Cafe Au Go Go, New York City 152 Bleecker Street Rock: Performance List July-October 1969 (Au Go Go IX-End)

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 
pre-rock: February 1964-July 25, 1965

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
Part VII July 1968-December 1968
Part VIII January 1969-June 1969
Part IX-July 1969-October 1969


The Cafe Au Go Go had been closed at the end of June 1969, as Howard Solomon had sold the club. Apparently he moved to Florida to manage Fred Neil. I'm not sure who ran the Cafe Au Go Go for the Fall of 1969, but there was a brief effort to make it a competitive rock club again. We are missing numerous dates, mainly due to missing ads in the Village Voice. Its hard to be certain how things we're really going, but I'm presenting the information as we have it.

update: thanks to a correspondent, a Rolling Stone article about the closure of the Cafe Au Go Go (below) tells us that the new owner was one Moses Baruch, who added singer Richie Havens as a partner. There are some contradictions between what the article says and who was actually advertised. The article suggests that the Au Go Go was closed from June to September, when in fact it seems to have re-opened in July.

July 8-14, 1969 Head Band Blues Band/Bruce Pain/King Biscuit

July 15-21, 1969 Budddy Miles Express/Uncle Dirty
The Buddy Miles Express had been formed by the drummer in late 1968 after The Electric Flag had disintegrated following the departures of Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites.

August 15-21, 1969 Tyrannosaurus Rex
Tyrannosaurus Rex was a hippie folkie duo featuring guitarist/singer Marc Bolan and Steve ‘Peregrine’ Took on bongos and congas. They were very different than the gritty glam rock machine Bolan would lead in the 70s, known for the hit single “Bang A Gong.” This was part of Tyrannosaurus Rex’s brief American tour, supporting their 3rd album, Beard Of Stars.

August 29-31, 1969 Van Morrison/Holy Modal Rounders/Tom Brimm
Van Morrison’s group probably consisted only of John Payne (flute and sax) and Tom Kielbania (bass).

The Holy Modal Rounders were from the Lower East Side, and were primarily an Acid Folk duo, featuring Steve Weber and Peter Stampfel. They are credited as the first musicians to release a song with the word “psychedelic” in it (in 1964!). They had released 4 albums by this time, not counting their stints as members of The Fugs, their most recent being 1968’s The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders. By this time, they were sort of a folk-rock group—an acid folk-rock group—but the exact configuration of the group for these gigs is unknown. The pair have continued to record intermittently as the Holy Modal Rounders through at least 2006.

September 24-27, 1969 Ace Trucking Company/Holy Modal Rounders/Eric Mercury
The Ace Trucking Company were a ‘sketch comedy’ group. Fred Willard (from Fernwood 2Nite and many other shows) was a member.

Eric Mercury was a black R&B singer from Canada, who moved to Chicago in the late 60s. He was probably promoting his Avco Embassy album Electric Black Man.

September 29-October 1, 1969 Grateful Dead
It seems odd that the Dead would play a venue as small as the Au Go Go, but the Dead on the road would fill any open night with a gig (and perhaps there had been a latent favor with former booker Barry Imhoff?). Tapes exist, so the shows definitely happened, and the Dead were at their ripping '69 best.
Update: an eyewitness reports that there were different opening acts each night: Eric Mercury, Lonnie Mack and the Holy Modal Rounders, although the precise order is forgotten. The Dead played early and late shows. There was so little room on the stage that Pigpen's congas were set up out in the audience. 

October 2, 1969 Peter Walker
Billed as “Peter Walker and some friends of the Café Au Go Go.”

October 7-8-9, 1969 Elvin Bishop Quartet
Elvin Bishop had moved to San Francisco after he quit the Butterfield Blues Band in Fall 1968. By mid-1969, he was managed by Bill Graham’s Millard Agency, one of whose agents (Barry Imhoff) was the former booker for the Au Go Go. By this time, Bishop had released his debut album on Epic (The Elvin Bishop Group). The band had Bishop on lead guitar and vocals, Art Stavro on bass, John Chambers on drums and Applejack (Jack Walrath) on harmonica. Bishop had just debuted at the Fillmore East the previous weekend (Oct 3-4).

October 9-12, 1969 The McCoys/Waldrop and Roundtree/Blues Project II with Danny Kalb
The McCoys featured brothers Rick and Randy Zehringer, from Indiana. The band had had a hit with “Hang On Sloopy,” but the group were largely embarrassed by it. They had moved to New York, where they were managed by local promoter Steve Paul (proprietor of the midtown club The Scene, among other things). The band had “gone psychedelic” with their 1969 album Human Ball, but it was very difficult to be seen as anything other than a “Top 40” group.

