Cafe Au Go Go, New York City 152 Bleecker Street Rock: Performance List January-June 1968 (Au Go Go VI)

The Cafe Au Go Go, at 152 Bleecker Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, was a critical venue for aspiring rock bands in the 1960s. Whatever the indisputable charms of the West Coast, the commercial and cultural capital of the United States has always been New York City, and bands had to make a good showing in New York if they expected to make it. Perhaps because the venue had no collectible poster art, the club has been somewhat unfairly left out of many rock chronicles, when in fact it played a crucial role in introducing new bands to New York City, and by extension to the whole country.

The iconic New York rock venue has always been Bill Graham's Fillmore East, and rightly so. The Fillmore East only opened in 1968, however, when the rock business had become fairly established. The less imposing Cafe Au Go Go had opened on February 7, 1964. It was a brick room with a low ceiling, long and narrow, and not ideally designed for electric music. Prior to the rock boom, it had been a haven for jazz, folk and comedy performers, but the Cafe Au Go Go became one of the first clubs in Greenwich Village and New York City to regularly book "name" rock acts, particularly from out of town. Within a few short years, it was primarily a rock club, and one of the first places bands had to play for the critical but enthusiastic New York audience.

Thanks to my friend Marc, I have had an excellent list of performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from 1965 to 1969, when it closed. I was lacking much of a context, however, but now that I have discovered the excellent New York City site prosopography blog Its All The Streets You Crossed Not So Long Ago, and its exceptional post on the Cafe Au Go Go, my performers list can be put into some kind of context.

My goal for this series is to list all the rock performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from July 27, 1965 through late 1969, when the club closed. I have included some brief information about where each performer stood at the time each of their Au Go Go performance, such as their current album and lineup, but I have not tried to create exhaustive biographies for each band. I am trying to capture how different bands came through Greenwich Village and New York City in their efforts to succeed. I have listed folk, jazz or other performers but have largely refrained from commenting on them.

The Café Au Go Go was an oddity, a music club that didn’t serve liquor. This made it accessible to underage patrons, but it also meant that there were no bar receipts to rely on when things were slow on the bandstand. By coffee house standards, the Au Go Go was large, with room for 300 to 400 people. However, when the Greenwich Village folk boom started to die down, it became more of a struggle for the club to survive. Electric Rock and Blues acts began to be billed regularly at the Au Go Go in mid-1965, and this list picks up the story there.

This list is mostly drawn from advertisements in the Village Voice and other papers, and a few biographies and other sources when the Au Go Go was mentioned. Like all nightclubs in big cities, who was advertised was not always who appeared. Missing dates are more likely due to a lack of advertising or missing issues of The Village Voice, as the Au Go Go probably presented live music almost every night from 1965-69. It is possible that nights that were not advertised simply featured local groups, but those too may have been of historical interest. The Au Go Go advertised regularly in the Village Voice, and there were occasional flyers around, but there is probably much more to be learned, particularly about opening acts and casual guest appearances.

This is a work in progress. Anyone with additional information, corrections, insights or recovered memories (real or imagined) about any of the rock performers is urged to post it in the Comments or contact me. For ease of navigation, this series will be divided into nine parts (late 1965, early and late 1966, early and late 1967, early and late 1968 and early and late 1969).

Cafe Au Go Go Rock Performers List 
Part I July 27, 1965-December 1965
Part II January 1966-June 1966  
Part III July 1966-December 1966
Part IV January 1967-June 1967 
Part V July 1967-December 1967
Part VI January 1968-June 1968


January 4-7, 1968 BB King
Thanks to Bill Graham and the Fillmore Auditorium, popular blues artists like BB King found a second life on the white rock circuit. Interestingly, BB King had mostly been seen by the R&B audience as a singer, whereas the hippies appreciated BB for his great guitar playing. Both views were true, of course, but the perception of a musician changed when he was lauded for instrumental excellence, like a jazz player.

January 9-21, 1968 John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers/Steve Miller Band (12th-18th).
For his first American tour, John Mayall’s band featured Mick Taylor on lead guitar and Keef Hartley on drums, along with a horn section (Dick Heckstall-Smith and Chris Mercer), plus Keith Tillman on bass. This was the last of his “straight-ahead” blues lineups. The band had already recorded the live album Diary Of A Band, but their September 1967 album Crusade had been released on London records in the US in January 68.

The Steve Miller Band were based in Berkeley, but made their name at the Avalon and the Fillmore. Miller was from Madison, WI, via Chicago and Texas and played the blues better than the San Francisco bands. When he moved to SF in late 66, he rapidly formed a group and made a name as a bluesy yet innovative guitarist. This was the first eastern foray of his group, which now featured Boz Scaggs on vocals along with Miller.

January 25-February 4, 1968 Blood Sweat and Tears/James Cotton
February 5-18, 1968 Blood Sweat and Tears
Blood, Sweat and Tears finished recording their debut album (Child Is Father To The Man) for Columbia in December 1967, and it came out ain February 1968. The group had much more of a Big Band feel like Maynard Ferguson than the stacatto, Vegas-y sound they would later adopt after Kooper left.

Around this time, Eric Clapton, once again in New York recording with Cream, hangs out at the AuGoGo and jams with BB King and others, and it is a profound reminder for Clapton of the directness of the blues. Cream has gotten too big too fast, and jamming with BB King in a club reminded Clapton of what he was trying to do in the first place.

February 27-March 3, 1968 Albert King
Albert King was another Chicago blues guitarist, now recording for Stax (distributed by Atlantic) who had been discovered by the white rock market. 

March 7-17, 1968 Electric Flag
Electric Flag had been formed in California by Mike Bloomfield and friends of his from Chicago and New York. The group was Bloomfield’s attempt to merge all types of American music—rock, blues, soul, jazz and country—and it almost succeeded. Hype, personalities and drugs put too much of a burden on a potentially great concept. The band’s debut album (An American Music Band) had just been released by Columbia.

On March 17, there was a jam, probably after hours, According to Al Kooper, such jam sessions were common at the Au Go Go and elsewhere in the Village, as all the groups playing in different clubs would get together to play and hang out. This particular jam was recorded, so we know that Jimi Hendrix, Elvin Bishop, Buddy Miles, Harvey Brooks, Phil Wilson, James Tatum, Herbie Rich and Paul Butterfield were at least some of the musicians that night. Bishop and Wilson were in Buttefield’s band, and Miles, Brooks and Rich were in the Flag.

>March 8, 1968 Big Brother and The Holding Company headlined the first show at The Fillmore East at 2nd Avenue and 6th Street, near to the Au Go Go. Abruptly, the Cafe Au Go Go was instantly behind the eight-ball. Rock bands playing New York instantly had a much larger venue in the Village. Once the Fillmore East opened, being second on the bill at Fillmore East was a bigger deal than headlining the Cafe Au Go Go.

The Au Go Go had offered Tri-State teenagers a chance to get into a show at a club accessible by public transportation. Fillmore East offered that too, with comfortable seats and a nice sound system to boot. Suddenly the fact that the Cafe Au Go Go doesn't have a bar to keep things profitable on a slow night becomes a major handicap. Although the Au Go Go has some good times left, the Fillmore East is emblematic of the exploding rock market and the club begins its steady downward path here.

March 19-24, 1968 Jim Kweskin Jug Band
The Kweskin Band, though successful in its time, had passed its moment. Richard Greene was probably playing violin in the group at this time.

March 29-30, 1968 United States of America
United States of America were one of those unique experiments that only get signed in times of flux, and they released an album on Columbia. They featured the academically trained composer Joseph Byrd and lead singer Dorothy Moskowitz, and their music was self-consciously avant-garde.  Their live performances, however, were apparently rare and poorly received. The group played the Fillmore East both of these nights (opening for Richie Havens and The Troggs), so probably they finished up at the Fillmore East and came over later to the Au Go Go.

The reformed Blues Project (see July 9, 1968) were scheduled to play through April 21, but canceled.

April 2-7, 1968 Blood Sweat and Tears
Due to internal band disputes, Al Kooper left Blood, Sweat and Tears during a run at the Garrick Theater from April 14-18, 1968 and Blood, Sweat and Tears rapidly became one of the best selling bands of the era., but in a much poppier vein than originally envisioned by Kooper. Thus Kooper's run with the band ended more or less where it began, at 152 Bleecker Street.

April 9-14, 1968 Ian & Sylvia/PF Sloan/The Sidetrack
A Billboard Review (4.27.68) describes the April 10 show, with PF Sloan (solo) and Sidetrack, an unsigned six-piece group.

P.F. Sloan was a very successful producer and songwriter, writing such songs as “Eve Of Destruction” (for Barry McGuire) and “Secret Agent Man” (for Johnny Rivers), and was a successful producer for groups like the Grass Roots. He was also a fine musician, but performed comparatively rarely.

April 18-21, 1968 Steve Miller Band/Bunky and Jake/(John Fahey) 
Steve Miller Band had signed to Capitol by this time. They had played upstairs at the Garrick earlier in the week.

