The Mayor of MacDougal Street by Dave Van Ronk

Author:Dave Van Ronk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2010-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

10

The Commons and Gary Davis

When I got back to New York in the summer of 1958, the work situation was about the same, but a lot else had changed. Lee Shaw had passed Caravan over to Billy Faier, who had turned it into a serious, scholarly periodical, and she had started Gardyloo. (The July issue’s “Anti-Social Notes from All Over” reported that I had shaved off my beard and was “once again a bare-faced boy.”) Meanwhile, the Folksingers Guild was on its last legs. It was still producing occasional concerts for a small pool of Washington Square devotees, but no great revival had yet happened, and the performers were beginning to feel as if all we were doing was taking in each other’s washing. Then our newly appointed treasurer absconded with our small treasury, nobody had the heart to start again from scratch, and the outfit folded with hardly a whimper.

At the same time, it was clear that interest in folk music was spreading beyond our esoteric coterie, and not just into the crew-cut hinterlands of the Kingston Trio. About a month after I got back, we all trooped down to Newport to attend the first annual folk festival. None of the Village crowd had been invited to play, except for the New Lost City Ramblers, but nothing would have kept us away. The lineup included all the warhorses of the professional folk world, but also Memphis Slim, the Reverend Gary Davis, and Earl Scruggs. Altogether, it was an absolutely magical event, and oddly enough, what I especially remember was Cynthia Gooding’s performance the first evening. Cynthia was six feet tall, with flaming red hair, and she was wearing a diaphanous green gown. As she was singing, a fog came in off the water, and the wind was blowing, and the way the lights were set up, Cynthia and her gown were reflected on the clouds. It was the most ethereal visual I have ever seen in my life. The whole weekend was like that. The next evening Bob Gibson, who was riding very high in those days, gave half of his stage time to an unknown young singer named Joan Baez. That was Joanie’s big break, and anyone who was there could tell that it was the beginning of something big for all of us.

Meanwhile, Terri’s graduation went off as planned, and within a couple of weeks we had settled into a fifth-floor walk-up on 15th Street.18 I did not like that much—as Max Bodenheim used to say, I get nosebleeds when I get above 14th Street—but at least it was big enough for two people. Terri had a job as a substitute teacher, and I hung out my shingle as a guitar instructor, attracting maybe ten students a week, and gave occasional concerts. By and large, though, I was still out on the street in search of work. A couple of new coffeehouses had opened while I was out of town, but they were of little interest to me.

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