiful example of the folk process, I think, you know,
Speaker 2 00:20:01 Um, a lot of the, uh, blues, uh, guys were stolen from too. Correct.
Speaker 3 00:20:07 Yeah. Yeah. A lot of them, you know, even groups like, you know, it's, it's famously group like Led Zeppelin, who I liked the way they play and everything, but they were, they were, you know, taking from Blue Singers left and right. And sometimes it's, it's, well, it's more than awkward. It's, you know, some, I really see it, I, I can see where they, uh, I think Gallo's Poll is a song they did really well with Led Zeppelin, but it's really a lead belly song, you know, and they don't always cry to, I I'm not sure if that, when that record first came out now, then later as years go by, I mean, the estates of certain writers will go back and say, wait a minute, that's actually written by Lead Belly, or, or, or Muddy Waters, or whoever it is. But when, when it was first released, it wasn't properly credited. And I just think it's just so wrong and sad that they would just take something without crediting it. But certainly the blues were so easy, like easy picking, because all guitar players, they picked up the guitar and you're, it's, it's so much fun to play Blues Lakes and songs, but, you know, you gotta get, you gotta give credit where credit is due. And it certainly due with the creator of the song,
Speaker 2 00:21:18 Uh, to compared Blues and Folk. I mean, they, they're together and yet some, they're separate. Uh, yeah. Uh, kind of compared the two.
Speaker 3 00:21:27 It's really a blur there, because I, you know, I, I think it's a Muddy's Muddy Waters Records. It's called The Real Folk Blues. Like, he puts it all together. He's saying, he says he is folk blues. So it come and he, it can be the same. And, you know, I, it's a, that's an ongoing and, uh, unanswerable, I think question, because I think blues is a folk is folk music. That's what I think. I think, I think a lot of the music that we play and love is actually folk music. You know, a lot of, I think Pure Rock and roll sometimes is actually folk music. Um, but I think certain musicians pro, I have the tag of Blues, they play a, they play in a style that they call the Blues. And so their music may be called Blues, but I think it's still folk music.
Speaker 3 00:22:20 And Lead Belly is, some people call him a blues guitar player, a blue singer. But really, he was the epitome of a folk singer, you know? And so I think it's a, I think it's impossible to really answer, which is, which, I talked to Roseanne Cash, who I loved, and we talked, we had the same question about country music, like, what is country music and what is folk music? What's the difference there? And you know, the answer from her was just as confusing as <laugh> as my answer is. We were like, well, you know, she said, well, all folk music is country music. And I said, yeah, but isn't all country music then folk music? And it's just hard to, I'm not good about genres because I love all, I love so many kinds of music myself, and I just love music, and I hate to categorize them for me.
Speaker 3 00:23:10 But for me, folk music is the wider umbrella. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think for me, just for me, I can only talk for myself, speak for myself on this, to me, blues F and Country fall under the category of types of folk music. That's just how I see it. And I teach this, and I tell my students, look, you don't have to take my word for it, but for me, they fall under the umbrella of folk music. They come from that same source in the book. I call it The Primordial Soup. You know, it's like, um, it's a, it's a mindset. It's a music that comes from the people, and they're telling their stories, and they're making their views heard. And it, that is to me, folk music. And then if they have a little bit of a different accent, it could be blues or a little different accent. It could be country, but it's still folk music in my mind.
Speaker 2 00:24:00 How did, uh, folk rock then come around? I mean, I think about Simon and Garfunkel, and I think about, uh, uh, well, others, you know? Yes, yes. What, what, how did it come, how did it happen? You know?
Speaker 3 00:24:15 Yeah. It happened by, from folk singers. It happened from folk music because Simon and Garfunkel were a folk duo. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, pretty pure, just two guitars and, you know, uh, a little, a little, uh, other instrumentation and maybe a little banjo here and there. I mean, that was like folk music. And, um, for instance, the birds from in the West Coast were, are so highly credited for creating, uh, in some way in, in some people's minds, uh, folk rock. That's not true, by the way. Uh, but they were folk singers and McGwen Roger McGuinn and, uh, when he was in The Birds. But Jim McGuinn, when he was playing on the folk scene, you know, he played with the, um, the limelight, I believe, and he was on the folk circuit as even as a solo guitarist, banjo, as you know, uh, um, here in the village, playing at the Gas Light.