Johh Fahey was a unique and icoclastic acoustic guitarist based out of Berkeley, who released records on his own Takoma Records label.  However, the Billboard review (May 4, 1968) says Mercury duo Bunky & Jake opened the show.

April 25-June 3, 1968 Collision Course '12 plays'
The plays “previewed” beginning on April 25, and officially opened on May 8.

June 4-6, 1968 Canned Heat
Moby Grape was scheduled at one point, but seems to have canceled. The group was disintegrating at the time, and went home to California (except for poor Skip Spence, stuck in the Pysch ward at Bellevue).

June 9, 1968 James Cotton

June 11-16, 1968 Sidetrack/PF Sloan/Peter Walker

June 18-27, 1968 Blood, Sweat and Tears
June 28-July 7, 1968 Blood Sweat and Tears/James Cotton (28th>29th only)
At this point, Al Kooper had left the group, and singer David Clayton-Thomas appears to have already joined. However, they would have still mainly been performing Kooper’s material.

for the next installment see here

Cafe Au Go Go, New York City 152 Bleecker Street Rock: Performance List July-December 1967 (Au Go Go V)

The Cafe Au Go Go, at 152 Bleecker Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, was a critical venue for aspiring rock bands in the 1960s. Whatever the indisputable charms of the West Coast, the commercial and cultural capital of the United States has always been New York City, and bands had to make a good showing in New York if they expected to make it. Perhaps because the venue had no collectible poster art, the club has been somewhat unfairly left out of many rock chronicles, when in fact it played a crucial role in introducing new bands to New York City, and by extension to the whole country.

The iconic New York rock venue has always been Bill Graham's Fillmore East, and rightly so. The Fillmore East only opened in 1968, however, when the rock business had become fairly established. The less imposing Cafe Au Go Go had opened on February 7, 1964. It was a brick room with a low ceiling, long and narrow, and not ideally designed for electric music. Prior to the rock boom, it had been a haven for jazz, folk and comedy performers, but the Cafe Au Go Go became one of the first clubs in Greenwich Village and New York City to regularly book "name" rock acts, particularly from out of town. Within a few short years, it was primarily a rock club, and one of the first places bands had to play for the critical but enthusiastic New York audience.

Thanks to my friend Marc, I have had an excellent list of performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from 1965 to 1969, when it closed. I was lacking much of a context, however, but now that I have discovered the excellent New York City site prosopography blog Its All The Streets You Crossed Not So Long Ago, and its exceptional post on the Cafe Au Go Go, my performers list can be put into some kind of context.

My goal for this series is to list all the rock performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from July 27, 1965 through late 1969, when the club closed. I have included some brief information about where each performer stood at the time each of their Au Go Go performance, such as their current album and lineup, but I have not tried to create exhaustive biographies for each band. I am trying to capture how different bands came through Greenwich Village and New York City in their efforts to succeed. I have listed folk, jazz or other performers but have largely refrained from commenting on them.

The Café Au Go Go was an oddity, a music club that didn’t serve liquor. This made it accessible to underage patrons, but it also meant that there were no bar receipts to rely on when things were slow on the bandstand. By coffee house standards, the Au Go Go was large, with room for 300 to 400 people. However, when the Greenwich Village folk boom started to die down, it became more of a struggle for the club to survive. Electric Rock and Blues acts began to be billed regularly at the Au Go Go in mid-1965, and this list picks up the story there.

This list is mostly drawn from advertisements in the Village Voice and other papers, and a few biographies and other sources when the Au Go Go was mentioned. Like all nightclubs in big cities, who was advertised was not always who appeared. Missing dates are more likely due to a lack of advertising or missing issues of The Village Voice, as the Au Go Go probably presented live music almost every night from 1965-69. It is possible that nights that were not advertised simply featured local groups, but those too may have been of historical interest. The Au Go Go advertised regularly in the Village Voice, and there were occasional flyers around, but there is probably much more to be learned, particularly about opening acts and casual guest appearances.

This is a work in progress. Anyone with additional information, corrections, insights or recovered memories (real or imagined) about any of the rock performers is urged to post it in the Comments or contact me. For ease of navigation, this series will be divided into nine parts (late 1965, early and late 1966, early and late 1967, early and late 1968 and early and late 1969).

Cafe Au Go Go Rock Performers List 
Part I July 27, 1965-December 1965
Part II January 1966-June 1966  
Part III July 1966-December 1966
Part IV January 1967-June 1967 
Part V July 1967-December 1967

July 1-2, 1967 Butterfield Blues Band
The Butterfield Blues Band (who had begun their engagement in June) now had a full horn section featuring alto saxophonist David Sanborn.

July 2-15, 1967 Oscar Brown, Jr/Jean Pace w/Johnny Robertson and The Young Brothers

July 10, 17, 24, 31, 1967 jam sessions
Monday night jam sessions were advertised all month.

July ?, 1967 Meredith Monk
Sarah Lawrence graduate Meredith Monk was an “interdisciplinary performer” who merged music and dance, not rock at all, nor folk or jazz either. She is still active today (see www.meredithmonk.org). Its possible that this was an afternoon show (or shows).

July 18-20, 1967 Richie Havens

July 21-23, 1967 Jimi Hendrix Experience/Richie Havens/Jeremy and the Satyrs
This was the sort of legendary show that put Cafe Au Go Go on the map. The previous summer, Jimi Hendrix had been backing John Hammond--now he had returned as the hottest new act in rock. 

As if Hendrix's presence wasn't enough, Eric Clapton, recording with Cream in New York attends one of the shows, and jams with Hendrix (and on another night, he sits in with John Hammond at the Gaslight). The Mothers were still holding court upstairs at The Garrick, and Mitch Mitchell remembers sitting in with the Mothers one night. Mitchell thought that Hendrix probably jammed with the Mothers too. Eric Burdon and the Animals were originally booked, but seem to have been replaced by Hendrix. Hendrix and Burdon shared management (Mike Jeffferies and Chas Chandler), so it seems plausible.

Jeremy and The Satyrs were a jazz rock group featuring flautist Jeremy Steig. They released one album on Reprise in 1968, and Steig himself released a number of albums too.

July 27, 1967 Al Kooper/Judy Collins/Eric Andersen
Al Kooper, having left the Blues Project in early May (his last gig appears to have been at Town Hall on May 5, 1967), had gone to California, and among many other things been ‘musical director’ and stage manager at the Monterey Pop Festival. In the midst of a divorce, he had decided to move to England, and chose to throw a “benefit” for himself with all his friends. Besides guest appearances by pals Judy Collins and Eric Andersen, Paul Simon also showed up, and Kooper was backed by a small group consisting of Steve Katz on guitar, Jim Fielder on bass and Bobby Colomby on drums.

July 28-29, 1967 Al Kooper
Despite six sold-out shows (two shows each night), Kooper makes very little money due to excessive expenses, and gives up the idea of moving to London. Nonetheless, his pickup group sounds great, and they decide to add a horn section and form a band.

August 1-6, 1967 Country Joe and the Fish/Eric Andersen
Joe McDonald and Barry Melton return to the Au Go Go (see August 66), this time as the leaders of Country Joe and The Fish, with a popular album on Vanguard (Electric Music For The Mind And Body), which had been released in April.

Country Joe and The Fish claimed to be the first band to bring a Fillmore-style light show to the East Coast for their brief tour, bringing a Seattle group called The Union Light Company. Thanks to the Velvet Underground, light shows were hardly unknown in New York, but the West and East Coast light shows were quite different.

August 8-13, 1966Youngbloods/Eric Andersen
Shortly after these shows, the Youngbloods packed up their things and moved to Marin County.

August 16-September 4, 1967 Blues Project/James Cotton (23rd>27th)
The Blues Project had continued on after Al Kooper left, with John-John McDuffie on organ in Kooper's place. However, the group packed it in—pending the two dozen or so reunions that would follow over the next few decades—with a long stand at the Au Go Go. Al Kooper and Steve Katz were back in the band for a last hurrah, but Danny Kalb was replaced by Jonathan Kalb due to illness.

James Cotton had replaced Little Walter in Muddy Water’s band, and now led his own group, probably featuring Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy (later in The Blues Brothers movie), and Albert Gianquinto on piano.  Cotton was already a regular at the SF Fillmore.

September 5-16, 1967 Tim Buckley 
Buckley, a unique singer, had moved from Greenwich Village to the West Coast, and he was now managed by Herbie Cohen, who was also Frank Zappa’s manager (Zappa was still playing upstairs at the Garrick, although his run would finish shortly). Buckley had a few backing musicians as well, led by guitarist Lee Underwood (no relation to Ian).  

September 17-24,  1967 Tim Buckley/Canned Heat/Odetta (22st>24th)
Canned Heat, extremely popular in Los Angeles, was making their first foray onto the East Coast.A booking agent named Barry Imhoff was helping Howard Solomon run the club at this time, and he was probably instrumental in snagging cool bands for the Cafe Au Go Go.

