Frank Beacham's Journal

Old Folkies Gather for Sixth Washington Square Reunion in Greenwich Village

 

The clock was turned back on this cool Sunday afternoon as a couple of hundred aging folk musicians from the 1950s and 60s gathered again in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to play music, tell stories and—in some cases—to celebrate living so long.

“I can’t walk or breathe, but otherwise I’m fine,” one attendee quipped to a group of musicians, only half kidding. At least a couple of people admitted playing with Woody Guthrie in the park in the 1940s, and most played somewhere along the way with Bob Dylan in his earliest days in the Village. 

The genres, as always, overlapped. From bluegrass and old timey music to folk, jug and blues, the musicians all gathered in the cool air where rain threatened but only lightly drizzled. Izzy Young, who could not attend this year, wrote from his home in Sweden that next year will the the 50th year after the riot in Washington Square in 1961. He noted he was a leader of the riot and that the folkies had ultimately won in court.

 

Mandolin player Arnie Soloman, guitarist Hal Wylie and banjo player Roger Sprung play near the arch. Sprung brought authentic bluegrass banjo picking styles to the folk music community in New York. Now 80, he once played with Woody Guthrie in the park. In 1953, Sprung joined Erik Darling and Bob Carey to form the Folksay Trio. One of the trio's songs, Tom Dooley, would later be popularized by the Kingston Trio to become one of the best-selling folk music recordings of all time.

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David Bennett Cohen with acoustic guitarist Norman Savitt. Cohen, a professional musician for more than 30 years, is best known as keyboardist and an original member of the '60's rock band, Country Joe and the Fish. He is an equally accomplished guitar player and has played and recorded with a who’s who of American musicians.

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Guitarist Steve Mandell greets guitarist Barry Kornfeld. Mandell was the guitar half of Dueling Banjos from Deliverance, the 1972 motion picture by James Dickey. Kornfeld, who used to “lead” the Rev. Gary Davis, a blind guitarist, was a session guitarist who is listed on several Dylan recordings, though Kornfeld said he never actually played at the sessions. He said he played with Dylan on a early television show and in live performance, but never recorded with him, despite what liner notes say. He told me today he and Dylan often played chess together in his apartment in the early 1960s.

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Mandolin player David Gross leads a group of older players in the park.

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Terri Thal was once married to Dave Van Ronk, an important figure in the folk revival and nicknamed the “Mayor of MacDougal Street.” During the early 1960s, Thal briefly managed a very young Bob Dylan and was responsible for the house recordings that became Dylan’s Live at The Gaslight 1962. She also managed other early folk acts including the Holy Modal Rounders.

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Peter Stampfel, a founding member of the Fugs and the Holy Model Rounders. A recent review of Stampfel cited “part Spike Jones zaniness, part Alan Lomax reverence and part twinkle-eyed ’60s freaked-outedness” to describe Stampfel’s music.

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 Group photo by Sandy Hechtman. All other photos by Frank Beacham. 

All My Life’s a Circle

This week I was invited to Peter Yarrow’s apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for a party on behalf of World Hunger Year. Peter, of Peter, Paul and Mary, and Tom Chapin, brother of Harry Chapin, were both incredibly gracious hosts. Though I had only recently gotten to know both of them personally, as we talked, I realized how important both of these men have been my in life for many, many years.

Of course, we all grew up with the music of Peter, Paul and Mary. To hear Peter’s many stories, though, I felt as if I knew them personally through the years. He’s a remarkably friendly and personable man who wears his politics on his sleeve and doesn’t care what anyone thinks about it. I really like that trait in the man.

I first saw Tom Chapin on stage with his brother, Harry. I later shot video with Harry and his young family on a Florida beach. Harry would always end his concerts with All My Life’s a Circle, one of my favorite of his songs. When Harry died in a car crash in 1981, I was distraught for days.

Tom told us how Harry had actually written that song for him when he was doing a children’s television show in the early 70s. It became an unexpected hit for Harry. I suspect that’s because it has affected so many people over the years as a work containing so much truth.

When Tom sang “Circle” in Peter Yarrow’s living room, it affected me in a profound way.  Somehow, I felt the circle had closed a bit for me at that moment. It made me realize how my life has so many incredible connections that have kept building and interweaving through the years. “Seems like I've been here before, and I well remember when…”

 

When Tom introduced Jorma Kaukonen, he noted that the last time he’d seen him was with Harry at the Fillmore in San Francisco when Jorma was guitarist for Jefferson Airplane. It was exactly the same way I was introduced to Tom—on stage. Harry and Tom had both been fans of Jorma. 

Tom also sang a song inspired by the Rev. Gary Davis, a man who taught both he and Harry how to play the guitar. The Rev. Davis played on the streets of my own hometown, having been born only 40 miles away in Laurens, South Carolina. He’s still unknown in South Carolina—but certainly not to some of the world’s greatest musicians, including Bob Dylan.

