Talkin' Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital: David Browne in conversation with Liz Thomson

A publication-day conversation with David Browne, whose latest book chronicles the rise and heyday of the Greenwich Village music scene, an account based on 150 interviews and previously unseen documents. And what better place for an intimate chat than the fabled coffeehouse that was once home to Pete and Toshi Seeger.

Greenwich Village encompasses less than a square mile in downtown New York, yet rarely has such a concise area nurtured so many innovative artists and genres. Over the course of decades, Billie Holiday, the Weavers, Sonny Rollins, Dave Van Ronk, Ornette Coleman, Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, Phil Ochs, and Suzanne Vega are just a few who migrated to the Village, recognizing it as a sanctuary for visionaries, non-conformists, and those looking to reinvent themselves. Working in the Village’s smokey coffeehouses and clubs, they chronicled the tumultuous Sixties, rewrote jazz history, and took folk and rock ‘n roll into places they hadn’t been before.
 
Talkin’ Greenwich Village lends the saga the epic, panoramic scope it’s long deserved. It takes readers from the Fifties jamborees in Washington Square Park and into landmark venues like Gerde’s Folk City, the Gaslight Café, and the Village Vanguard, onto Dylan’s momentous arrival and returns, the no-holds-barred 1970s and the folk revival of the 1980s.
 
In eye-opening fashion, Browne also details the often-overlooked people of color in the Sixties folk clubs and reveals how the FBI and city government consistently kept their eyes on the community. In also recounting the racial tensions, crackdowns, and changes in New York and music that infiltrated the neighborhood, Talkin’ Greenwich Village is more than just vivid cultural history. It also speaks to the rise and waning of bohemian culture itself, set to some of the most enduring lyrics, melodies, and jazz improvisations in American music.

Tickets: $10, $40 including a copy of Talkin’ Greenwich Village