In 1970, Steve Paul teamed the McCoys up with another of his clients, Johnny Winter, and formed the group Johnny Winter And. The cruelly underrated 1971 album of the same name featured the original recording of “Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo”, written by guitarist Zehringer (who by then was known by his Nom Du Rock Rick Derringer)

October 13, 1969  Benefit for Billy Cheeseboro with John Mayall, Tim Hardin and many friends
I do not know who Billy Cheeseboro was. John Mayall was apparently touring around the East Coast at the time (he played Fillmore East on Oct 3-4), so he was probably expected to just make an appearance, rather than bring his entire band.

October 14, 1969 Tuesday Night Jam Session

October 15, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium

October 16, 1969 Tim Hardin/Eric Mercury
   
October 17-19, 1969 Eric Mercury

October 21-22, 1969 Elvin Bishop

The Café Au Go Go seems to have closed soon after this, and this chapter of rock in Greenwich Village came to an end.  It is fitting that the rock era at the Au Go Go began with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in July 1965, and a member of that original group closed the club.

Scheduled shows in November that were never played included Santana and Jack Cassidy [sic] and Friends (the fledgling Hot Tuna). update: According to a Rolling Stone article from the December 27, 1969 issue (p.14--h/t Iver)

Rock & Roll Offed At Café Au Go Go

New York – The Café Au Go Go in Greenwich Village is no more.  In its place is the Café Caliph, serving up Middle Eastern entertainment and fare.

The decision to drop the rock was made by club owner Moses Baruch who bought the lease from Maidmen Realty Inc., after original owner Howard Solomon left New York last June for Coconut Grove, Floriday, to manage Fred Neil.

“I took over the club to run it the same way as a jazz club, but for rock and roll,” says Baruch.  “I put in a couple of big groups like the Grateful Dead but I couldn’t make a go of it.  I tried to do it and even took in Richie Havens as a partner.  But it’s impossible.

“The big groups go to the Fillmore East and personally, if I wanted to see them I’d rather go there since you see a show and it’s not too expensive.  I just can’t cover the costs.”

The club was closed from June to September when it re-opened with a benefit headlining Blood, Sweat and Tears.  Havens wanted to turn the Au Go Go in to a showcase for rock in New York, but management difficulties and fiscal problems kept it in the red.

The demise of the Café Au Go Go leaves New York with few rock clubs.  Ungano’s on the Upper West Side continues to prosper, as does The Bitter End in the Vllage.  The East Village’s tacky temple of tourism, the Electric Circus, also remains.  Cheetah caters to the R&B crowd.  Tarot, a new club on Union Square, is attempting to pick up where the Scene left off, and has two dance floors and a liquor license, plus, for better or for worse, the former musical director of  Hair hiring performers.

According to the Streets You Crossed blog, the building seems to have been torn down and replaced by apartments built sometime in the 1980s.

Cafe Au Go Go, New York City 152 Bleecker Street Rock: Performance List January-June 1969 (Au Go Go VIII)

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
Part VII July 1968-December 1968
Part VIII January 1969-June 1969


Our information for 1969 is very limited, due mainly to the fact there were not as many ads in the Village Voice. The bookings had skewed away from rising rock bands (who preferred the Fillmore East) to Village locals and Folk acts.

January 3-4, 1969 Tim Hardin

January 7-12, 1969 Ian & Sylvia

January 17-19, 1969 Earth Opera/Soft White Underbelly
Earth Opera were a Cambridge, MA band featuring once and future bluegrassers Peter Rowan and David Grisman. The group recorded two interesting but arch albums for Elektra.

Soft White Underbelly was a Long Island band who ultimately evolved into Blue Oyster Cult.

January 25-31, 1969 Colwell-Winfield Blues Band/Vince Martin
Colwell-Winfield were a Boston group.

February 3-6, 1969 Savoy Brown
Savoy Brown were an established British blues band determined to break into the American market, where they ended up being way more successful than they ever were in the UK. This initial tour (which the Au Go Go advertised with the band's outdated name Savoy Brown Blues Band) would have featured the lineup that recorded Blue Matter (released April 69) and A Step Further (September 69). Besides bandleader Kim Siimonds on lead guitar, the group had ¾ of the future Foghat (guitarist Lonesome Dave Peverett, bassist Tone Stevens and drummer Roger Earl) and lead singer Chris Youlden (pianist Bob Hall rounded out the lineup).

