On Friday, June 5, 2015, Patty Larkin, a favorite musician of many in the Boston area, will headline a concert at The Regent Theatre in Arlington to raise funds for the important organization, Folk New England. Also on the bill are Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, and Tumbling Bones.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Betsy Siggins, founder and director of Folk New England. I was not familiar with Siggins, but she has been a fixture, albeit behind the scenes to a great extent, on the ‘folk revival’ scene in Cambridge, Washington DC, and New York for 50+ years. She has been interested in the world of folk music since her childhood, and has many stories to tell.
Possibly Siggins’ first and most significant exposure to this world of folk music was through Joan Baez, who was her college roommate for a short period. Siggins described her as an “extraordinarily funny” woman as well as a generous soul,
Siggins joined Baez at her early gigs at the new venue in Harvard Square, Club 47 (now Club Passim). At the same time, Bob Siggins, a banjo player and the man who became Betsy’s husband , formed a bluegrass group with Clay Jackson, a guitarist he met on his train trip from Oklahoma to Harvard University. Their home became a gathering point for musicians after their gigs at Club 47 -– folks like Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, Tom Rush, Jim Kweskin, and Judy Collins.
Betsy was a director of Club 47 until it ran out of money in April 1968. From there, Ralph Rinzler (founder of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival held on the Mall in Washington, DC, every summer) enlisted her to travel with African-American musicians throughout the United States. Ralph felt that black artists should travel with white “managers” and Siggins agreed. After that, she spent some time in New York running soup kitchens and food pantries when it was easy to find benefactors for her causes.
She returned to Cambridge in the 1980s and resumed her involvement with Club Passim, as it was by-then called. During that time, Siggins became passionate about the need for a repository of all the music and stories that comprise the folk revival — a phrase she does not particularly like, but I use it here because it is a well-known term. It was not until she left Club Passim in 2009 that Folk New England was born.
Many boxes of ephemera accumulated in her basement over the years. The collection is being professionally catalogued. The 24 reel-to-reel tapes will be transferred to a format that can be reproduced, thanks in part to a grant from the Grammy Foundation. ASCAP is also involved with the restoration of these materials. Unfortunately, there are not nearly enough benefactors these days to fund this important resource.
Siggins and I spoke about Dom Flemons, one of the founders of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who has an astounding depth of knowledge about the history of African-American music and musicians. A true ethnomusicologist, Flemons is on the founders committee of Folk New England and is an invaluable resource. Siggins feels that he is doing more to advance civil rights than most others at this time. He is also one of the most “real” people I have the privilege to know.
For more history of this scene, a recent documentary on the relevance of the folk music scene around Club 47/Club Passim exists, called For the Love of the Music. Siggins also told me of Baby Let Me Follow You Down, a book by Jim Rooney and Eric Von Schmidt which chronicles the 1960s folk revival.
The benefit concert at Arlington’s Massachusetts Regent Theatre in Massachusetts on Friday, June 5, features Patty Larkin as the headliner. I have not seen her perform in too many years. Sarah Lee Guthrie (daughter of Arlo and granddaughter of Woody) and Johnny Irion are one of the opening acts; their music is not easy to quantify, but is mostly roots-folk. The first opening act is Tumbling Bones, a trio of young men who play old-timey music. This promises to be a fabulous show.
I hope that Siggins writes a book of memoirs. She barely touched the surface of her experiences during our conversation, and I would love to know more from an insider who is not a musician herself.
This interview was originally published on Suze Reviews the Blues. Tickets for the concert are available here.