Speaker 3 00:25:04 So he was playing folk music. He happened to like The Beatles, and he was playing, uh, McGwen just as, as one example, McGwen Roger, uh, Jim, I'll say McGuinn, because he was, Jim Be, became Roger, who changed his name. But Jim McGuinn slash Roger McGuinn, uh, was performing at The Gaslight. And they had a sign out outside saying he's playing a tribute to The Beatles, because he was playing Beatles songs in the Folk Way. Right? Hmm. Yeah. And so he couldn't really catch fire as a solo performer in New York. Somehow. He had, he had been a sideman had played with, I believe he had played with the New Journeyman, who were, then they, he morphed into p uh, the Mamas and The Papas The Journeymen were folk, I mean, real folk, real folk music. So he was a folk artist. He happened to like, the Beatles.
Speaker 3 00:25:58 And Pat got an electric guitar, but he says in interviews, and I, I researched a lot of interviews with him, uh, from that time he was playing guitar, the 12th string electric, like a banjo. He was trying to play like Pete Seger, but on a 12 string electric guitar. And that's a lot of the bird sound that you can hear on their second hit was Turn, turn, turn by Pete Seger. And he's playing his electric guitar like a banjos, trying to, uh, pick out the notes the way that the banjo would. Next time you hear it, listen, that is truly folk rock. I mean, he, this is coming from a person who loves folk music, who happens to also like the electric guitar. Um, there are the, there's so many cool stories and many in the book about how folk rock emerges, right. Sort of in the middle of the book.
Speaker 3 00:26:47 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, you know, one, one simple and beautiful story was Simon and Garfunkel with their songs Sound, the Sound of Silence, which is also sounds of silence. There's, there's two different ways to say that title. Uh, but they had an acoustic song, just two acoustic guitars, maybe a third No one, yeah. One an acoustic guitar, and a second guitar played by, uh, uh, Barry Cornfeld, who was like picking like a more of a picker and maybe, uh, Paul Simon, more of a drummer, you know what I mean? So they had a beautiful song. It didn't do anything. The record did not sell well. And the ba, the duo of, of Simon a Garfunkel broke up, uh, Garfunkel, went back to school in Columbia University to study mathematics. And Paul Simon went off to England to try to make it as a solo artist. But while they were away, their producer on the, on the track, Tom Wilson, one of the name, one of the names that we talked about last week, who's rarely mentioned, but was a great fine producer who find, who produced so many folk albums for an an African American, also a jazz artist who produced many great folk albums.
Speaker 3 00:27:57 He had this idea, well, if the birds are having this success with electric folk music, maybe we could add some electric instrumentation to Simon, a Garfunkel song that he had been wanting to do this with Bob Dylan, also, who we also produced. Um, so that one song signed to sign as had some radio play in Florida on a college station. So Tom went to his superiors at Columbia Records and said, look, this song is getting some radio clay. Maybe we should make like a new version of it and, you know, see if we can go further. So after a Bob Dylan session, I believe the song was for, um, like a Rolling Stone, he withheld some of the musicians and said, look, can you guys stay later because we wanna try something out. So he had those electric players play along to the original track of Sound, the sound of Silence.
Speaker 3 00:28:49 So the, they made a record, and it did, it went to number one. And it was simply the acoustic track done as it originally was. But just adding some drums, which was the drummer, by the way, had a hard time playing along. Because when acoustic players are playing, they don't always keep a perfect tempo. <laugh>, <laugh>, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno. I know you're a banjo player. I dunno about you, but I, I speed up or slow down, or whatever the feeling, wherever my feeling takes me. And that's how Simon Garfunkel played it. So the band that had to play along to that recording had to move along with the band, if you know what I mean, had to move along with Peter, with, um, with Paul and, and Art and the way they sang it and played it. So they did, they made a record.
