Click on the link here for Audio Player – Skip Weshner’s Accent On Sound – Live From The Village Gate – May 23, 1959 – KRHM – Gordon Skene Sound Collection
A few months ago I ran a Skip Weshner Accent On Sound Folk Program live from One Sheridan Square. This week, it’s another folk program – this time a live show from The Village Gate from May 23, 1959.
It’s Couples Night, and featured in the lineup are Peter and Isabel Gardner, Ron and Nama – an Israeli duo fresh from their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show and the release of their debut album on the fledgling folk label Elektra. And Gene & Francesca.
All duos and all traditional Folk Music from one of the newer clubs in Greenwich Village at the time, The Village Gate, which had opened only a year earlier in 1958.
This was the backbone – the meat and potatoes of the Folk scene in the 1950s just prior to the Folk revolution. Traditional Americana and World Folk Music, steeped in history and legend. And all presented via FM – that medium tailored to the tastes of the eclectic and the high-end Hi-Fi. It was a whole different scene.
And just how different it was is evidenced by the fact that this was a syndicated show broadcast over KRHM in Los Angeles – the forerunner to KMET as they were both at 94.7 on the FM dial. Eventually KRHM would go off the air and KMET would emerge; first as an automated Elevator Music station, and then as the Album-Oriented/Underground bastion of 60s Rock.
Times changed, and in retrospect, they changed rather quickly. But this is what the Folk Scene largely sounded like in the 1950s.
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