September 26-October 1, 1967 Cream/The Paupers/Richie Havens

October 3-8, 1967 Cream/Richie Havens
The most legendary event in the rock and roll history of The Cafe Au Go Go was Cream's two week stand. Coming off an even more historic two week stand at San Francisco's Fillmore, with a hot album and a rising buzz, Cream found themselves booked in a tiny 400-seat venue in America's entertainment capital. Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce had substantial Marshall amplifiers, designed to fill larger halls, and they were plainly audible from the street. Miami Steve Van Zandt (long before his membership in the Springsteen or Soprano familias) recalls standing outside the sold-out show and listening to the ear-splitting roar of Clapton's guitar from the street. The rock industry was getting bigger, and a rising band like Cream was already too big for a 400 seat venue.

According to Chris Hjolt’s book (Strange Brew), Clapton jams with B.B, King and the Butterfield Blues Band around this time. Musicians often got together at the AuGoGo when their other gigs were done. Photos abound from Cream's legendary residency at the Au Go Go. Between rocking the Fillmore and killing at the Au Go Go, Cream were about to set America on fire.

October 10-22, 1967 Eric Andersen/Larry Hankin/Chrysalis
The Chrysalis were a little-known folk rock group from Ithaca, NY, with the proverbial female vocalist, from Ithaca, NY. In 1968 they had a self-titled album on MGM. For what its worth, in a sixties interview Frank Zappa called them one of his favorite groups.

October 26, 1967 Joni Mitchell/Ian & Sylvia
Joni Mitchell was already a well-known songwriter on the folk circuit, but she had not yet made an album. This was probably a last minute fill-in gig for the rescheduled Procol Harum.

October 28-November 2, 1967 Procol Harum
Procol Harum was on their first of many American tours. Originally they were advertised for October 19-25, but they seem to have been bumped back a week. Another ad has them playing through November 5, but the ad for November 2 refers to it as their last night. It seems the band played a private gig (for press and friends) before the shows started, which appears to have been on October 27th.

November 17-19, 1967 Moby Grape/Larry Hankin/Blood, Sweat & Tearrs
Moby Grape were on their first national tour, a great band bogged down by unnecessary hype from Columbia Records.

Blood, Sweat & Tears had debuted at the nearby Village Theater (Sept 16, 1967), but that had been without its horn section. Now, Al Kooper debuted the true Blood, Sweat & Tears to a friendly hometown audience. The roadies constructed music stands for the horn players, which Kooper calls “probably a first in rock.”

November 21-26, 1967 Blues Bag with Butterfield Blues Band/James Cotton/Richie Havens/Steve Katz/Dave Van Ronk/Odetta/Al Kooper/Blood Sweat and Tears
Kooper and Katz were simply part of Blood, Sweat and Tears, but there names were better known than their band’s at this time.

November 22, 1967 Butterfield Blues Band/Sidetrack/James Cotton/Richie Havens/Dave Van Ronk/Hudson Brothers
This lineup was advertised for November 22. I don’t know if the Hudson Brothers were the act that later had some hit singles (and one of whom married Goldie Hawn, and had famous daughter Kate).

Novmeber 30, 1967 Richie Havens/Larry Hankin/Sidetrack

December 1-3, 1967  Butterfield Blues Band/Richie Havens (except 3rd)/Larry Hankin/Sidetrack

December 18, 1967 Clear Light
December 19-24, 1967 Clear Light/Richie Havens
December 26-31, 1967 Tim Buckley/Clear Light

Clear Light was a psychedelic band from Los Angeles with two drummers. They were on Elektra, however, and played the Au Go Go as did so many Elektra acts.

The poster above is probably not a contemporary poster, but part of a series released by the Au Go Go (and sold next door at 150 Bleecker) to attempt to cash in on the lucrative poster trade created by the Fillmore and Avalon. As such, it shouldn't necessarily be taken as gospel truth with respect to performance dates.

For the next installment, see here

Cafe Au Go Go, New York City 152 Bleecker Street Rock: Performance List January-June 1967 (Au Go Go IV)

 The Cafe Au Go Go, at 152 Bleecker Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, was a critical venue for aspiring rock bands in the 1960s. Whatever the indisputable charms of the West Coast, the commercial and cultural capital of the United States has always been New York City, and bands had to make a good showing in New York if they expected to make it. Perhaps because the venue had no collectible poster art, the club has been somewhat unfairly left out of many rock chronicles, when in fact it played a crucial role in introducing new bands to New York City, and by extension to the whole country.

The iconic New York rock venue has always been Bill Graham's Fillmore East, and rightly so. The Fillmore East only opened in 1968, however, when the rock business had become fairly established. The less imposing Cafe Au Go Go had opened on February 7, 1964. It was a brick room with a low ceiling, long and narrow, and not ideally designed for electric music. Prior to the rock boom, it had been a haven for jazz, folk and comedy performers, but the Cafe Au Go Go became one of the first clubs in Greenwich Village and New York City to regularly book "name" rock acts, particularly from out of town. Within a few short years, it was primarily a rock club, and one of the first places bands had to play for the critical but enthusiastic New York audience.

Thanks to my friend Marc, I have had an excellent list of performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from 1965 to 1969, when it closed. I was lacking much of a context, however, but now that I have discovered the excellent New York City site prosopography blog Its All The Streets You Crossed Not So Long Ago, and its exceptional post on the Cafe Au Go Go, my performers list can be put into some kind of context.

My goal for this series is to list all the rock performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from July 27, 1965 through late 1969, when the club closed. I have included some brief information about where each performer stood at the time each of their Au Go Go performance, such as their current album and lineup, but I have not tried to create exhaustive biographies for each band. I am trying to capture how different bands came through Greenwich Village and New York City in their efforts to succeed. I have listed folk, jazz or other performers but have largely refrained from commenting on them.

The Café Au Go Go was an oddity, a music club that didn’t serve liquor. This made it accessible to underage patrons, but it also meant that there were no bar receipts to rely on when things were slow on the bandstand. By coffee house standards, the Au Go Go was large, with room for 300 to 400 people. However, when the Greenwich Village folk boom started to die down, it became more of a struggle for the club to survive. Electric Rock and Blues acts began to be billed regularly at the Au Go Go in mid-1965, and this list picks up the story there.

This list is mostly drawn from advertisements in the Village Voice and other papers, and a few biographies and other sources when the Au Go Go was mentioned. Like all nightclubs in big cities, who was advertised was not always who appeared. Missing dates are more likely due to a lack of advertising or missing issues of The Village Voice, as the Au Go Go probably presented live music almost every night from 1965-69. It is possible that nights that were not advertised simply featured local groups, but those too may have been of historical interest. The Au Go Go advertised regularly in the Village Voice, and there were occasional flyers around, but there is probably much more to be learned, particularly about opening acts and casual guest appearances.

This is a work in progress. Anyone with additional information, corrections, insights or recovered memories (real or imagined) about any of the rock performers is urged to post it in the Comments or contact me. For ease of navigation, this series will be divided into nine parts (late 1965, early and late 1966, early and late 1967, early and late 1968 and early and late 1969).

Cafe Au Go Go Rock Performers List 
Part I July 27, 1965-December 1965
Part II January 1966-June 1966  
Part III July 1966-December 1966
Part IV January 1967-June 1967

January 1-9, 1967 Ian & Sylvia/Richie Havens
Canadians Ian and Sylvia Tyson had been a popular folk duo for some time. Brooklyn-born Havens had been locally popular, but by 1967 he had been signed by Verve Records.

January 10-15, 1967 David Blue/The American Patriot/Richie Havens/Charles O’Hegart/Peter Walker/Ellen Mackelwaine/Scott Fagen
David Blue had "gone electric" like so many folkies, particularly those who recorded on Elektra. I am assuming that American Patriot was an early (or misprinted) name for his band American Patrol.

January 20-23, 1967 Chicago Blues Bag Otis Rush/Charlie Musselwhite and The Barry Goldberg Blues Band/Richie Havens/David Blue and The American Patrol
Charley Musselwhite and Barry Goldberg were some of the white blues musicians from Chicago who had learned from the masters. Both would move to the San Francisco Bay Area later in the year. Goldberg started Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield, and Musselwhite had a band (Southside Sound System) with guitarist Harvey Mandel.

January 24-31, 1967 Howlin Wolf/Siegal Schwall Blues Band/Richie Havens
February 1-5, 1967 Howlin Wolf/Siegal Schwall Blues Band
Siegal Schwall were another up and coming white blues band from Chicago.

February 7-11, 1967 Eric Andersen/Otis Spann/Moju Buford Blues Band
Otis Spann, one of Chicago's great blues pianists, had been a mainstay of Muddy Waters bands in the 1950s before striking out on his own.

February 12-19, 1967 Otis Rush and his Chicago Blues Band
Otis Rush was a fine blues guitarist from Chicago.

February 21-28, 1967 Jefferson Airplane/Richie Havens
RCA had just released the single “Somebody To Love,” and the already legendary Jefferson Airplane were making their first East Coast tour.

