The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame (LIMEHOF) will host a book signing and Q&A event featuring Rolling Stone senior writer and author David Browne on Saturday, May 10th at 2 p.m. at the Museum (97 Main Street, Stony Brook, NY). The author will talk about his new book, Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital. The event is free for LIMEHOF members and general admission ticket price for non-members.
“Greenwich Village may seem miles away from Long Island—and it is—but some of its legendary musicians—like the late Dave Van Ronk—hailed from Queens and further points east,” Browne said. “I’m really looking forward to bringing the spirit of the Village music scene to the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame.”
Browne will also participate in a Q&A session with LIMEHOF Vice Chairman, Tom Needham. After the session, attendees have the option to buy copies of the book for the author to sign.
“I’m excited to have David Browne, a seasoned Rolling Stone senior writer, join us to discuss his latest work, Talkin’ Greenwich Village, which brilliantly chronicles the rise and fall of the iconic music scene that shaped generations of musicians—from Bob Dylan to Suzanne Vega and beyond,” said Needham.
David Browne is the latest author to hold an event at LIMEHOF. Past literary events here featured two members from Twisted Sister: Dee Snider, who promoted his first novel, Fratz, and Jay Jay French, who wrote the memoir, Twisted Business: Lessons from My Life in Rock 'n Roll. Other authors have included Steve Matteo (Act Naturally: The Beatles on Film), Bill German (Under Their Thumb: How a Nice Boy from Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with the Rolling Stones) and Dina Santorelli, who launched her novel, The Reformed Man, at LIMEHOF.
About Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital published by Hachette Books:
“From Rolling Stone senior writer and critically acclaimed music biographer David Browne,
the definitive history of the rise and heyday of the revolutionary Greenwich Village music scene, based on new research and first-hand interviews with many of its legendary performers
More than just the location of some of music’s most historic venues, Greenwich Village symbolized the convergence of music, politics, reinvention, and bohemian culture—a safe space that, for decades, attracted misfits and outsiders, iconoclastic folk singers and rockers, jazz musicians, and poets before forces beyond its control crushed the scene by the dawn of the ’90s.
Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital (Hachette Books, 9/17/24) is the first panoramic history of a now-mythical music community that welcomed everyone from Billie Holiday to Bob Dylan to Jimi Hendrix to Dave Van Ronk. During his four years reporting the book, David Browne – whose personal connection to the scene dates back to his days as a college student at NYU when he embedded himself in the scene for a journalism class – interviewed more than 150 people associated with the scene. The list includes legendary musicians from its earliest days (Judy Collins, Herbie Hancock, Tom Paxton, Sonny Rollins, John Sebastian, and members of the classic band the Blues Project) to those who emerged during its last great era (Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Terre and Suzzy Roche, Steve Forbert, actor/musician Christopher Guest). Browne also uncovered previously unseen documents and recordings, including efforts to curtail folk singing in Washington Square Park in the ’60s that led to the “beatnik riot” and how the FBI and city government tracked Dylan, Van Ronk, and others.
Starting in 1957, when the scene as we knew it began to coalesce, through the mid- ’80s, when it started to come undone as legendary venues like Gerde’s Folk City closed, Browne takes readers through the people and events that defined a specific time and place but would impact a wide range of musical influences, styles, and genres for years to come and through today. He also details the often-overlooked women and people of color in the folk clubs and the challenges they faced, even in the Village.
Talkin’ Greenwich Village lands at a time when interest in the Village has never been higher, following the movie Inside Llewyn Davis (inspired by Van Ronk’s memoir) and the series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and ahead of the forthcoming Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet. Readers will uncover tales of the rivalries and dalliances that roiled the folk community; the wild times with John Belushi backstage at National Lampoon’s Lemmings; the street sighting in the West Village that inspired the creation of the Village People; a young Patti Smith upstaging veterans during her brief folk club period; the mysterious falafel restaurant that became ground zero for the ’80s folk revival; and the stories behind classic Village songs like Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Eric Andersen’s “Thirsty Boots,” the Roches’ “Hammond Song,” and Vega’s hit “Luka.”
In recounting the racial tensions, crackdowns and changes in New York City and music that infiltrated the neighborhood, Talkin’ Greenwich Village is more than just vivid cultural history. It also speaks to the rise and waning of bohemian culture itself around the country. Today in the Village, many of those once-iconic venues are occupied by banks or chain drugstores. What happened? Why had such a vibrant scene been reduced to this? Browne’s book answers those questions while also reminding us of the powerful impact of the Village on music and culture.
David Browne is a senior writer at Rolling Stone and the author of Fire and Rain and biographies of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; the Grateful Dead; Sonic Youth; and Jeff and Tim Buckley. A former reporter at the New York Daily News, he was also the music critic at Entertainment Weekly for more than 15 years. He lives in Manhattan.
About LIMEHOF
Founded in 2004, the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the idea that Long Island’s musical and entertainment heritage is an important resource to be celebrated and preserved for future generations. The organization, which encompasses New York State’s Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, and Kings (Brooklyn) Counties, was created as a place of community that inspires and explores Long Island music and entertainment in all its forms. In 2022, LIMEHOF opened its first Hall of Fame building location in Stony Brook, New York. To date, the organization has inducted more than 130 musicians and music industry executives, and offers education programs, scholarships, and awards to Long Island students and educators.