February 21-23, 1969 Danny Kalb Quartet with Roy Blumenfeld/Buzz Linhart

February 27-March 2, 1969 Tim Hardin

March 4-16, 1969 Danny Kalb & His Friends

March 20-29, 1969 Ian & Sylvia/Danny Kalb Quintet/Uncle Dirty
Uncle Dirty was an “adult comedian” who released a 1971 album on Elektra (recorded in 1970 at the Gaslite in Greenwich Village), back when Elektra would sign anyone, including David Peel and The Lower East Side. Uncle Dirty (and David Peel) were popular with at least one New Jersey hoodlum (no doubt tragically corrupted by seeing “Absolutely Free” for his birthday in 1967 at the tender age of 13).

April 2-4, 1969 Tim Hardin

April 5-20, 1969 Bob Gibson/Karen Dalton/Vince Martin (14-20)
Karen Dalton was an established Greenwich Village folkie, though apparently not well known beyond about 23rd Street. She released a Capitol album in 1969, Its Hard To Know Who’s Going To Love You The Best.

April 22-23, 1969 Fred Neil/Great Train Robbery/Uncle Dirty

April 24-27, 1969 Great Train Robbery/Uncle Dirty/Otis Spann
Otis Spann had been Muddy Waters pianist throughout the 1950s and a regular on all Chess sessions. Although an established solo artist by the late 60s, his health had started to fail by this time.

April 29-May 12, 1969 Seatrain
Seatrain, freed of their Blues Project obligations (see July 9, 1968), made their first Sea Train album for A&M, released in 1969.  The Sea Train album is a baroque, eclectic and somewhat rambling album.  I do not know how close either Planned Obsolescence or their debut album was to Sea Train’s live performances.

May 23-25, 29-31, 1969 Tim Hardin

June 6-8, 1969 Tim Hardin

June 10, 1969 Ian & Sylvia
This week the Village Voice advertises “For Lease 150-154 Bleeker Street-World Famous Café Au Go Go-Legal Occupancy Cabaret 285, Theater 200.”

June 20, 1969 Howard Solomon sells the Cafe Au Go Go.

June 24-30, 1969 Jam Thing
This was apparently an improvisational show with invited guests. Steve Elliott and Tim Hardin were featured on the 29th.

for the next installment see here

Cafe Au Go Go, New York City 152 Bleecker Street Rock: Performance List July-December 1968 (Au Go Go VII)

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
Part VII July 1968-December 1968


July 1-7, 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.

July 9-21, 1968 Seatrain/Albert Ayler
In early 1968, two original Blues Project members, drummer Roy Blumenfield and bassist/flutist Andy Kulberg, reorganized the group and based it in Marin County.  The band featured John Gregory on guitar and vocals (ex-The Gordian Knot and the final lineup of Mystery Trend) and Don Kretmar on bass and saxophone. Sea Train had been formed from the ashes of that last Blues Project.  Violinist Richard Greene had departed the Jim Kweskin Jug Band (based in Cambridge, MA) in the Spring of 1968 to join the Blues Project on the West Coast. For various murky reasons, the group changed their name to Sea Train.  Greene’s classical training and bluegrass sensibility (he had toured with Bill Monroe) gave him a distinct and powerful sound, and his fiddle acted more like a horn in the group.

The Blues Project still owed an album to Verve, so this lineup of Sea Train (Kulberg/Blumenfield/Kretmar/Gregory/Greene) recorded their “first” album as the last Blues Project album with the title Planned Obsolescence, released in December 1968. 

Albert Ayler was a cutting-edge “free jazz” saxophonist (“out there” is just a starting point).

July 23-25, 1968 John Lee Hooker

July 26-27, 1968 Blood Sweat and Tears

August 2-4, 1968 Blood Sweat and Tears/Buzz Linhart
Buzzy Linhart had been the lead guitarist of a Greenwich Village band called The Seventh Sons, who had an obscure album on ESP Records, but he had begun a solo career.

August 6-10, 1968 Blues Magoos/Buzzy Linhart
The Blues Magoos were a Bronx band who had originally been Village regulars who made it big with “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet” in 1967. They toured nationally with Herman’s Hermits and The Who in the summer of 1967, but by 68 the band had fallen apart. However, lead singer Peppy Castro put together a new lineup with Erik Kaz on organ, among others, and the band put out another album, but they never recaptured their initial success.

By August of 1968, the Fillmore East was becoming the prime spot for bands in the Village. Although the Cafe Au Go Go still had relationships with certain bands, up and coming groups seemed to prefer being second or third on the bill at Fillmore East to playing the Au Go Go. Probably not coincidentally, by August of 1968 Au Go Go booker Barry Imhoff had moved to San Francisco to work with Bill Graham's talent agency, the Millard Agency.