March 1-4, 1967  Jefferson Airplane/The Paupers
March 5, 1967  Jefferson Airplane/The Paupers/Tim Buckley/Charles Lloyd Quintet
The Paupers were one of the best bands in Toronto, and they were represented by Albert Grossman (Bob Dylan’s manager). Supposedly, the Paupers outshined the Airplane, so even though the Airplane were making their Manhattan debut, the Paupers got a huge boost as a result.

The Airplane were advertised as playing in California (at Frost Amphitheatre at Stanford University) on March 5th. Its hard to say what really happened, ut I have reason to think that the Airplane actually played Stanford on a different date.

March 7-12, 1967 Youngbloods

Similar to the Blues Project, the Youngbloods had graduated from being the house band at the Au Go Go to a promising recording career, and they were starting to tour the country. Just like the Project, however, they periodically returned to home base.

In February of 1967, RCA had released the group's debut album The Youngbloods. It was produced by Felix Pappalardi, who later not only produced Cream but was also the bassist in Mountain. The album featured a cover of Dino Valenti’s “Get Together” (which had already been done by the Jefferson Airplane and The We Five) which was a modest radio hit initially (in 1969, because of its use on Public Service Announcement, the same recording would become a huge hit).

March 17-26, 1967 Blues Project/Gary Burton Quartet (21st>26th)
Gary Burton was a young jazz vibraphonist from Nashville. His quartet featured guitarist Larry Coryell. Coryell, born in Texas but a teenager in Seattle, was an accomplished jazz musician, but he was the first of the young, modern jazz guitarists who enjoyed and excelled in all styles of music. He had played in surf and rock bands in Seattle and came to jazz with a very open mind. He had already been in the obscure but groundbreaking jazz rock group The Free Spirits, who recorded what is generally accepted as the first “jazz-rock fusion” album on Impulse Out Of Sight And Mind, recorded in late 1966 and released shortly before this, just as Coryell left for the Burton gig.

March 28-April 9, 1967 Butterfield Blues Band/Gary Burton Quartet
Mike Bloomfield, always a restless character, had left the Butterfield band at the end of February, This left the lead guitar chores in the capable hands of Elvin Bishop, and the band moved a little more towards R&B.

April 3, 1967 Cream/Butterfield Blues Band
Cream was in New York to play an unfortunate week long gig (in Midtown) for Murray The K, but they also recorded a single for Atlantic during that time. However, this night was advertised in the Village Voice: it says “Butterfield Blues Band/The Cream JAM with Mike Bloomfield, Eric Clapton 8-4 am.” Bloomfield had actually left Butterfield by this time and was probably in California, although I suppose its possible he was present, since he was known to be in town scouting talent for his next band (indeed he found Buddy Miles drumming for Wilson Pickett at the Murray The K shows with The Cream).

The excellent chronology Strange Brew by Christopher Hjort (Jawbone Books 2007) suggests that it was just Clapton who came to jam with the Butterfield band, based on a letter to Melody Maker (April 22, 1967), which suggests that Clapton and Elvin Bishop were playing together, with no reference to the rest of Cream or Mike Bloomfield.

April 11-16, 1967 Jim Kweskin Jug Band
   
April 18-22, 25-27, 1967 Café Au Go Go, New York Ian & Sylvia

April 28-30, 1967 The Paupers
The Paupers, having had a triumphant appearance with the Jefferson Airplane a few months earlier (March 1-5) , had stayed in New York to record their new album on Verve Forecast. Shortly after these dates at the Cafe Au Go Go, they would go to San Francisco for well-received shows at the Fillmore opening for the Grateful Dead (May 5-6) and the Jefferson Airplane (May 12-14).

April 28-May 7, 1967 Dave Van Ronk/Luke & The Apostles
Dave Van Ron, an established Greenwich Village folk singer, may have played with Luke & The Apostles backing him. Luke & The Apostles were a popular group in Toronto, and they were in New York to record a demo for Elektra.

May 2-21, 1967 Garrick Theatre (upstairs) Mothers of Invention/Joe Beck Quartet
There was a small theatre above the Au Go Go, but at the same address (152 Bleecker). At this time, it was simply “upstairs”, but around June it was renamed The Garrick Theater. The Garrick Theater has since passed into infamy since their summer 1967 show was called “Absolutely Free” and featured West Coast legends The Mothers of Invention. The Mothers were billed at the Garrick from May 2 thru September 5, although they took time out to play gigs in other East Coast cities. The lineup at the time was Ray Collins (vocals), Don Preston (keyboards), Roy Estrada (bass), Jimmy Carl Black (the Indian of the group) and Billy Mundi (drums), Bunk Gardner (reeds) and Frank Zappa on guitar. Ian Underwood (keyboards and saxophones) seems to have joined during the summer.

Sometimes the Mothers had decent crowds, and sometimes they had only a few people. Sometimes, they had tourists from New Jersey who thought if the marquee said “Absolutely Free” they wouldn’t have to pay, only to find out that not only did they have to pay, the first number was some very ugly men in dresses performing “Stop In The Name Of Love."


All the musicians and roadies playing the village in the Au Go Go and other clubs would hang out at the Garrick and watch the Mothers. When Zappa would invite “members of the audience” to come onstage and mutilate stuff giraffes and cover them with shaving cream—shocking at the time—often enough it was members of the Grateful Dead’s road crew (or whoever was playing the Au Go Go) who leaped eagerly on the stage. Zappa did a lot of recording in New York, and dined out on his New York experiences for many years.

For the first three weeks, the somewhat unknown Mothers of Invention shared a billing with the fine jazz guitarist Joe Beck (who was never interviewed about the experience, to my knowledge, and who sadly passed away in 2008). For the complete history of Zappa and The Mothers Garrick and East Coast performances in the Summer of 1967, see Charles Ulrich's definitive Zappa Gig List.

May 12-14, 1967 Dave Van Ronk

May 15-21, 1967 Olatunji
Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer and educator who had gone to Morehouse College and NYU. His African drumming and music was very influential on the New York jazz scene. His first of several albums for Columbia, Drums Of Passion (1959) was his best known record.

May 25-28, 1967 Eric Andersen

June 1-11, 1967 Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead, already West Coast legends, made their first stand on the East Coast at the Cafe Au Go. As soon as they arrived (Thursday June 1) they played a free concert in Tompkins Square Park. The Cafe Au Go Go management was instantly schooled in how playing for free brought publicity and paying customers. The Dead also snuck in a gig at SUNY Stony Brook on June 3 as well as a free concert in Central Park on June 8. The Dead were a big hit with the Greenwich Village hippies, even though the low ceilings were not a good fit for the high powered Grateful Dead sound system.

According to the memory of Dead manager Rock Scully (in his book Living With The Dead), Frank Zappa’s enmity for the Dead partially stems from these two weeks when The Mothers were playing upstairs at The Garrick while the Dead played in the basement at the Au Go Go. The perpetually anti-drug Zappa resented that the Mothers would sneak downstairs to get high with the Dead. The Mothers were deathly afraid of being caught by Zappa, knowing that the punishment was more rehearsal.

June 5, 12, 19 & 26, 1967 jam session
There were jam sessions advertised every Monday nights in June.

June 13-18, 1967 Richie Havens

June 20-25, 1967 Jesse ‘Lone Cat” Fuller
Jesse Fuller had written “San Francisco Bay Blues,” by this time a folk standard, and the Grateful Dead had recorded his song "Beat It On Down The Line."

June 26-July 2, 1967 Butterfield Blues Band
The Butterfield Blues Band, with Elvin Bishop still on lead guitar, now had a full horn section featuring alto saxophonist David Sanborn.


for the next installment see here

Cafe Au Go Go, New York City 152 Bleecker Street Rock: Performance List July-December 1966 (Au Go Go III)

The Cafe Au Go Go, at 152 Bleecker Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, was a critical venue for aspiring rock bands in the 1960s. Whatever the indisputable charms of the West Coast, the commercial and cultural capital of the United States has always been New York City, and bands had to make a good showing in New York if they expected to make it. Perhaps because the venue had no collectible poster art, the club has been somewhat unfairly left out of many rock chronicles, when in fact it played a crucial role in introducing new bands to New York City, and by extension to the whole country.

The iconic New York rock venue has always been Bill Graham's Fillmore East, and rightly so. The Fillmore East only opened in 1968, however, when the rock business had become fairly established. The less imposing Cafe Au Go Go had opened on February 7, 1964. It was a brick room with a low ceiling, long and narrow, and not ideally designed for electric music. Prior to the rock boom, it had been a haven for jazz, folk and comedy performers, but the Cafe Au Go Go became one of the first clubs in Greenwich Village and New York City to regularly book "name" rock acts, particularly from out of town. Within a few short years, it was primarily a rock club, and one of the first places bands had to play for the critical but enthusiastic New York audience.

Thanks to my friend Marc, I have had an excellent list of performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from 1965 to 1969, when it closed. I was lacking much of a context, however, but now that I have discovered the excellent New York City site prosopography blog Its All The Streets You Crossed Not So Long Ago, and its exceptional post on the Cafe Au Go Go, my performers list can be put into some kind of context.