Speaker 3 00:29:29 But if you really listen, you can hear the struggle, <laugh>, sometimes I play for my students and they say, professor, is that right? Like, they can tell, they're kind of the drummers trying to catch up <laugh>, but it's a, a beautiful record. Anyway, I think regardless of those, of that, that, uh, those flaws where they're trying to, you know, match the tempos, it's a beautiful record. And it went to number one. By the time it was used in the movie, the Graduate Simon and Garfunkel were like household names, you know, but that was the beginning of Folk Roth. It was, at first it was a difficult birth because, you know, they're trying to merge styles that were different. They're trying to add electric instruments to pre-recorded acoustic tracks. So that's how it started. But when those records came out, okay, the Birds Turn, turn, turn, and, um, Tim, Mr. Tambourine man, and then Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's, uh, sounds of silence with that, with those overdubs that Folk Rock was born. And it was a big explosion, uh, of sound and ideas. Cuz what really great idea to have commercial music also be great <laugh> and not be, not be corny and be about good topics, interesting topics, you know. And of course, to end that story though, Paul Simon came home from England and Art Goffle, uh, left Columbia University, and they became Simon and Garfunkel again. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:30:53 Uh, now there is a, isn't there a good story about, uh, Mr. Tambourine Man, or is it Turn, turn, turn was The Birds didn't like that song it originally, and
Speaker 3 00:31:02 Well, they, they, they thought, yeah, it was Mr. Tambourine man, I think you can never argue with the Pete Seeger song. Turn, turn, turn was a work of art. I think they just were so thrilled to be able to record it. And on that record, the Birds actually played their own instruments on Mr. Tambourine Man, their first single, they had other musicians play for them. Did you know that only McGwen plays, like the rest of the Birds didn't even play on Mr. Chamber. Inman, that was the wrecking crew, like the, uh, musicians in the la uh, in la I think it's Carol K on bass. And, you know, that was like the LA musicians, uh, because they weren't sure if that band could actually pull it off, you know, to make a, a hit record, uh, on turn, turn, turn. It is the band, the Birds.
Speaker 3 00:31:46 Um, but Mr. Berryman was not really written in four four. Like, it wasn't in a rock. You know, we say folk rock. Well, it wasn't rock, it was like in a, in a, a folk waltz, I believe it was three quarter, like three four time, you know, excuse me. Sorry. So, uh, the band had to revise it to make it more sort of straightforward, sounding less of the waltz in the way that Dylan wrote it. So, uh, but Dylan came by the session and heard it and really liked it. And when he heard it and liked it, the band suddenly were happy with it. But at first they were, they were also concerned that it's, they had changed it. They also only used one verse of Mr. Taine, man. I mean, Dylan wrote like, I think they're four or six verses mm-hmm. <affirmative> if he, so I had to, I had to sing that last, uh, last year around this time in New York at a, at a concert.
Speaker 3 00:32:40 Uh, and I was surprised. I was like, okay, I was learning the song. Then I realized, well, I don't need to, because they're doing the Birds version. It's only one verse <laugh>, you know, because they're usually Dylan Stone says, you know, have multiple, multiple verses, but they only used one. They use a chorus and a verse and a chorus, I think, and that's it. Very interesting. But yeah, at first they weren't sure about it, cuz they were like, we can't really get a groove on this. You know, it wasn't in a rock tempo, a rock, uh, time signature. But then they adjusted it,
Speaker 2 00:33:12 You know, it's kind of funny. Uh, speaking of sort of folk rock, uh, Peter Tort was a folk musician who Yeah. Ended up in The Monkeys. And, and even Steven Stills, he tried out for The Monkeys and he was sort of a folk rock person. So The Monkeys, if I may Yeah. Actually had some folk music stuff going on in there.
Speaker 3 00:33:32 Absolutely. Really, Mike Nema wrote some nice folk rock kind of songs. That's
Speaker 2 00:33:36 Right. That's right. And
Speaker 3 00:33:38 He's a real musician guitar player. He, he was an actual musician. Some of them were actors. I really liked them. I met The Monkeys when I was a teenager. I met Davian Mickey on tour. That's how I got to New York, ironically, is because I met the Monkeys Davian Mickey. They, they were on tour just as a duo with a backing band. And it just so happened that the backing band were New Yorkers, who I had seen in magazines called the, they were called The Laughing Dogs. And they were playing in New York. And I met them, and pretty soon I got invited on the rest of the tour. I was in high school, but got, it was summer. And I hung out with them, and then I just blurted out, had like, you go to New York sometime, and the band, the backing band said, Hey, why don't you stay in AR loft?
Speaker 3 00:34:18 We're on tour all year. And that's how I got myself to New York. And a Place to Stay was through The Monkeys. So I always loved the monkeys in that connection. And Peter Torque was very close with the Love and Spoonful, and he was in that crowd, which were folk rock with folkies, really. I mean, John Sebastian was a folk musician from the beginning. His dad was a harmonica player. And John Sebastian is a brilliant musician on many different instruments, but definitely from the folk music world. They lived right on Washington Square Park where all that folk music was played in the park. So Sebastian, who started The Love and Spoonful, was definitely coming from that place. Uh, one of their friends was Peter Torque here in New York. And did you know that the Monkeys were based on the Love and Spoonful?