 Peter Yarrow, Tom Chapin, Pete Fornatale and James Gavin

The Yarrow party was remarkable for me on many levels. The song says it all:

All my life's a circle, sunrise and sundown

Moon rolls through the night-time till the daybreak comes around

All my life's a circle I can't tell you why

Seasons spinning round again, the years keep rolling by

Seems like I've been here before, and I well remember when

I've got a funny feeling that we'll all be together again

No straight lines make up my life, all my roads are bends

There's no clear-cut beginning and so far no dead ends

I've found you a thousand times, I know you've done the same

Then we lose each other, it's like a children's game

If I find you here again the thought comes through my mind

Life is like a circle, let's go round one more time

Great Sidemen Take a Tour Break

It’s that wonderful time again in New York City when tours take a break and musicians take to the small clubs to jam. That happened Tuesday night at the P&G Bar in my ‘hood when Tony Garnier, Bob Dylan’s music director, joined Jon Herington, the Steely Dan guitarist, for a great jam.

 Tony Garnier

  

Jon Herington

Others in the band were drummer Clint de Ganon and Dan Cipriano, Wilson Pickett’s killer sax player. The man who put the gig together was Jonny Rosch, who organizes the weekly sessions of great sidemen and is a member of the Blues Brothers band.

Both Garnier and Herington are set to go back on the road soon with their respective bands. For this level of musician, down time doesn’t mean life is easy. Both played incredible sets that lasted almost four hours.

The Deadly Secret of a Small Town

 

The photograph is of Lois McClain, a young Chiquola Mill spinning room worker, shown just after she was shot at her workplace in my hometown of Honea Path, S.C. on Sept. 6, 1934. The bullet from McClain's bleeding left hand was never removed and was still intact when she died at age 91 in 1993.

Eventually the mother of five children, she worked in the mill until her mid 70s. Never in her life did McClain, or her husband, Cowan, also a millworker, discuss the shooting or the violence at the mill in 1934 with any of their children.

That’s because my grandfather, Dan Beacham, who managed the mill and participated in the shootings that killed seven people and wounded 30 others that day, imposed a veil of secrecy over the town that lasted more than 60 years. 

He used fear, threats and intimidation to silence the town’s greatest tragedy, now known as "Bloody Thursday." I wrote of this small town secret in my book, Whitewash: A Southern Journey through Music, Mayhem and Murder.

The current episode of Appalachian History’s podcast has a section on the story of my hometown and grandfather. Host Dave Tabler reads from an op-ed I wrote for the local newspaper there. Listen to the audio by clicking on the Shooting at Honea Path below.

Shooting at Honea Path

“You Know the Tune, ‘Go Get Lost!’”

 

My friend, the writer James Gavin, has written a wonderful piece for The Daily Beast about jazz musician Allen Mezquida, who draws Smigly, an average guy in search of love. 

Smigly is a YouTube cartoon series with an topical theme: How does one survive today’s onslaught of rejection while keeping one’s soul intact? 

Dumped by corporate America, Smigly sits on the landing of his apartment, blowing his saxophone while a neighbor jeers: “You know the tune, ‘Go Get Lost!’” He chokes on a nut, and his girlfriend won't look up from her laptop. He becomes a ventriloquist, and gets laughs only when the dummy pees on him. 

Smigly and Mezquida’s own story deal with a subject weighing heavily on many artists these days: the need to reinvent oneself in a digital age, or risk disappearing. 

Here’s an episode of Smigly, I Heart Jazz. See others at Smigly.TV

Jac Holzman Remembers the Day Dylan Went Electric

 

Jac Holzman is a legend in the music business. At age 19, he founded Elektra Records. He signed such legendary acts as The Doors, Queen, Carly Simon, Harry Chapin and many others. He discovered Judy Collins, the folk singer. 

 

Holzman partnered with Paul Rothchild, who became his house producer. Paul produced many great albums with artists including The Doors, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Janis Joplin, John Sebastian, Neil Young, Tom Paxton, Tim Buckley and on and on. 

Through a complicated series of events, I became friends with both men while living in LA. Holzman later became a writing client, while Rothchild was my partner working on a project with Orson Welles. It was Rothchild who called to tell me that Welles had died while I waited on the great director for a video shoot. 

Rothchild died in 1995, but Holzman continues to influence the music industry. At 79, he’s now consulting with Warner Music. There’s an interesting interview with him in today’s LA Times. Both Holzman and Rothchild were at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 when Bob Dylan went electric. Rothchild was running the sound board, while Holzman took a picture of Dylan. 

Here’s a video of Holzman describing that historic day:

(Janis Joplin, Paul Rothchild photo copyright Clark J. Pierson)