My goal for this series is to list all the rock performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from July 27, 1965 through late 1969, when the club closed. I have included some brief information about where each performer stood at the time each of their Au Go Go performance, such as their current album and lineup, but I have not tried to create exhaustive biographies for each band. I am trying to capture how different bands came through Greenwich Village and New York City in their efforts to succeed. I have listed folk, jazz or other performers but have largely refrained from commenting on them.

The Café Au Go Go was an oddity, a music club that didn’t serve liquor. This made it accessible to underage patrons, but it also meant that there were no bar receipts to rely on when things were slow on the bandstand. By coffee house standards, the Au Go Go was large, with room for 300 to 400 people. However, when the Greenwich Village folk boom started to die down, it became more of a struggle for the club to survive. Electric Rock and Blues acts began to be billed regularly at the Au Go Go in mid-1965, and this list picks up the story there.

This list is mostly drawn from advertisements in the Village Voice and other papers, and a few biographies and other sources when the Au Go Go was mentioned. Like all nightclubs in big cities, who was advertised was not always who appeared. Missing dates are more likely due to a lack of advertising or missing issues of The Village Voice, as the Au Go Go probably presented live music almost every night from 1965-69. It is possible that nights that were not advertised simply featured local groups, but those too may have been of historical interest. The Au Go Go advertised regularly in the Village Voice, and there were occasional flyers around, but there is probably much more to be learned, particularly about opening acts and casual guest appearances.

This is a work in progress. Anyone with additional information, corrections, insights or recovered memories (real or imagined) about any of the rock performers is urged to post it in the Comments or contact me. For ease of navigation, this series will be divided into nine parts (late 1965, early and late 1966, early and late 1967, early and late 1968 and early and late 1969).

Cafe Au Go Go Rock Performers List 
Part I July 27, 1965-December 1965
Part II January 1966-June 1966  
Part III July 1966-December 1966
July 1-3, 1966 Blues Project/Butterfield Blues Band/Big Joe Williams
By this time, the Butterfield Blues Band were smoking hot and widely regarded nationally. Their first album had come out in October 1965, but their live shows were dominated by the epic instrumental “East West” which would be the title of their second album.

The Blues Project and The Butterfield Band were the best and best known “white blues bands” and this was just about the only time they played on the same bill. Kooper has great tales about these dates in his book Backstage Passes.

July 4-10, 1966 Butterfield Blues Band
Apparently, on either July 3 or 10, Mike Bloomfield invited Jimi Hendrix over to jam with the band. Hendrix at the time was playing the nearby Cafe Wha? under the name Jimmy James.

July 12-17, 1966 Pozo Seco Singers/Jesse Colin Young and The Youngbloods
The Pozo-Seco singers were a trio featuring Don Williams, Lofton Kline and Susan Taylor. They recorded a few albums for Columbia. After 1970, when the group broke up, Williams went on to significant success as a Country singer and songwriter.

The Youngbloods took over the role of The Blues Project to some extent, seemingly appearing most nights around this period. The Youngbloods at this time were a little more blues oriented than their later, mellower work in the 60s.

July 19-24, 1966 Gordon Lightfoot/Jesse Colin Young and The Youngbloods
Canadian Gordon Lightfoot better known as a folk songwriter at this point, having written songs like "Early Morning Rain" for Ian And Sylvia, for example. By 1966, however, he was managed by Albert Grossman, Bob Dylan's manager, and he had just released his first American album Lightfoot, on United Artists.

July 27-31, 1966 Butterfield Blues Band/John Lee Hooker

August 1-7, 1966  Butterfield Blues Band/Pozo Seco Singers/Youngbloods
In August 1966, Elektra released the second Paul Butterfield Blues Band album, East-West. The title track was a 12-minute improvisation built on Indian music (the band actually called it "The Raga") that miraculously merged sophisticated Indian music with driving Chicago blues. The album laid out the blueprint for every improvising band of the 1960s, with Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop's guitars winding in and out with Butterfield's harmonica and Mark Naftalin's swirling organ. In concert, the song was getting longer and longer, and some versions lasted as long as 30 minutes. In an era when many rock bands still featured folk musicians trying to figure out electric instruments, the Butterfield band's virtuosity opened up a new universe.

August 8-14, 1966 Muddy Waters/The Youngbloods

August 16-18, 1966 Jim Kweskin Jug Band/Jim & Jean

August 19-21, 1966 Muddy Waters/John Lee Hooker/Jim Kweskin Jug Band/Jim & Jean
Sometime in August, two Berkeley hippies named Joe McDonald and Barry Melton hitchhiked out to New York City in search of a manager for their fledgling rock band, Country Joe and The Fish. They spent some time with the Blues Project at the Au Go Go. The Blues Project were actually playing at a place called The Phone Booth at the time, but Joe and Barry seem to have met them at the Au Go Go.

At the end of August, Joe, Barry and their friend Robbie Basho return to California in the Blues Project’s van. The Blues Project’s road manager, Eugene (ED) Denson, becomes the manager of Country Joe and The Fish.

August 27-September 4, 1966 Butterfield Blues Band/John Lee Hooker

September 6-13, 1966 Tim Hardin/Times Square Two/John Hammond
Tim Hardin was a fine songwriter and performer who merged jazz and blues with regular folk stylings, and his songs were widely covered. The Times Square Two were a sort of ragtime folk duo.

September 15-22, 1966 John Hammond with Jimmy James and The Blue Flames/Judy Roederick
John Hammond had apparently been playing the Cafe Au Go Go as an acoustic blues player, but he apparently decided to go electric. A group called Jimmy James and The Blue Flames were playing 5 sets a night at the smaller Cafe Wha? down the street. Hammond, versatile enough to play Chicago-style electric blues as well as acoustic delta-style, invited guitarist Jimmy James and his rhythm section to back him for two sets a night. The Blue Flames rhythm guitarist, transplanted Californian teenager Randy Wolfe, sat out for Hammond’s sets. Jimmy James called Wolfe ‘Randy California’ (to distinguish him from the Texan bass player also named Randy).

Randy Wolfe returned to California at summer’s end and joined a group called Spirit, and Jimmy James moved to England and became Jimi Hendrix.

September 23-27, 1966 Blues Project/Junior Wells

September 28-30, 1966 Blues Project/Larry Hankin
Larry Hankin was a comedian.

October 1-2, 1966 Blues Project/Larry Hankin/Times Square Two

October 3, 1966  Blues Project/Larry Hankin/Phil Ochs/Judy Roderick/David Blue/Jim and Jean
Phil Ochs was a well-established folk singer. Perhaps this was a benefit or special event.

October 4-6, 1966 Blues Project/Larry Hankin

October 7, 1966 Blues Project/Times Square Two

October 9, 1966  Blues Project/Eric Andersen/Judy Roderick/Jim & Jean
Verve released the second Blues Project album, Projections, in October 1966.

October 11-27, 1966 Jesse Colin Young and The Youngbloods
Patrick Sky played with the Youngbloods on October 20.

October 28-29, 1966 Judy Roderick/Jesse Colin Young and The Youngbloods

October 30-31, 1966 Jesse Colin Young and The Youngbloods

November 1-6, 1966 Jesse Colin Young and The Youngbloods

November 8-20, 1966 Richard Pryor

Richard Pryor was a rising young comedian at this time.

November 21-27, 1966  Blues Bag with Blues Project/Big Joe Williams/Muddy Waters/Otis Spann/ John Lee Hooker/Richie Havens/David Blue
The "Blues Bag" event was repeated. Given that Muddy Waters played this show, it may be that Al Kooper has merged his memory of the different Blues Bag shows in his mind (see November 24, 1965).

November 29-December 3, 1966 Youngbloods

December 1-2, 1966 Lothar and The Hand People
Lothar and The Hand People had been Denver’s main psychedelic band, but they had moved to New York in August 1966.  They featured a Theremin, a primitive synthesizer (most famously used for the electronic sounds on “Good Vibrations”).  ‘Lothar’ was ostensibly the name of the Theremin. The group did not release an album until 1968.

December 4-5, 1966 Richard Pryor/Big Joe Williams/Lothar and The Hand People

December 5-11, 1966 Butterfield Blues Band/Richie Havens
I’m not certain of the exact billing on 12.5.66 Since it was a Sunday, perhaps this bill played in the evening, and Richard Pryor and the others (above) finished out their engagement Sunday afternoon.

December 13-18, 1966 Eric Andersen
Eric Andersen was a folk singer on the Cambridge/Greenwich Village circuit, who recorded for Vanguard. His best known songs were “Thirsty Boots” (recorded by Judy Collins) and “Violets Of Dawn” (recorded by The Blues Project). His second album Bout Changes N Things had been released in 1966.

December 19, 1966 Blues Project
December 20-24, 1966 Blues Project/Ian & Sylvia/Richie Havens
December 26-31 Ian & Sylvia/Richie Havens
Ian & Sylvia Tyson were a popular Canadian folk duo who recorded for Vanguard.