Speaker 2 00:35:03 No, I did not know that.
Speaker 3 00:35:04 The monkeys were, they wanted, the TV producers wanted the love and spoonful. But when you're making a TV show, the discipline required to be at that set <laugh> at the right hour of day every day when you're filming. They were not sure, I believe this is what happened. So I'm paraphrasing the history, but I believe that the television producers weren't sure about getting a real rock band <laugh> rock and roll folk band to come and do the TV show and to be actors to be able to do the drama part of it, you know, and the storyline part of it. So they looked for musicians that looked like The Love and Spoonful. So Pete, Peter, torque fit part right in, he was a friend of theirs from New York City, lived in the village and was ready to go. So he was like the most, he was the most what they were looking for, you know, kind of fun, loving folk, rock musicians, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so The Monkeys were based on that. Yeah. That, that, that's what, if you look at the Love and Spoonful, watch them on television clips, you can see the monkeys in them.
Speaker 2 00:36:06 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:36:06 <affirmative>, you know.
Speaker 2 00:36:08 Cool. See, I just wanted to let people know, we usually do a calendar around this time, but there are no events for the calendar because I assume it's because it's the week between Christmas and New Year's and Yeah. There are no events. So we won't be doing a calendar. We'll just keep talking with Ude Verone <laugh>, author of the Mu movie, uh, the movie offer, the book Music and Revolution.
Speaker 3 00:36:30 I would love for it to be a movie, by the way. I think it is a movie. I really think this story is a movie. And I think, you know, that's what I'd love for this to be at some point. It's a, a movie with actors playing the parts of these great characters cuz they're so good, they're so fascinating.
Speaker 2 00:36:46 Yeah. It really is a fascinating book, I have to say. Thank
Speaker 3 00:36:49 You. Um, thank you.
Speaker 2 00:36:52 One thing you mentioned Carol K you mentioned eda. I know Carol K is kind of a, a Yeah. California, yeah. Musician, but, uh, member of the wrecking crew and, and mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I mean, if you would, uh, be so kind as to talk about women Yeah. In the, in that folk music world, how difficult it must have been. How, how there's so many, I mean, I think when people think of, uh, women in folk music, you know, it's Joni Mitchell, maybe they married Traverse. Some people, uh, know about Buffy St. Marie, but there's so many more. Yes. And I was wondering if you could talk about the more,
Speaker 3 00:37:27 Well, you know, there's so many, and you know, those, just the ones you mentioned, Buffy St. Marie, to me, should be seen in the same light as Bob Dylan or whoever else is, is is celebrated because she was a pioneer. A Native American, or Na Yeah. Native you said, I guess Native American Canadian, but Native American, you know, native North American, uh, indigenous person. She says Indian too still, because that's the way it, it used to be. And that's, uh, for, uh, that's okay for her. Um, but, you know, sometimes it's not that they, like you can mention a lot of women who are there, but they're not, sometimes I feel not given the name recognition by the media or the, the, uh, recognition as far as their, uh, their importance that they should be receiving. Let's go back to even before Carolyn Hester. I mean, um, the woman, you know, there are so many, uh, women who were coming up in their first fo folk revival that were coming up, um, who were, I mean, without them it would not have happened, happened, you know?
Speaker 3 00:38:36 Uh, but, but let's just take Carolyn Hester for a minute. She was, she bridged the fifties and sixties by being, I'm not sure if we mentioned it last time, but she was from Texas, but came into New York around the same time that Buddy Holly, who was her friend, came to New York and lived in the village. And she was, she for a moment was seen as maybe a, the bright new hope for folk music and was on magazine covers. Um, sadly. And she was singing folk songs, by the way. She wasn't really writing songs, she was singing folk songs. Somehow when the new, when the new wave of songwriters, uh, uh, folk singers came in that were writing their own songs, they kind of wiped out a lot of the past. And, uh, some of the names got lost, maybe because of that purge of the, where the singers songwriters took over from folk singers.
