Too Late for Bleeker Street: Reflections on Dylan Biopic, A Complete Unknown

I was born a decade too late to be a Bohemian in Greenwich Village. By the time my friends and I were old enough to ride the subway into Manhattan from Jackson Heights, Queens, the Beat movement was long gone. Cafe Wha? had become a super overpriced tourist trap, much like the rest of that now-too-famous neighborhood.

How I wished I could have lived there when the folk music scene was coming of age (and rents were cheap). Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan - all I really knew of them were the songs we sang in summer camp - and, later, many became anthems for me as my guitar and I worked our way onto stages in school and in coffee houses.

Last night it all came rushing back, as my husband and I watched A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic. (Amazing, by the way.)

There it was - Cafe Wha?! And The Village. Folk Music stages in basement clubs. People sitting at little tables, listening intently  to one singer, one guitar, really hearing the lyrics.

No smart phones. Just pure listening and appreciation.

That, I do miss.

I was seldom without my guitar in those days

I discovered guitar when I was 13 years old. Since we couldn’t afford a piano (much less piano lessons), a guitar was the next best thing. Thanks to a distant cousin (who heard me sing for the aunts and uncles at a reunion and found me a good deal on a used guitar) and to a PBS-TV guitar-lesson series (just buy the book and follow along, one week at a time!) I learned to play well enough to do what I wanted - to sing with accompaniment.

I did not learn bass riffs, classical guitar, rock guitar - I learned folk guitar. And so the music began to speak to me - first, because the chords were easier and then because the lyrics moved me. 

I was much more into sort of “folk-pop” than the pure folk music depicted in the Dylan biopic, where the Newport Folk Festival was the epitome of folk fame. I never went to that Festival.  So I experienced Dylan more as a songwriter than an artist. I idolized Peter Paul and Mary (even was part of a similar group in my teens with two male friends), Judy Collins, Paul Simon, Don McLean ... .sort of post-folk popular music.

But I sang in coffee houses all through college - just me and my guitar. Anti-war songs. Human songs. Songs about justice, love, heartache, empathy, peace, and life. I covered songs by Dylan, Phil Ochs, Melanie, James Taylor, Carly Simon…and my own originals.

No, I never got discovered by a manager sitting in the back of the house ready to offer me a recording contract (though I sure did dream of that). But I did pay my college tuition by singing. 

Like Dylan - like many artists - my music changed as I changed. I moved on to Musical Theatre, my first love, and also sang with duos, trios and bands - country music, classics, pop, rock. Music moves. Audiences move. They dance, sing along, take videos.

But I will never forget that once I had the experience of sitting on stage, just me and my guitar, playing to a quiet, focused, respectful audience who really heard my words and were visibly moved.

I don’t know if that happens as much these days. It’s a different kind of attention. 

We did see that same level of pure audience focus at the Grammys last year when Joni Mitchell sang again, slowly and deliberately, to a rapt crowd of celebrities who hung on every note, every word.

Simple, complicated “folk” music.  Yes, it changes with the times, but I’m so grateful it helped shape my life. And maybe, just maybe, my performances in those coffee houses touched a few hearts, alone on the stage with just my guitar and a song.

Randye Kaye

Randye Kaye is a female voice talent for business and beyond. She is the author of two books; Happier Made Simple™ and Ben Behind His Voices. As an actress she has appeared in numerous theatrical, film and television performances. Randye is a keynote speaker on the topics of mental health, communication, and happiness.

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