For the next installment see here

Cafe Au Go Go, New York City 152 Bleecker Street Rock: Performance List January-June 1966 (Au Go Go II)

The Cafe Au Go Go, at 152 Bleecker Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, was a critical venue for aspiring rock bands in the 1960s. Whatever the indisputable charms of the West Coast, the commercial and cultural capital of the United States has always been New York City, and bands had to make a good showing in New York if they expected to make it. Perhaps because the venue had no collectible poster art, the club has been somewhat unfairly left out of many rock chronicles, when in fact it played a crucial role in introducing new bands to New York City, and by extension to the whole country.

The iconic New York rock venue has always been Bill Graham's Fillmore East, and rightly so. The Fillmore East only opened in 1968, however, when the rock business had become fairly established. The less imposing Cafe Au Go Go had opened on February 7, 1964. It was a brick room with a low ceiling, long and narrow, and not ideally designed for electric music. Prior to the rock boom, it had been a haven for jazz, folk and comedy performers, but the Cafe Au Go Go became one of the first clubs in Greenwich Village and New York City to regularly book "name" rock acts, particularly from out of town. Within a few short years, it was primarily a rock club, and one of the first places bands had to play for the critical but enthusiastic New York audience.

Thanks to my friend Marc, I have had an excellent list of performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from 1965 to 1969, when it closed. I was lacking much of a context, however, but now that I have discovered the excellent New York City site prosopography blog Its All The Streets You Crossed Not So Long Ago, and its exceptional post on the Cafe Au Go Go, my performers list can be put into some kind of context.

My goal for this series is to list all the rock performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from July 27, 1965 through late 1969, when the club closed. I have included some brief information about where each performer stood at the time each of their Au Go Go performance, such as their current album and lineup, but I have not tried to create exhaustive biographies for each band. I am trying to capture how different bands came through Greenwich Village and New York City in their efforts to succeed. I have listed folk, jazz or other performers but have largely refrained from commenting on them.

The Café Au Go Go was an oddity, a music club that didn’t serve liquor. This made it accessible to underage patrons, but it also meant that there were no bar receipts to rely on when things were slow on the bandstand. By coffee house standards, the Au Go Go was large, with room for 300 to 400 people. However, when the Greenwich Village folk boom started to die down, it became more of a struggle for the club to survive. Electric Rock and Blues acts began to be billed regularly at the Au Go Go in mid-1965, and this list picks up the story there.

This list is mostly drawn from advertisements in the Village Voice and other papers, and a few biographies and other sources when the Au Go Go was mentioned. Like all nightclubs in big cities, who was advertised was not always who appeared. Missing dates are more likely due to a lack of advertising or missing issues of The Village Voice, as the Au Go Go probably presented live music almost every night from 1965-69. It is possible that nights that were not advertised simply featured local groups, but those too may have been of historical interest. The Au Go Go advertised regularly in the Village Voice, and there were occasional flyers around, but there is probably much more to be learned, particularly about opening acts and casual guest appearances.

This is a work in progress. Anyone with additional information, corrections, insights or recovered memories (real or imagined) about any of the rock performers is urged to post it in the Comments or contact me. For ease of navigation, this series will be divided into nine parts (late 1965, early and late 1966, early and late 1967, early and late 1968 and early and late 1969).

Cafe Au Go Go Rock Performers List 
Part I July 27, 1965-December 1965
Part II January 1966-June 1966 

January 1-2, 1966 Orbit In Orbit w/Blues Project and top blues and rock stars

January 14-28, 1966 Oscar Brown Jr

January 29-30, 1966 Blues Project/Oscar Brown Jr
Vocalist Tommy Flanders had left the Blues Project, leaving Katz and Kooper to fill in as singers. Verve didn’t want an album featuring only a vocalist who had quit, so some January dates were recorded for the forthcoming live album, although the exact dates of the recordings are uncertain.

January 31-February 13, 1966 Blues Project/Fred Neil/Judy Roderick (1st>6th)/Richie Havens (7th>13th)
Fred Neil is mainly remembered today as a songwriter (“Everybody’s Talking At Me,” ‘The Other Side of This Life”), but in Greenwich Village he was well regarded as an innovator who was one of the first musicians to integrate folk, jazz and blues in his own style. He was also managed by Cafe Au Go Go owner Howard Solomon.

Judy Roderick was a folk singer who recorded for Vanguard.

March 15-18, 1966 Blues Project/Richie Havens/The Myddle Class
The Myddle Class were a band of mostly teenagers from Summitt, NJ. An early single, "Don't Let Me Sleep Too Long," was effectively a copy of the Blues Project song "Wake Me, Shake Me" which the band had heard while opening for the Project. The Myddle Class's 45 of the song was actually released before the Blues Project version of the song (on their second album Projections) and was a minor hit in the Northeast.

March 19, 1966 Seventh Sons with Buzz Linhart/Blues Project/Richie Havens/Myddle Class
The Seventh Sons, a local band featuring guitarist Buzzy Linhart, released an album on ESP, but the album may have may have been recorded and/or released after the group’s demise. Linhart was widely regarded amongst his Greenwich Village peers.

March 20-27, 1966 Blues Project/Richie Havens/The Myddle Class

April 1-11, 1966 Blues Project/Richie Havens
The Blues Project headed to San Francisco immediately after this for a lengthy series of gigs,  including playing the San Francsico State College Folk Festival and headlining the debut concert of Chet Helms’s Avalon Ballroom (on April 22-23, 1966).    During this period the Blues Project featured a female singer named Emmeretta Marks, and she was definitely on the San Francisco trip.

May 1-8, 1966 Jim Kweskin Jug Band/Youngbloods
The Jim Kweskin Jug Band (featuring among others Geoff and Maria Muldaur) were longtime mainstays of the Cambridge, MA folk scene, and recorded for Vanguard.

The Youngbloods were a folk-rock group that had gotten together in Cambridge after Jesse Colin Young (nee Perry Miller from Queens) had recorded an album for RCA called Young Blood. Other members were Lowell (Banana) Levenger, former banjoist turned pianist, guitarist and singer Jerry Corbitt and drummer Joe Bauer. Young switched to electric bass and shared the lead vocals with Corbitt.

May 13-23, 1966  Muddy Waters/John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker’s album Live At The Café Au Go Go was probably recorded during this stretch, as he was backed by the Muddy Waters group on the album.

May 19-21, 1966 Blues Project/Muddy Waters/John Lee Hooker
Verve released the first Blues Project album Live At The Café Au Go Go in May, 1966. Presumably they were added to the bill at Cafe Au Go Go, appropriately enough, to promote the album's release. Although Emmeretta Marks was probably still singing with them at this time, she would have left the band by June or so.

May 27-29, 1966 Bo Diddley/Blues Project/Youngbloods
May 30-31, 1966 Bo Diddley/Blues Project/Youngbloods
June 1-2, 1966 Bo Diddley/Blues Project
June 3-5, 1966  Bo Diddley/Blues Project/Fred Neil
June 6-19, 1966 Blues Project/Fred Neil/Youngbloods
June 29-30, 1966 Youngbloods
June 30, 1966  Blues Project
By the middle of 1966, the Cafe Au Go Go's bookings have a very electric feel. Bo Diddley, who had not had a hit in some time, was being rediscovered to some extent by the rock underground. During Fred Neil's lengthy stand (June 3-19), he was backed by a pick-up band whose membership (probably rotating) included Al Kooper, Harvey Brooks, Felix Pappalardi and John Sebastian. There would still be periodic folk performers at the Cafe Au Go Go, but for the most part the club featured not only rock music but hip underground rock. Greenwich Village was always looking for the next cool thing, and for a while a lot of cool bands were about to pass through the Cafe Au Go Go.

for the next installment see here

Cafe Au Go Go, New York City 152 Bleecker Street Rock: Performance List 1965 (Au Go Go I)

The Cafe Au Go Go, at 152 Bleecker Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, was a critical venue for aspiring rock bands in the 1960s. Whatever the indisputable charms of the West Coast, the commercial and cultural capital of the United States has always been New York City, and bands had to make a good showing in New York if they expected to make it. Perhaps because the venue had no collectible poster art, the club has been somewhat unfairly left out of many rock chronicles, when in fact it played a crucial role in introducing new bands to New York City, and by extension to the whole country.

The iconic New York rock venue has always been Bill Graham's Fillmore East, and rightly so. The Fillmore East only opened in 1968, however, when the rock business had become fairly established. The less imposing Cafe Au Go Go had opened on February 7, 1964. It was a brick room with a low ceiling, long and narrow, and not ideally designed for electric music. Prior to the rock boom, it had been a haven for jazz, folk and comedy performers, but the Cafe Au Go Go became one of the first clubs in Greenwich Village and New York City to regularly book "name" rock acts, particularly from out of town. Within a few short years, it was primarily a rock club, and one of the first places bands had to play for the critical but enthusiastic New York audience.

Thanks to my friend Marc, I have had an excellent list of performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from 1965 to 1969, when it closed. I was lacking much of a context, however, but now that I have discovered the excellent New York City site prosopography blog Its All The Streets You Crossed Not So Long Ago, and its exceptional post on the Cafe Au Go Go, my performers list can be put into some kind of context.