Speaker 3 00:39:24 Okay. That's one thought. But at that exact time, Buffy St. Marie came into town and she was writing songs, but was not very comfortable with being a song or telling people she was a songwriter, cuz the folk community wasn't really ready yet for having original material being performed. Uh, and she told me that she had a hard time being accepted and getting gigs because she wanted to do her original material. You know, she wrote so many great songs, but Universal Soldiers the first one that I learned because of the cover version that Donovan did. But she did it of course, first and did an amazing version of it. Uh, there was a woman, Alex Dobkin, who we don't hear about, who was very important in the early in that scene in the, in the, in the early sixties when, when the folk revival was picking up steam again, one of my favorite singers, who was a true folk singer, was, uh, Karen Dalton.
Speaker 3 00:40:19 And do you know, are you familiar with Karen Dalton? Do you know her? I've heard the name. I don't, I don't. Well check out her singings, check out her music and her singing style because she was almost like, you know, like channeling like the blues, like jazz singers. Like a Billy holiday, but doing it with folk music. She had this beautiful e e expressionistic way of singing. Not typ atypical, not, not the normal way, just more like a, a Billy holiday. I believe. And I don't know this, I've never really studied much about Janice Joplin, even though I love Janice. But I would bet that Janice Joplin heard Karen Dalton. Hmm. Because a lot of the kind of blues, and I called it Scorch Earth sound in the book, you know, that she sings with such emotion. She should be a household name. And she was a favorite of people that were, uh, people, I hate to say again, Bob Dylan, but, you know, he's, he's one people, he's a name people know. But she, he was a big fan of hers. She had a, a lot of fans in the inner circle of folk singers. Karen Dalton, there's a new documentary that came out in 2022 about her that I happened to see at a small theater here in New York at the, at the film forum, which is like for independent, uh, cinema. But it's worth seeking out the Karen Dalton movie, uh, documentary. It's very, very good. Now those are, would
Speaker 2 00:41:42 You say, and would you say it was difficult in the, you played pretty girls pretty good for a girl kind of sense? Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:41:50 I think so. I think it was a boys club, unfortunately. I think it was a heterosexual macho boys club. It's ha sad to say cause I love folk music so much. But I'm talking from the point of view of, from now, from 2022 and we have more gender. We have, we have all kinds of, uh, variations of personalities. We don't have to be stuck in one role, you know what I mean? Now. And, and I think looking at it from the view from a lens of 2022, it was a very alpha male macho boys club. That's, it's sad for me to say that. It makes me sad, you know? And I think a lot of the gay men who were folk singers like Paul Clayton, they were totally pushed aside cuz this big macho boys pushed them away, you know? And they made fun of them.
Speaker 3 00:42:35 They still stole their songs and stole the ideas, but they pushed them aside. So we don't know their names now. The historians don't care to write about them. It seems, you know, that's one of the reasons I wanted to write this book. It's also to reveal some of the names that are lost to history. And also, I wanted to write from the point of view, like you a musician who loves the music and the play, you play the music, you learn it to love it from the inside out, like you become part of the music. I think so many books are written from the point of view of like, well, who's famous? Let's name just drop some names here. Right. The, you know what I mean? So when I was starting to write this book, I had been wanting to write it for years. And, uh, the publisher came to me.
Speaker 3 00:43:19 I was doing a concert of this music. I was playing songs from the early sixties Greenwich Village scene. And my book publisher came to me and said, look, why don't you write a book about it? Um, when I told Donovan, who was my friend, who was a observer of the Greenwich Village scene, but he was watching from England and Scotland where he lived, but loved the music and played his own folk music and became famous in his own right. He told me, Ricardo, he always calls me Ricardo never has ever called me Richard Ricardo, you should write about the names that nobody's heard about. That's where the story really is. And he was so right, because that's how I got a richer story from the musicians who played on the records and from the peop and writing and studying and, uh, uh, you know, researching about the ones who we don't really hear about very much.
Speaker 3 00:44:04 Like Paul Clayton, like Carolyn Hester, like, uh, Karen Dalton, like these, there are a lot of them. And they are the ones, and I tell my students this, they're the ones who really push, pushed the story forward. They pushed history, they changed, they, they brought the material out. They were believers in folk music. Their, like, evangelism for folk music is what really made the others cash fire. And that's why we have these famous ones. Even John BAAs, she probably, we don't know, I don't know exactly what she listened to, but she must have heard Carolyn Hester, because Carolyn was a few years ahead of her and played at these venues. Were in Boston, in the Cambridge area. So, you know, I wanted to shine just as much a light on those people as the stars.
