Reprint. Originally published in paperback: 2006.

The story of how four young bohemians on the make - Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mimi Baez, and Richard Farina - converged in Greenwich Village, fell into love, and invented a sound and a style that are one of the most lasting legacies of the 1960s When Bob Dylan, age twenty-five, wrecked his motorcycle on the side of a road near Woodstock in 1966 and dropped out of the public eye, he was recognized as a genius, a youth idol, and the authentic voice of the counterculture: and Greenwich Village, where he first made his mark as a protest singer with an acid wit and a barbwire throat, was unquestionably the center of youth culture. So embedded are Dylan and the Village in the legend of the Sixties--one of the most powerful legends we have these days--that it is easy to forget how it all came about. In Positively Fourth Street, David Hajdu, whose 1995 biography of jazz composer Billy Strayhorn was the best and most popular music book in many seasons, tells the story of the emergence of folk music from cult practice to popular and enduring art form as the story of a colorful foursome: not only Dylan but his part-time lover Joan Baez - the first voice of the new generation; her sister Mimi - beautiful, haunted, and an artist in her own right; and her husband Richard Farina, a comic novelist (Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me) who invented the worldliwise bohemian persona that Dylan adopted--some say stole--and made as his own. The story begins in the plain Baez split-level house in a Boston suburb, moves to the Cambridge folk scene, Cornell University (where Farina ran with Thomas Pynchon), and the University of Minnesota (where Robert Zimmerman christened himself Bob Dylan and swapped his electric guitar for an acoustic and a harmonica rack) before the four protagonists converge in New York. Based on extensive new interviews and full of surprising revelations, Positively Fourth Street is that rare book with a new story to tell about the 1960s. It is, in a sense, a book about the Sixties before they were the Sixties--about how the decade and all that it is now associated with it were created in a fit of collective inspiration, with an energy and creativity that David Hajdu captures on the page as if for the first time.

“The girl with Bob Dylan on the cover of Freewheelin’ broke a forty-five-year silence with this affectionate and dignified recalling of a relationship doomed by Dylan’s growing fame.” –UNCUT magazine Suze Rotolo chronicles her coming of age in Greenwich Village during the 1960s and the early days of the folk music explosion, when Bob Dylan was finding his voice and she was his muse. A shy girl from Queens, Suze was the daughter of Italian working-class Communists, growing up at the dawn of the Cold War. It was the age of McCarthy and Suze was an outsider in her neighborhood and at school. She found solace in poetry, art, and music—and in Greenwich Village, where she encountered like-minded and politically active friends. One hot July day in 1961, Suze met Bob Dylan, then a rising musician, at a concert at Riverside Church. She was seventeen, he was twenty; they were both vibrant, curious, and inseparable. During the years they were together, Dylan transformed from an obscure folk singer into an uneasy spokesperson for a generation. A Freewheelin’ Time is a hopeful, intimate memoir of a vital movement at its most creative. It captures the excitement of youth, the heartbreak of young love, and the struggles for a brighter future in a time when everything seemed possible.

This title provides a group portrait of some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, including Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Grandmaster Flash and Bob Dylan.

In these lessons for the intermediate fingerstyle guitarist Dave Van Ronk presents his arrangements of blues and a classic rag. The book includes a conversation with Dave, a discography, 6 tunes in notation and tablature, and 3 CDs teaching each tune phrase by phrase. LESSON ONE: A blues in 12/8 with Leroy Carr's Midnight Hour Blues. Blood Red Moon follows played in a dropped D tuning. The lesson ends with Blind Lemon Jefferson's One Kind Favor. LESSON TWO: Sunday Street is an original Dave Van Ronk song and is an excellent example of Dave's arranging skills. Four choruses are taught demonstrating how this tune can develop. Bessie Smith's classic blues You've Been A Good Old Wagon is taught in the key of E. LESSON THREE: Dave's arrangement of St. Louis Tickle was the first great challenge for fingerpickers interested in classic ragtime. This four sectioned rag is played in the keys of C and F. It is an excellent example of contemporary ragtime guitar.

The journals, notebooks, musings, and early song drafts of Jeff Buckley, the late singer best-known for the definitive version of "Hallelujah" and his classic album Grace, including dozens of evocative photos of his personal effects and ephemera. After the release of his acclaimed debut album, Grace, in 1994, Jeff Buckley quickly established himself as one of the decade's most defining talents in pop music: a singer, guitarist, and songwriter with a multi-octave range whose tastes took in rock, blues, jazz, hardcore, Qawwali music, and even show tunes. Hailed by the likes of Bono, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant, Grace showcased Buckley's voice, passion, and influences and pointed to an inordinately promising future. Three short years later, at the age of thirty, he tragically drowned in Memphis. But his legend and stature have only grown since; in recent years, everyone from Adele to Coldplay to Radiohead has spoken of the impact Buckley's music had on them. For much of his life, Buckley diligently kept journals recording his goals, inspirations, aspirations, and creative struggles. These diaries amount to one of the most insightful life chronicles any musical artist has left behind. Jeff Buckley: His Own Voice marks the first-ever publication of Buckley's handwritten account of his journey from his days in Los Angeles in the late '80s through shortly before his passing. Combined with reproductions of other memorabilia--including letters, notes, and unpublished lyrics--this book takes readers and fans deep into Buckley's mind and life.

From Washington Square Park and Café Society to WNYC Radio and Folkways Records, New York City's cultural, artistic, and commercial assets helped to shape a distinctively urban breeding ground for the famous folk music revival of the 1950s and '60s. Folk City, by Stephen Petrus and Ronald Cohen, explores New York's central role in fueling the nationwide craze for folk music in postwar America.