My goal for this series is to list all the rock performers at the Cafe Au Go Go from July 27, 1965 through late 1969, when the club closed. I have included some brief information about where each performer stood at the time each of their Au Go Go performance, such as their current album and lineup, but I have not tried to create exhaustive biographies for each band. I am trying to capture how different bands came through Greenwich Village and New York City in their efforts to succeed. I have listed folk, jazz or other performers but have largely refrained from commenting on them.

The Café Au Go Go was an oddity, a music club that didn’t serve liquor. This made it accessible to underage patrons, but it also meant that there were no bar receipts to rely on when things were slow on the bandstand. By coffee house standards, the Au Go Go was large, with room for 300 to 400 people. However, when the Greenwich Village folk boom started to die down, it became more of a struggle for the club to survive. Electric Rock and Blues acts began to be billed regularly at the Au Go Go in mid-1965, and this list picks up the story there.

This list is mostly drawn from advertisements in the Village Voice and other papers, and a few biographies and other sources when the Au Go Go was mentioned. Like all nightclubs in big cities, who was advertised was not always who appeared. Missing dates are more likely due to a lack of advertising or missing issues of The Village Voice, as the Au Go Go probably presented live music almost every night from 1965-69. It is possible that nights that were not advertised simply featured local groups, but those too may have been of historical interest. The Au Go Go advertised regularly in the Village Voice, and there were occasional flyers around, but there is probably much more to be learned, particularly about opening acts and casual guest appearances.

This is a work in progress. Anyone with additional information, corrections, insights or recovered memories (real or imagined) about any of the rock performers is urged to post it in the Comments or contact me. For ease of navigation, this series will be divided into nine parts (late 1965, early and late 1966, early and late 1967, early and late 1968 and early and late 1969).

The Cafe Au Go Go 1961-65
The Cafe Au Go Go seems to have opened on February 7, 1964. The club was owned by Howard Solomon, who was also manager of the influential singer Fred Neil. Whatever the source of the name "Au Go Go", it had nothing to do with "Go-Go Dancing," a product of the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, which also opened in 1964. I will leave it to rock and roll linguists to parse the history of the word. For the first few years, the Cafe Au Go Go appeared to mostly featured folk, jazz and comedy performers, typical of the shows in Greenwich Village at the time.

Wikipedia has some interesting highlights of the pre-rock period of the Au Go Go

In 1964, Comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested here on obscenity charges, along with owner, Howard Solomon. In 1964 Solomon also brought in a large group of singers and musicians from an off-Broadway show, and christened them the (Cafe) Au Go Go Singers to rival the Bitter End Singers across the street at the Bitter End Cafe. Solomon managed the group until their break-up in late 1965. In the Au Go Go Singers were Kathy King (who later toured with Bobby Vinton), Jean Gurney, Michael Scott (afterward played bass for the Highwaymen), Rick (Frederic) Geiger (later performed in light opera), Roy Michaels (soon after joined "Cat Mother" and toured with Jimi Hendrix), and Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, both who would eventually form the Buffalo Springfield. Two other members, Nels Gustafson and Bob Harmelink, quit show business entirely after leaving the group.

It was also at the Cafe Au Go Go that afterward a new folk/rock group was formed (Geiger, Michaels, Scott, Gurney, and Stills) from the remnants of the Au Go Go Singers, called The Company. It was when the Rollins and Joffee Talent Agency sent The Company on a tour of Canada that Stephen Stills met Neil Young. Eventually, Stills, Young, Richie Furay and two others became the Buffalo Springfield.

For a list of "pre-rock" performers at the Cafe Au Go Go, from February 1964 to July 1965, see here


Cafe Au Go Go Rock Performers List 
Part I July 27, 1965-December 1965

July 27-August 1, 1965  Butterfield Blues Band/Bob Gibson/Barbara Dane/Chambers Brothers
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, with guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, presaged the entire wave of electric blues and rock that would sweep the county, and they were as good as any band that came later. With twin lead guitars, Butterfield's amazing harmonica and Muddy Waters’ rhythm section, they were an obvious signing for Elektra producer Paul Rothchild. The group had already recorded an album in December 1964, but Rothchild junked the LP because the sound wasn’t good enough.

The group had become known because of a track on an Elektra Sampler album called What’s Shakin', featuring various groups, and Bloomfield had played on Bob Dylan’s "Like A Rolling Stone" session. Elektra decided to record the band live and booked them for two weeks at the Au Go Go. However, the recordings were not successful, as the live recording of electric bands was still in its infancy, but the band made a splash in Greenwich Village. The Butterfield Blues Band had just backed Bob Dylan's "apostate" electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival (on July 25) so there was already a buzz in the air.

White bands had been fooling with rhythm and blues, but a mixed band playing as well as any band in Chicago was a new revelation. The Butterfield Blues Band sent out an unmistakable message that white musicians could play exciting blues without aping the established greats, and a thousand bands were formed in their wake, a few for every place the band performed.

Barbara Dane, based in San Francisco, was one of the few (perhaps the only) white female blues singers in the 1950s. The Chambers Brothers, initially from Los Angeles, had initially been gospel singers who moonlighted as blues players, and found a following on the folk circuit. They would move to Cambridge, MA around the time of these shows, and evolve into a rock band.

August 3-24, 1965 Oscar Brown Jr
Oscar Brown was a folk singer who recorded for Elektra, as did many other folk (and later rock) artists.   

August 25-3, 1965    Butterfield Blues Band/Oscar Brown Jr
September 1-4, 1965  Butterfield Blues Band/Oscar Brown Jr/John Hammond
September 5, 1965  Oscar Brown Jr/John Hammond

At this time, the Butterfield Blues Band was still a five-piece. Organist Mark Naftalin (a long-time friend of the group) did not join until the recording sessions in Cambridge a few days later (September 9, 1965)). The whole story is told in great detail in the excellent Mike Bloomfield biography If You Love These Blues: An Oral History (Wolkin and Keenan, Miller Freeman Books, 2000), and a slightly shorter version can be found here.

John Hammond, by virtue of having access to his legendary father’s record collection, was the master of many then-obscure blues guitar styles. Bloomfield had already played electric guitar on a Hammond album the previous year. Its not clear to me whether Hammond played solo or with a band, but I'll bet he sat in at least once with the Butterfield crew.

September 6-12, 1965 Butterfield Blues Band/John Hammond/Little John Trio
This was billed as “The First New York Blues Project.” This did not appear to refer to the group later called The Blues Project (see below), which at the time was still called the Danny Kalb Quintet. Elektra Records had released a “Various Artists” album in 1964 called The Blues Project, so the name was in the air somewhat.

September 14-23, 1965 The 7 Sons
September 24-25, 1965 The 7 Sons/David Blue/Jim and Jean
September 26-30, 1965 The 7 Sons
The 7 Sons are unknown to me. David Blue (real name David Cohen) was a Greenwich Village folkie, who later recorded for Elektra, and Jim and Jean Glover were a folk duo who had released an album on Phillips.

October 4&11, 1965 Nam June Paic and “Electronic Video Recorder” (an Experimental Film)
Monday nights tended to be reserved for other kinds of artists.

October 5-10, 1965 Luiz Bonfa
Bonfa, a guitarist, had composed “Black Orpheus.”

October ?, 1965 Blues Project
The Blues Project, six Jewish kids who liked the blues, was the first meaningful white blues band in New York City. The first “known” Blues Project date (per Mark's exceptional research) was at The Bitter End on October 7-9, 1965. Al Kooper had been hired to play piano on a record company demo and was asked to join the group, even though he knew little about the blues. Kooper, well known around town as a session musician after playing on “Like A Roling Stone” (and with Dylan at Newport in July), agreed to join in order to improve his organ chops. He appears to have joined shortly after the Bitter End shows.

Kooper recounts the story of the Blues Project’s initial month long gig at the Café Au Go Go in his usual hilarious fashion in the book Backstage Passes (Billboard Books 1998). The band was playing at the smaller Night Owl nearby, when Solomon offered them a week at the Au Go Go. Although crowds were initially tiny, the band played for weeks on end and eventually developed a following of teenagers anxious for something different. The Blues Project seems to have played most of the Fall at the Au Go Go, and in so doing made their own career and established the Au Go Go as a place to break new bands.

October 26, 1965 Jaqueline Carol, Louis St. Louis, David Brooks, Ralph Mauro and Lilly Tomlin This bill (probably all comedians) probably played through the week.


We have some gaps in the October and November ads, but I assume that many, though not all, of those dates were taken up by the Blues Project.

November 8 & 15, 1965 "Happening" with Cosugi, Shigeko and Moorman
A "happening" was 60s-speak for what would now be called Performance Art or Experimental Theater. These dates were Monday nights, slow nights anyway for most clubs.
November 9-21, 1965 Blues Project
The Blues Project at this time was Tommy Flanders (lead vocals), Danny Kalb (lead guitar), Steve Katz (guitar/harmonica), Al Kooper (organ), Andy Kulberg (bass) and Roy Blumenfield (drums). This run probably started in October.

