As a native of New Jersey, David Browne had been to the Greenwich Village section of New York and was aware of its storied reputation as a mecca for music—especially folk, jazz, and blues—in the ‘50s and ‘60s. As well as a magnet for the counterculture’s misfits, beatniks, outsiders, and weirdos.
But it wasn’t until as a student at nearby New York University in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s that he really began to appreciate the area.
“I wanted to know about it from my first night moving into my dorm wandering the Village with my roommates. The Village then didn’t have the reputation it had had, but even then there was still a lot happening in the clubs,” he says via Zoom from his home. “I even lived on Bleecker Street for a while.”
Flash forward to 2020 and Browne, now an esteemed music journo (Fire and Rain, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), pitched a profile to his Rolling Stone editor on David Blue, a long-forgotten cult favorite ‘60s/’70s Village folkie known to many simply for his association with Bob Dylan.
That profile led to discussions with his book editor, which morphed into an idea for a wider project that would encompass not only the history of Greenwich Village (which geographically, only takes up only one square mile of New York real estate). But also the performers, audiences, clubs, and local movers and shakers.
And thus, Browne is about to release Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital (400 pp., $32.50, Hachette Books).
While the area began as a largely Italian-American working-class community in the first part of the 20th century, nightclubs and coffeehouses began to open in the area, drawing a different crowd to live and work. But the music scene developed without a “Big Bang Year” situation akin to San Francisco in 1967 or Seattle in 1992.
“What’s interesting about the Village is that there isn’t one year like that. The specter of the ‘60s hangs over a project like this. And Bob Dylan pops in and out of the scene every so often,” Browne says.
“But for me, I didn’t bring that ‘60s baggage to the project. There were great people who came after as well. I didn’t have to deal with the lingering cloud of that first era. I wanted to tell the whole story.”
Ah yes, Bob Dylan. The Phantom Engineer of Folk whose mumbling, raggedy, baby-face form appeared in the area from—all places—Minnesota. And whose presence in the basket houses and guitar pulling sessions became ubiquitous as he spearheaded the folk music revival to national attention.
As in many other Dylan books, Talkin’ Greenwich Village paints early Dylan as something of a musical sponge who comes in, absorbs what he can, molds it into his own usage, then takes off. Often leaving hurt feelings, accusations of musical thievery, and victims of ghosting in his wake.
But while Browne notes that portrait of him “seems to be pretty accurate” from his research, Dylan’s most important legacy may be something beyond just the authorship of standards like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Masters of War,” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’”
“He did come in with a ferocity and desire and an ambition that was beyond everybody there. That was reinforced by everyone I talked to. And he left behind a certain amount of wreckage. But his real impact was how he inadvertently got everyone to write their own songs,” Browne offers.
“Tom Paxton did. But people like Dave Van Ronk and Judy Collins were mostly singing traditional songs. When people started covering Dylan songs in ’62 and ’63 and having hits, it changed things. It was like ‘Jesus, if he could do that, so could I to make extra publishing money!’ And I think that was a positive contribution that’s sort of overlooked.”
If Bob Dylan was the shooting star of the Village folk scene, then Dave Van Ronk was its soul and conscience. The rough-voiced, rough-hewn, rotund performer was an earl mentor not just to Dylan but two generations of struggling musicians.
A man who lived most of his life in Greenwich Village and was there through its ups and downs (and ups and downs) until his 2002 death. The acclaimed 2013 film Inside Llewlyn Davis starred Oscar Issac as a very Van Ronk-like struggling folkie.
The upcoming Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as the Bard of Hibbing, is largely set in his early days on the Village folk scene and will surely bring more attention to the area and its musical history.
“One of the challenges I had with this book was how to structure it. I knew where it would start and end, but in between was a little foggy,” Browne says. But his rereading of Isabel Wilkerson’s historical book The Warmth of Other Suns, and how its story was told thought the eyes of different characters, helped him solve that dilemma.
“Van Ronk was the bedrock of that whole world. And people don’t know him. He was the uncompromising spirit of the Village in his music. He stuck to his artistic guns, and was a champion, critic, and mentor all in one.” Browne says. “Also, the Village didn’t dry up when Dylan left, that was a myth.”
One of the joys of Talkin’ Greenwich Village is the amount of pages Browne spends on some of the lesser-known musicians and groups (including Danny Kalb and his electric blues band, The Blues Project) or the latter-decades folkies from Browne’s college days like Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and the Roches.
The jazz clubs and music also get some attention. And though it seems impossible, in 1965 one could see Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, or Herbie Mann play in tiny clubs, often on the same night.
“I put myself through a lot of eye strain going through back issues of The Village Voice digital editions. Week after week you’d come across the clubs and coffeehouse listings, and it was mind blowing,” Browne says, rattling off names of storied venues like the Gaslight, Café Au Go Go, Village Vanguard, Bottom Line, Kenny’s Castaways, the Bitter End, and Café Wha?
Browne conducted more than 100 original interviews for the book, and not too soon as several of his subjects have passed away since they spoke to him like Happy Traum and Danny Kalb.
His biggest regret was not getting to interview Len Chandler, an influential Black folk music singer/guitarist who was very much in the thick of the scene at the start. The two had started to chat, but Chandler died before they could officially sit down.
He was excited to track down Delores Dixon, another Black folkie who as a member of the multiracial New World Singers, recorded the first cover of Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Browne notes that’s songs melody was perhaps inspired by the Singers’ anti-slavery anthem “No More Auction Block.” Dylan himself refers to Dixon in his autobiography Chronicles as his “sort of girlfriend.”
To locate her, Browne simply “Googled around” and found her living in uptown New York, in the same apartment she’s had for more than four decades. “She didn’t know why people thought she had disappeared!” Brown laughs.
Finally, Talkin’ Greenwich Village harkens back to an aspect of pop culture seemingly unfathomable in today’s media culture: When music journalists had power and influence.
“The power of the press, especially of the New York Times back then, was formidable. If Robert Shelton or Robert Palmer or John Rockwell gave you a good review, you could get a record deal out of it,” Browne sums up.
“It’s definitely a bygone era. The days before social media when record company people actually had to go down to clubs and see people play live to their face!”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