Speaker 2 00:44:52 Well, you mentioned Alex Dobkin. Yeah. She was a, a big, uh, starter of the women's music. I
Speaker 3 00:44:59 Know, I know. Uh,
Speaker 2 00:45:01 Uh,
Speaker 3 00:45:01 That must have
Speaker 2 00:45:01 Been a hard living with lesbians. Living with lesbians, I think was her first, uh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, record. And it was the first record before Meg Christian, before Chris Williamson, before any of them. Alex Dobkin Yeah. Was there.
Speaker 3 00:45:14 I know. And I think she, she needs to be celebrated for that too. You know, that's ano that's a whole book unto itself is the, I I came into, when I came to New York, I was playing, I be <laugh>. I'm not a woman, but I was, I was embraced by, I don't know if you knew a group, the Deadly Night Shade. Did you know them? They were a woman, a woman's, a woman's trio. And Helen Hook, the fiddle player in that group was going solo. And, uh, she needed to get a band together. They were playing at Folk City perfectly enough that they were playing at Folk City, Gertie's Folk City. And she was looking for a band as somehow came across me and my band. I was just forming called The Bongos. And she said, would you guys be my backing band? And we said, yes, we love you.
Speaker 3 00:45:57 We'd love to be your backing band. Now the <laugh> the only problem. We've had a great time. And it was a musical excite, so much excitement to play with her. But the audiences were not really ready for her having an all boy band behind her, <laugh> <laugh>. But we had so much fun, and we, we had, we learned so much from her. She produced our first demo, and that's how we got signed to R C A Records. But so Mike, you know, but anyway, the Women's movement did, you know, catch on after. But in the sixties, it must have been hard for Alex Dobkin. And she was married to a, to a guy. She was married to the owner or manager Le I'm not sure if complete owner of the Gas Light. Uh, so she was okay. She was very connected to the folks in <inaudible>. She, you know, she said, look, I'm lesbian.
Speaker 3 00:46:39 She came out, uh, early on. And, and that was a very important step. Uh, but, you know, pre Stonewall, it was like, they were just, it was really must have been really hard. I wasn't there. So I can't say for sure. But how can it not have been very difficult for Alex Dopkin? Certainly it was hard for Paul Clayton as a guy also, he could not, uh, come out and if he could have, if only he could have Paul Clayton and Alex Dopkin, if only they could have been out earlier, I think it would've moved society forward. It could have changed things, and it could have, they could have become more household names because they would've been free to express themselves with their music instead of Paul Clayton was very extremely closeted. And people said, oh, he wasn't a very good performer. Well, maybe if he could have been out, he could have been a good performer.
Speaker 2 00:47:32 Right, right. You
Speaker 3 00:47:34 Know what I mean?
Speaker 2 00:47:35 Yeah. So now that we've gotten to, uh, uh, the revolution part of the book, I think <laugh> Yeah. Uh, we, we've got about five, maybe seven minutes left. Oh, wow. Why don't you talk about, I know it's gone by so fast. Oh
Speaker 3 00:47:49 My God.
Speaker 2 00:47:50 Uh, why don't you talk about the revolution part of the book?
Speaker 3 00:47:54 Well, you know, for me, the revolution is the, probably the most important driving force through the book. It's because from the very beginning, folk music was seen as a way to get a message out. That's what I mean. What a shame that they, this, uh, the L G B T Q artists could not get their message out. That's what a shame, because from the very beginning, folk music was, had a message, whether it was about labor unions or civil rights, uh, anti-war. That starts when the early part of the book, that's why they were blacklisted. They were speaking out, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So there's a step-by-step revolution through this book. Uh, it's funny, when I, when I hear the word revolution, I think of, um, the Trotskyism, which I didn't even know what it was until I was taught by Dave Van Rock's wife, Terry.
Speaker 3 00:48:42 Th Dave Van Rock was a Trotskyist who believed in perpetual revolution. Meaning there's always something to fight about. There's always something to fight for, always. So that the revolution does not actually end. You have to stay with it. That's why Dave Van Ron was in the front lines at the Stonewall riots because he believed in perpetual revolution, we have to fight, or we're gonna be stomped over by the, the ex, whatever the word. And maybe at the time would've been the establishment. You know what I mean? Like, we have to always be on guard, let's put it that way. Folk music was a way for musicians to express that in music. And also finding ways to write great music that happened to also have a strong, important message. You know, what was exciting for me recently, very recently, the last few weeks, was that my school professors had been on str, had been on strike.