November 22, 1965 Happenings with Larry Loonin, Woody King and Alison Knowls
Another Monday Night “Happening.”

November 24-27, 1965 Blues Bag w/ Blues Project/Big Joe Williams/Son House/Bukka White/ Skip James/Eric Andersen/John Hammond/John Lee Hooker/Geoff Muldaur/Seventh Sons/T Bone Walker
Verve Records, who had signed the Blues Project, had the idea of recording the band live. To justify the project, they had a sort of “Blues Festival” and recorded all the acts. Kooper recalls Muddy Waters being on the bill, and feeling embarrassed to come on after Waters. The Project’s teenage fans, while liking the real thing well enough, preferred the suburban white blues of the Blues Project, much to the confusion of Kooper. Kooper may be confusing this "Blues Festival" with a similar one held in 1966, where Muddy Waters was actually on the bill. This bill featured a mixture of electric and country (acoustic) blues performers as well as some white folk musicians with a blues orientation (John Hammond, Eric Andersen and Geoff Muldaur).

Several tracks from the Blues Project debut Live At The Café Au Go Go were recorded at these shows.

December 1-2, 1965 Blues Project and Workshop
I'm not sure exactly what was meant by "Workshop," but I assume it was along the lines of events held at Folk Festivals, where musicians demonstrated specific styles or techniques.

December 3-5, 1965 Shoshanna Damarri

December 14-16, 1965 The Fugs/Richie Havens
The Fugs were established East Village beatniks, folkies and troublemakers. Richie Havens, too, was an established folk musician.

December 17-26, 1965 Blues Project/Fugs/David Blue

December 28, 1965-January 2, 1966 Orbit In Orbit: Holiday Blues Bag w/ Blues Project,  Beverly Ann Gibson, Nate Edmonds, George Wilson, JD Brown, Little Gerry Griffin, Stan Green, The Vilons, Leo Wright and the LJ’s
Other than the Blues Project, the acts are unknown to me. Perhaps they were East Coast blues or R&B performers.


For the next installment, see here

The Aliens, Whisky A Go Go, San Francisco October 14-27, 1966

In the course of our extensive research into the legendary Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, I came across traces of the forgotten Whisky A Go Go from San Francisco. I have already written about its tentative beginnings and its strange denoument. Further research (on the Whisky's own site--see 1965's "Athletic Mayhem In Motion") has confirmed that the San Francisco outlet was run by Hollywood Whisky proprietor Elmer Valentine and his partners. Given the music explosion in both Northern and Southern California in the mid-1960s, and the Hollywood Whisky's essential role in that, it has seemed surprising to me that the San Francisco Whisky was such a little remembered dud.

Admittedly, the club, at 568 Sacramento Street, was midways between the Financial District and North Beach, and had no "local" clientele. On the other hand, due to some restrictive laws about dancing that are hard to believe today, there was very little competition for the adult rock and roll market, one of the reasons the Fillmore and Avalon were so successful with unknown underground bands. If the SF Whisky had a "dance hall permit"--I'm not certain--they would have been in a very good situation despite their bland location.

However, in trying to compile a list of performers at the SF Whisky, it is striking how in the midst of a great talent explosion, the SF Whisky basically booked uninteresting bands. In some instances, they were probably pretty good live bands, like Cory Wells and The Enemys, but San Francisco would have perceived them as "too Vegas" (or its cousin "too LA"), unfairly or not. San Francisco and the Bay Area has always been about being ahead, different and too cool for school even in the face of good sense (and I say this proudly), so lousy psychedelic hippie bands covering obscure folk songs badly were a better fit for San Francisco than super-competent cover bands playing Top 40 hits well, because that's how The City rolls.

I have discovered, however, that somewhat late in its existence the SF Whisky regularly booked one of the hippest and most seminal bands in San Francisco, and the confluence of that with the historic Whisky name should have been enough to shake the tree, but it doesn't seem to have happened. If The Aliens had played The Whisky in West Hollywood, many arcs of music history might have been different, but it was not to be. This post is a salute to an intersection of two roads that should have lead somewhere sooner than they did.

San Francisco had played a critical role in the popularization of Latin music, or Latin Jazz (depending on the context), and their had been a booming Latin Jazz scene in North Beach since the late 1950s. Naturally it was secondary to the great New York scene, but San Francisco was respected by those in the know (in Latin Jazz, restaurants and baseball) as an incubator of interesting possibilities. San Francisco, like all great Seaport towns, is a great melting pot, and The Aliens can make a pretty good claim to being the first Latin Rock band of the 60s.

The story is too rich to tell in shorthand, but fortunately I don't have to, as The Aliens very own Facebook page tells the story of the roots of the group, well worth reading in their entirety. The Aliens was made up of teenagers from El Salvador and Nicaragua who had immigrated to San Francisco in the early 1960s, who then formed a band at Mission High School around 1964, influenced by Ritchie Valens and others. They loved American rock and roll, they knew Latin American rhythms, and they (mostly) lived in the Haight Ashbury, so they rapidly merged  American music with that of their heritage. Initially called The CA5 (for Central American 5), they briefly changed their name to The Spanish Flies. The owner of the Drag'on A Go Go, himself an immigrant from Asia, sniffed that they looked like "a bunch of aliens" (from the United States). The band took it to heart and changed their name, and the Drag'on A Go Go owner became one of their biggest and proudest supporters, and The Aliens regularly performed there.

The Aliens spent much of 1966 playing the Drag'on, as well as elsewhere. They mostly played the standard rockin' hits of the day, some rock, soul and R&B but their familiarity with Latin rhythms gave the songs a different feel. The teenagers couldn't describe the rhythms, but they knew how to dance to it. Along the way, they had acquired singer Frank Zavala, an "older" (probably in his twenties) singer with some reputation in Nicaragua as an Elvis impersonator (ahead of their time yet again). By 1966 the group consisted of founding brothers William and Mike Coronado (guitars), their cousin Oscar Calderon (drums) and Javier Alizaga (bass). They were Mission High contemporaries with Carlos Santana, who had played a little with the Coronado brothers at school and occasionally saw some CA5 gigs in the early days.

The ad above is from the October 15, 1966 San Francisco Chronicle, advertising a two-week stand from October 14-27. The Aliens were a dance sensation, by all accounts, but in 1966 only local musicians probably understood how they had changed the rhythms of popular R&B hits to give them a different feel. It is intriguing, too, that throughout 1966, Monday night at the SF Whisky featured the Escovedo Brothers, playing Latin Jazz, as they were critical in the development of Latin rock in San Francisco, playing with Santana, Malo and Azteca in various critical capacities (not to mention  daughter Sheila "E", then nearly 7 years old). Despite all the missteps, the SF Whisky nearly stumbled onto San Francisco's next big rock explosion. In January 1967, The Aliens had some more weeks at the Whisky, so they had obviously done well, but the Whisky passed on in March of 1967, a victim of bad timing, poor location and weak choices.

By late 1966, three members of The Aliens (the Coronado brothers and their cousin Oscar Calderon) were married and with families, so the idea of touring out of town was not really considered. Remarkably, they became regulars at a venue in San Rafael called The Bermuda Palms, at 737 E. Francisco Blvd. It is better known to rock fans and poster collectors as The Euphoria or Pepperland, but it was fundamentally the same venue. The Aliens started to draw a mixed crowd not only from Marin but from nearby Hamilton Air Force Base.

Lead singer Frank Zavala introduced the band to a newly arrived Nicaraguan friend, Jose "Chepito" Areas. The talented Chepito wanted to play trap drums, but the chair was filled, so he bought congas and timbales, and played those instead, to fantastic effect. Suddenly listeners realized what the rhythms were, as Chepito's sensational ability brought the music to life (Chepito also played trumpet--apparently he could play anything). The Aliens Facebook page has an amazing photo of The Aliens circa 1967, playing the Bermuda Palms in front of a happy, mixed crowd, with Chepito on congas and timbales, a remarkable snapshot of before time began.

The rest of the story is, if anything, more amazing, although it is rich enough for a book that, fortunately, has already been written, called Voices Of Latin Rock, by Jim McCarthy and Ron Santoe (Hal Leonard Books, 2004). Well South of Downtown there was a happening scene in the Excelsior District, at The Ghetto Club and The Nite Life. By 1968 The Aliens, playing much lengthier instrumental improvisations that patrons could still dance to, were ruling the scene at The Nite Life, a remarkable story in its own right. Carlos Santana, with his band aced out of a gig by The Aliens, took their timbalero, Chepito Areas, and changed world music with his San Francisco musical cuisine that featured rock, blues, latin and jazz.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda--The SF Whisky had The Aliens, and the Escovedo Brothers too, but wasn't in a position to capitalize on them. The Aliens themselves have continued to make music, although they have all had successful professional and family lives, too, somewhat differently than their musical contemporaries. Willie Coronado has passed on, but decades later The Aliens are getting their due as one of the catalysts of Latin Rock in San Francisco. The SF Whisky almost had their Byrds--shoulda woulda coulda.