Fact #119964
When:
Short story:
Joan Baez, John Denver, Eric Andersen, Doc and Merle Watson, Len and Nancy Chandler, Tom Paxton, Norman Kennedy, Carolyn Hester, Rosalie Sorrels, Jessie Fuller, Chris Smither, Bob Davenport and others play at the 1967 Philadelphia, Folk Festival, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.Full article:
Eric Andersen : This was kind of my Waterloo with the folk scene. I was at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, which was set up and run by this folk scholar kind of guy, Ken Goldstein, and these guys have their rules, like don’t carry your drink outside the storm fence, don’t walk here, don’t do this or that ... that’s the way their vibe was, but you had a lot of great artists playing there.
So I’m standing at this fence talking to John Denver, who was a little more sophisticated than most folk performers at the time, he was a little more savvy to the scene, so I was talking to him about Brian Epstein, who was taking an interest in my music. I had kept it quiet because I knew if I told any of the folk people, not even in the Village, about it, because they’d have hated me. There was such a lot of resentment between folk music and singer-songwriters and the British Invasion, a lot of bad feeling towards all of that.
So while John and I are talking, Ken Goldstein got up on stage in the middle of an act, they had to stop playing, so that Goldstein could make an announcement. He said, “I’ve just found out, and I’m happy to tell you that Brian Epstein has just died. Finally he got his just desserts, he got what he had coming to him.” His attitude was that Epstein never did anything for folk music, that The Beatles was a lousy group, he did this whole speech about it, and the audience was clapping, applauding and whistling.
It was weird because I’d just been telling John what a lovely soul Epstein was. After that I had a sour taste in my mouth for folk music.
It was like when Dylan had gone electric. These people felt they owned folk music, like it was their province. They called it ‘folk’s ashes’. They treated it like it was some kind of holy relic that had to be preserved.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Rock'n'Reel magazine, 2008)
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So I’m standing at this fence talking to John Denver, who was a little more sophisticated than most folk performers at the time, he was a little more savvy to the scene, so I was talking to him about Brian Epstein, who was taking an interest in my music. I had kept it quiet because I knew if I told any of the folk people, not even in the Village, about it, because they’d have hated me. There was such a lot of resentment between folk music and singer-songwriters and the British Invasion, a lot of bad feeling towards all of that.
So while John and I are talking, Ken Goldstein got up on stage in the middle of an act, they had to stop playing, so that Goldstein could make an announcement. He said, “I’ve just found out, and I’m happy to tell you that Brian Epstein has just died. Finally he got his just desserts, he got what he had coming to him.” His attitude was that Epstein never did anything for folk music, that The Beatles was a lousy group, he did this whole speech about it, and the audience was clapping, applauding and whistling.
It was weird because I’d just been telling John what a lovely soul Epstein was. After that I had a sour taste in my mouth for folk music.
It was like when Dylan had gone electric. These people felt they owned folk music, like it was their province. They called it ‘folk’s ashes’. They treated it like it was some kind of holy relic that had to be preserved.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Rock'n'Reel magazine, 2008)