TERRI THAL on the UNNAMED PODCAST
🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨 Parts of this HISTORIC DOCUMENT will be injected into The Gerde's Folk City Doc 🎬 SUBSCRIBE to watch the FULL INTERVIEW HERE🎥
🤔Hey, ya know those GOOGLE cars that go around driving with cameras on their roofs taking pictures of each and every street all over God’s creation?
🤩 Thanks to these cars and their pictures, we can go to G👀gle maps and get a glimpse of every street corner around the world.
I know TERRI THAL won’t love the analogy, but she is the LIVING GOOGLE MAP car of The Greenwich Village scene of the 1960s. She can give a PRECISE street-side description of the 1960s Village from memory.
🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼 She was there. She lived in the clubs and the musicians lived on her couch. The Mayor of MacDougal Street, DAVE VAN RONK, was her husband and partner.
There was no internet. No Youtube. No email. No cell.
To work as a manager for Folk Musicians, one had to be in the arena, at the table, in the clubs and on the LANDLINE.
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A CHAPTER IN MY FILM is titled The Jack of Hearts
If Jack Hardy were around today, he would say WHAT THE F IS A SUBSTACK PODCAST and why should I care?
📣📣📣In 2009, I was busy spam emailing all of Mike Porco’s buddies to make sure everyone knew that Mike Porco’s kin cared about jumping on the Great Mandella, as Havens would say.
I met with people like Jack. Sat and talked as I did with Terri. But in 2010 I used No video. No audio. I took notes and bonded. Jack helped spur the 50th concert in conversation.
In 2010, I was busy spam emailing all of Mike Porco’s buddies to make sure no one was left out of the 50TH ANNIVERSARY concert. Everyone in that Folk Music Facebook Crowd was alerted.
So I opened a gmail account and started a BLOG on blogspot “so that all the famous musicians could be aware of the performer line-up as the participants piled up on my doorstep.”
As Erik Frandsen said, “your daily emails are quite enough.” I was the only one going to that blog then. (It has since gotten hundreds of thousands of clicks and, before Substack, it was keeping tabs on my entire Folk Life. Hundreds of photos published there still)
In Jack fashion I remember he said, I don’t know what a blog is and I don’t wanna know. I’m a folk singer.
The BLOG never really functioned like a digital home base/CHAT SPACE but I kept it through the years and posted shit there.
https://folkcityatfifty.blogspot.com/
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The rest is history. The stories are endless.
I’ve sold hundreds of tickets to 17 shows and grossed dozens of dollars over the past 15 years thanks to that blog. I have sweat equity invested. It’s a labor of LOVE, I’ve heard them say…
JACK WOULD BE A GREAT GUEST
If Jack Hardy were around today, he would say WHAT THE F IS A SUBSTACK PODCAST and why should I care?
Well, TERRI THAL decided to finally join the 21st Century. I’m a couple decades younger and I’ve only joined more recently than her. I’m not proud. I prefer the old way (face-to-face) but when one can share a ton of FOOTAGE on a Substack…including a PODCAST…the modern age is just fine with me.
🚨🚨🚨NEWSFLASH: I AM TRYING TO GIVE AWAY TONS OF FOOTAGE HERE🚨🚨
Terri, I might add, has been QUITE DIGITAL for over a year now. Since she’s published her memoir MY GREENWICH VILLAGE, I’ve seen Terri more on Youtube than in person. She’s a great raconteur, people love giving her the mic, and I was fortunate to gain an invite to her home to record her memories and sentiment about the Greenwich Village FOLK AND BLUES REVIVAL.
Lord knows, some of those reading this Substack want to be the NEXT guest on BOB PORCO’S UNNAMED PODCAST (you know who you are) but poor Bob Porco, he can’t even afford a name for his podcast. It’s a red head step child. Bob will continue to feed the poor thing, even without a name.
Terri Thal, to her credit, was happy to join the escapade in real-time as Bob figures it out. Thanks to my filmmaking skill it turned out just fucking fine. There was never anything to worry about. After a slight edit and polish, I am making it available to you here.
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If Jack Hardy were alive, I would make him record his memories on the UNNAMED PODCAST. We spent quality time together in 2009 and 2010 but I was only ARMED WITH pen and paper as we discussed Mike Porco and the fabric of Folk City.
He did tell me why Folk City suddenly became unwelcome territory to the Folk Singers that built it: NEW MANAGEMENT
🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼 You know when properties in NYZ take on NEW MANAGEMENT…they feel the need to post a banner over the front door saying UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT?
Problem was, when Mike sold the place, FOLK CITY had the word FOLK in it and yet Robbie {new management} decided that FOLK SINGERS in the 1980s were No longer welcome. He AND FOLK CITY was going [post-disco/New Wave]. So Jack Hardy and his kind were left to other devices to earn employment. Except for Frank Christian and Suzanne Vega and Odetta and his hand picked favorites. They still hung around. Mike never played that pussy game. If the musician had fans, the musician got the gig.
PERHAPS Jack would have been given the chance on the UNNAMED PODCAST to say——IN HIS GRAVEL VOICE—- “Robbie told me ‘we don’t want entertainers here’”
Terri Thal was spared witnessing the crushing end of the Folk City years. She was there early in the 1960-61 incubator with Mike, Dave Van Ronk, Barry Kornfeld, Happy Traum, Suze Rotolo and Bob Dylan as it was happening.
🍿🍿🍿Join this Substack and upgrade to PAID to watch the FULL TERRI THAL discussion🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
Topics discussed:
Meeting Dave Van Ronk
The Socialist Labor movement
The Songwriter’s Guild
Marrying and managing the Mayor of MacDougal Street
Meeting and managing the 20 year-old Bob Dylan
Greenwich Village at the DAWN of the Folk BOOM
John Mitchell
The Commons
Sicilian mafioso
Cops on the take
Gerde’s Folk City, The Wha?, The Gaslight
The Café Au Go-Go
Inside Llewyn Davis
Suze Rotolo
Mike Porco
The Roches
And Terri’s thoughts on The Gerde’s Folk City Doc
✅✅ BUY TERRI'S BOOK HERE:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Greenwich-Village-Dave-Bob/dp/0857162489
👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 Click below to WATCH 👀 the UNNAMED PODCAST with TERRI THAL👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