Which venue did Bob Dylan play his first New York gig?
Early 1960s Greenwich Village, New York, is etched into the touchstone of folk history. As a young Bob Dylan pounded the New York pavements, a thriving appetite for cutting-edge poetry and rambling guitarists harvested. Soon-to-be legendary venues were opening their doors to an alumnus of artists who would go on to define a genre, and a booming subculture of folk music was born in the dingy bars of downtown Manhattan.
At the centre of this movement was MacDougal Street. A bustling one-way street, it was home to several venues, including The Gaslight Cafe, Cafe Wha?, and The Kettle of Fish. The doors revolved at all three venues, welcoming beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and burgeoning folk artists such as the self-proclaimed ‘Mayor of MacDougal Street’ Dave Van Ronk and, of course, Bob Dylan.
Of the three venues, Cafe Wha? is the only one that remains open today, welcoming artists on stage in the years that have passed since Dylan defined the ‘60s folk movement. Since those days, The Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, and Bruce Springsteen have all cut their teeth on stage there.
But on January 24th, 1961, Bob Dylan stepped on stage at Cafe Wha?, having hitchhiked across the country to play his first gig in New York City. In Howard Sounes’ Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan, the author wrote that a young Dylan told the crowd, “‘I been travelin’ around the country,’ he continued ‘Followin’ in Woody Guthrie’s footsteps’.”
Travelling the weary roads of eastern America to New York City, Dylan was inspired by the prospect of meeting Woody Guthrie, whose 1943 autobiography Bound for Glory acted as somewhat of a bible for Dylan. The book blurred the line between fact and fiction, citing America’s troubled economic history in a tale about a band’s travel across America. Retrospectively, it’s clear to see that a book framing the pilgrimage of a band through the lens of political America undoubtedly informed the artistic approach of a later Bob Dylan.
His artistic journey through the lens of Guthrie then climaxed with his performance in Cafe Wha? that night, where he performed a handful of Guthrie songs and gained a more genuine feel of the performative value of singing political songs on stage in a more liberal Greenwich Village. This marked the start of a pivotal moment in folk history and technically acted as Dylan’s first live performance in New York City.
However, in the following months, Dylan played what many would consider a truer version of his debut New York gig. After several appearances on the downtown New York open mic circuit, he was offered the opportunity to open for bluesman John Lee Hooker round the corner from MacDougal Street at Gerde’s Folk City on West 4th Street. It was Dylan’s first booked gig and saw him debut a set list of his own material, including songs ‘Song To Woody’, ‘Talkin’ Hava Negeilah Blues’ and ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’.
The strength of Dylan’s performances on the live circuit at that time was that he could bypass certain complications that came from him playing Gerde’s Folk City. At just 19 years old, Dylan was too young to obtain the necessary union card and cabaret licence that allowed him to play live. But the club’s owner, Mike Porco, was so keen to book Dylan that he signed on as his guardian and was soon after described by Dylan as “the Sicilian father I never knew I had”.
While Sounes writes that Dylan was “dressed in ill-fitting, borrowed clothes that made him appear somewhat comical,” his performance was anything but. His performance of politically nuanced songs over the delicate guitar playing of his early ‘60s folk songs endeared him to fans and set him on the road to mega-stardom.
Two years and one day after his New York debut, Dylan officially took New York by storm and sold out The Town Hall on April 12th, 1963. With the release of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan just one month away at that point, the setlist featured three songs from his first record and Gerde Folk City setlist and instead introduced the world to a soon-to-be formidable Dylan, with a set littered with seminal folk tracks that would define the future of the genre.
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