August 23-25, 1968 Blood Sweat and Tears

August 28-September 2, 1968 Butterfield Blues Band/Buzzy Linhart
The Butterfield Blues Band’s first album without Mike Bloomfield had been recent The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw (released in November 67), which represented a more soulful sound, with a horn section. Their new album was In My Own Dream (August 68), still featuring Elvin Bishop on lead guitar, although Bishop had left the group shortly after these shows and moved to San Francisco to start a recording career.

September 6-7, 1968 Blood Sweat and Tears

September 10-15, 1968 The Nazz/The Wind In The Willows   
The Nazz were a popular group on the Philadelphia psychedelic scene, and featured lead guitarist and songwriter Todd Rundgren. The Wind In The Willows featured a brunette lead singer named Debbie Harry.

September 16, 1968 Tyrannosaurus Rex
This appears not to be the English Tyrannosaurus Rex (see August 15, 1969), who did not play in America until the next year.

September 19-26, 1968 Rhinoceros/John Lee Hooker (20 and 21 only)
Rhinoceros was Elektra’s attempt to put together their own Electric Flag-like “super group”, featuring ex-Iron Butterfly guitarist Danny Weis and ex-Mother Billy Mundi. One of the strange features of their founding was competitive, sports team-like auditions to determine band membership (with Doors producer Paul Rothschild deciding who made the team).  Rhinoceros was playing shows in New York nightclubs to build up a buzz about their forthcoming first album (Elektra Nov 68). Similar to Moby Grape’s experience, although Rhinoceros was a pretty good group, with a sort of heavy rock/R&B sound (midway between Iron Butterfly, Booker T. and The Band), they had great difficulty overcoming their own hype.

The band was originally booked all the way through to Ocotober 19th, but the gig was foreshortened.

September 27-October 5, 1968 Tim Hardin/Van Morrison
Tim Hardin, a Cambridge folkie and ex-Marine, was a bit older than his contemporaries, but according to Richie Unterburger’s excellent book Turn Turn Turn (Backbeat Books 2002), was the first musician to mix folk with a blues rhythm section, and was a huge influence on the likes of The Lovin Spoonful. Hardin became somewhat well-known as a songwriter (“If I Were A Carpenter” and “Reason To Believe”) but his drug and personal problems prevented him from being a real success.

Van Morrison was probably still living in Woodstock at this time and playing with a trio. He was in the midst of recording his immortal Astral Weeks album.

Its possible that Van Morrison was replaced by Rhinoceros, or put another way, that Van Morrison never replaced Rhinoceros, or that all three acts played.

October 12-17, 1968 Moby Grape/Mom's Apple Pie

Moby Grape, despite all their talent, never caught a break. Due to severe personal difficulties, guitarist Skip Spence had left the group and the band was now a four-piece.

A play called "The Moke Eaters" was also presented at the Cafe Au Go Go during this time, probably between Moby Grape and Dino Valenti, and possibly other times as well.

October 30-November 4, 1968 Dino Valenti
Dino Valenti had been an influential Greenwich Village folkie in the early 60s, but had moved to California (supposedly Richie Havens act was modeled on Valenti's). In 1965, Valenti was busted for pot, forcing him to sell the rights to his song “Get Together.” While Valenti was in jail, Quicksilver Messenger Service was formed to provide a backing band for him, but they became successful in their own right. Valenti got out of jail and went solo. This was one of his relatively rare performances outside of San Francisco. Although Valenti did not come off well on rccord, contemporaries such as Paul Kantner speak glowingly of his charisma as a performer.

There is a review of a Rhinoceros show on November 1, 1968, and The Nazz may have played Cafe Au Go Go as well.

November 12-16, 1968 Ian & Sylvia

November 26-December 1, 1968 Blues Bag with Danny Kalb/Richie Havens/Dave Van Ronk/Ultimate Spinach/Big Joe Willaims/Butterfield Blues Band/Bloomfield and Kooper
It is unlikely that Bloomfield and Kooper did any kind of perfomance together, Super Session style. However, it is a reasonable assumption that either or both showed up to jam on various nights. By this time, The Butterfield Blues Band featured Buzzy Feiten on guitar.

December 3-9,1968 Silver Apples and Tommy Flanders (with Danny Kalb 7-9 only)w/Pacific Gas & Electric (5 only). 
Pacific Gas & Electric (later shortened to  P,G&E at the firm request of the California utility) were a Los Angeles based blues rock band who released several albums (on Kent and then Columbia) from 1968 to 1973.

December 20-31, 1968 Tim Hardin

for the next installment see here

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