Speaker 2 00:49:34 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:49:35 <affirmative>, the professors at the new school. Now the Li Lu School is considered the most liberal college in Manhattan. <laugh> the most liberal school. But the professors felt that they, that we were not being treated properly in a many different basis. Not just, uh, financial, but several different ways. So we had a picket lines, but it's the students who took over the picket lines. And what did they sing? They sang songs that were exactly what I teach in my class for, of me for Music and Revolution. They sang the labor songs of Pete Seger and the Almanac Singers. When I walked to the, my first step in the, uh, uh, picket line, they were singing, what side are you on? What side are You on? Which is right from Pete Seger and, and Woody Guthrie. Um, I believe in the idea of that per, I mean, I outta that perpetual revolution.
Speaker 3 00:50:22 I'm not the most political performer as myself. I'm not. But, you know, if I can get a message in, even in the way that I portray my music or sing it, if I can get a music, a message of love and acceptance and equality, sometimes you can do it with the music itself. But these artists that we're talking about in this book that I wrote about, did it with the words and the music. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And they, they, it's something that needs to not be forgotten. That you can do this in music and that it, now, it's not as common. A lot of the popular music now does not have a message. And I think one of my message, my message, my message as a writer of this book is to let's young, younger people know that you can do it. You can use music to further a revolution of equality, of fairness, of love, of, maybe it's a, maybe it's anti-gun. Whatever it is, is their passion. They can put it into their music if they want to.
Speaker 2 00:51:24 That's wonderful. That's a good way to end that, uh, interview about your book. I'm wondering, uh, what's next and if you have a website where people can reach you and so on.
Speaker 3 00:51:34 Oh, yeah. People can meet, reach me on all the social media at Richard Barone, but also at my website, richard barone.com. It's r i c h a r d B A R O N e.com. And, you know, you can find the book there. I actually, um, I love, I love, uh, to make the book available to people. It's at all the online sellers. It's at Amazon or all those places. It's at all the places where people buy books. But it's also on my website too. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, you know, you can, people can reach me there and ask questions about it, whatever they like. I'm on, I'm on all, I'm on all social media as well, if they want me to find me, you know,
Speaker 2 00:52:09 <laugh>. Uh, and do you have any con, I know you're a musician as well. You have a record? Uh, uh, more than one.
Speaker 3 00:52:16 I do have many records. You know, I, I've made many records and I'm, I've recorded for most record labels at this point. But I started very young. I was assigned to R C a Records with the Bongos was my first band. And I've made, uh, I've made a lot of records. But my most recent studio album is the soundtrack to this book. It's called Sorrows and Promises, Greenwich Village in the 1960s. And it has a lot of the music we've been talking about. I just did my version, Phil Oaks songs by Phil Oaks, by by, um, uh, Richard Farina, Richard and Mimi Farina. Uh, uh, uh, John Sebastian also sings with me on the album, or he does, uh, plays Harmonic on the album. I worked with David Amram, who was there and played with a lot of these musicians. Uh, it's a tribute to the era. It's called SARS and Promises. And on the web, my website, I offer it as a package with the book and the album on vinyl. Uh, it's also streaming of course, cuz you can get the vinyl album and the book.
Speaker 2 00:53:08 Great. Great. Richard Barone, this has just been a wonderful conversation. I've enjoyed every minute of it. Thank you. We've been talking to Richard Barone, author of Music and Revolution, uh, uh, a History of Greenwich Village and Folk Music and, and everything else. Uh, uh, Richard, thank you so much for, thank you for being with us and thanks for being such a great interviewer. You have all the right questions. Thank you, <laugh>. Thank you. Really? Okay. Really. Oh, thank you very much. That's, it's been a great interview. Thanks and we'll let you go now. Okay. Take care. Bye-bye. You too. Bye-bye.
Speaker 1 00:55:40 You are listening to Right on Radio on Kfa I 90.3 FM and streaming live on the web kfa.org. I'm Sam, and I'd like to thank our special guest tonight, Richard Barone and all our listeners. Without your support and donations, kfa, I would not be possible. You can find more news and info about right on radio at kfa i.org/right on radio. You can listen to all your favorite write on radio episodes on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, apple Podcasts, and so on. Please stay tuned for Banjo, Minnesota.
