Music! Music! Music! – Village Music Stores

The main kind of music associated with Greenwich Village has come to be the American folk songs most particularly those that became popular in the 1960s and 1970s among Villagers and eventually were heard throughout the land with the help of singers like Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Pete Seeger, Dave Van Ronk, Oscar Brand, Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio, the Weavers, and many more. Following in the footsteps of the Coen Brothers amazing film “Inside Llewyn Davis” which zeroes in on the Village folk scene in the year 1961 when the Gaslight Café on MacDougal Street was one of the joints where it all began to happen. Along with the film a CD album was released and after that many other CD’s were issued featuring the original recordings of many famous artists like Judy Collins or those less known ‘folkies’ like Hedy West, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Susan Reed or Tim Hardin. CD collections of folk granddaddy of them all – Woody Guthrie – are also turning up to be heard once again by new audiences who are ready and eager to listen and learn what it was all about including the politics, the war, the war protests, and the changes that were happening in the country.

After the soundtrack release of “Inside Llewyn Davis” a company called Chrome Dreams put out a two CD set produced in Warwickshire, England entitled “Bob Dylan’s Greenwich Village – Sounds from the Scene in 1961.” The compilation is an eclectic album and includes many of Bob Dylan’s cohorts and friends singing their folk tunes as well as featuring Jack Kerouac reading from “On the Road” and also an excerpt from Lenny Bruce on the Steve Allen show. Dylan admired Kerouac and they often crossed paths at the Gaslight where Kerouac, Ginsburg, Taylor Mead, Gregory Corso and other ‘Beatniks’ read the poetry that influenced what became known as ‘The Beat Generation’. An odd note to all of this is that Dylan got one of his first gigs at the Café Wha? with the help of his then roommate Tiny Tim who regularly played the Wha? Tiny Tim began his career in the Village at a Lesbian bar called Page 3 which was on 7^th Avenue South just above 10^th Street. The pinnacle of “Tiptoe Through The Tulips” Tiny’s success was in 1968 when he had a solo appearance at the Royal Albert Hall with Queen Elizabeth and the Beatles in attendance on opening night. Another new 2 CD package from Festival Records in Australia is entitled “Greenwich Village in the 60s – Beginnings & Branches of the New York Folk Revival.”

These and a European 3 CD import “The Greenwich Village Folk Scene” featuring by the way an early rare and incredible recording of Dylan singing “House of the Rising Sun” is available with all of the others and they are in a current window display at REBEL REBEL a crowded and eclectic record shop run by David Shebiro at 319 Bleecker Street between Christopher and Grove Streets.

David, who is a very amiable charming and informative man thinks of himself as a musicologist, and as an avid collector of folk and rock music, decided to create a special Greenwich Village folk music window display featuring these CD’s and including several other albums by Dave Van Ronk who now has a designated NYC street sign- Dave Van Ronk Street – which runs on Washington Place to number 15 Sheridan Arms where he lived across from the triangular Sheridan Square Viewing Garden. REBEL REBEL’s window display includes a single Van Ronk CD collection entitled “Inside Dave Van Ronk” who certainly influenced the Coen Brothers movie and it’s great fun to hear Dave singing the song “Cocaine Blues” which is featured on the album. Smithsonian Folkways 3 CD collection “Dave Van Ronk – Down in Washington Square” is in the window as well. All of these albums are digitally re-mastered – and what a wonder it is to take a retro-trip back into the folk scene music of the 1960s. In the Smithsonian collection we get to hear Van Ronk’s later recordings of “St. James Infirmary”, “Gambler’s Blues” (recorded in 1997) “Ace in the Hole” (recorded in 2001) and Bob Dylan’s “Buckets of Rain” (recorded in 2001.) Dave, along with ‘Bobby’ Dylan as some called him in those good-bad old days were certainly the leaders of the pack with Dylan right at the top continuing to thrive to this day.

The unique REBEL REBEL record store seems to have everything so check it out. A desirable attractively packaged out of print CD that you might find there or that the store will search for you and one that every folk collector seems to be looking for is entitled simply “Bleecker Street – Greenwich Village in the 60’s” produced by Peter Gallway – 1999 Astor Place Recordings, LLC. It features new artists singing original Village folk including Loudon Wainwright III, John Cale, and Cry, Cry, Cry. Owner Shebiro says his personal favorites include David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, the Rolling Stones, the Clash and Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page of Zeppelin fame, he tells us, is a regular customer at the REBEL REBEL record scene where anybody might show up including David Bowie himself and the legendary Bob Dylan all in search of that record rarity. Also in the store are many, many 33 rpm albums including “Inside Dave Van Ronk” and “Inside Llewyn Davis” if you are into vinyl which is it seems is a really going trend these days.

While we are featuring REBEL REBEL in this article we must also highlight another great CD and 33 1/3 rpm vinyl record store – BLEECKER STREET RECORDS – now at 188 West 4^th Street (between Barrow and Jones). Previous to this recent move, Chris Dunnigan the owner, had been on Bleecker Street itself for 20 years but was chased out by the landlords’ demands for a higher rent. Fortunately for us Chris has found a new big location. In the window of his new spot you will see an outsized statue of ‘Nipper’ the dog that is the R.C.A. Victor trademark symbol. It sits listening to a big trumpet-horn speaker on an antique Victrola. A third store at 197 Bleecker Street called VILLAGE MUSIC WORLD between 6^TH Avenue and MacDougal Streets is run by ‘Jumal’ who has been there selling rare CDs and vinyl at reasonable prices for 26 years. David at REBEL REBEL is also celebrating his 26^th year in business. Unfortunately last year the Village lost the legendary Bleecker Bob’s Golden Oldies (on 3^rd Street) to another greedy landlord who was looking to double an already high rent. It was time for the owner Bob Plotnick to pull the plug.

If you are tired of downloading, walk into one of these wonderful record emporiums and buy something you can hold in your hands and take home. I am remembering at this moment herein an old-time recording called “Music! Music! Music!” I once owned as a teenager which was a super hit for the pop singer Teresa Brewer in days of yore. In her raspy voice the bouncy lyric went “Put another nickel in – in the Nickelodian – all I want is loving you and Music! Music! Music!” See yah at REBEL REBEL!