HOUSE OF THE RISING SONGS : Taking a Down-Home Approach to Staging Folk Music Shows

You remember folkies. In the early ‘60s, they would gather in Washington Square in Greenwich Village and lustily sing “Kumbaya,” whilst strumming the daylights out of their guitars.

Then, almost overnight, folk music became Big Stuff: the Brothers Four, New Christie Minstrels, Kingston Trio, Limeliters, Jack Linkletter’s TV “Hootenanny.” The whole country was singing, “Well it’s a grrrrreen green. . . .”

I’m a folkie--but not that kind of folkie.

The slick, commercial pulp from the Great Folk Scare never appealed to me. Hey, I was into Dylan in 1962!

After the fickle public tired of sing-alongs, the music remained. It also became a little harder to find. Oh, there were small gathering spots in town: the Ash Grove, Troubador, New Balladeer, Four Muses, Ice House, Golden Bear, McCabe’s. All but the last have closed or changed formats.

Ironically, as the stages darkened, the number of performers--really good ones, too--kept growing. Today there are dozens of fine musicians--from as close as Hollywood to as far away as the British Isles--looking for a place to play.

What’s a folkie to do? Easy. Hold a House Concert.

Last Sunday, my wife and I joined that small group of patrons of the folk arts who regularly set up rows of folding chairs, throw open their doors to a group of strangers (who rapidly become friends) and convert their living room (in our case, patio) into a folk club.

An old friend, singer/songwriter Steve Gillette, along with his brother Jeff, was on hand to inaugurate the Sunday Afternoons at the Shulgolds series.

Despite a little newspaper publicity, plus some well-spoken words on KPFK from folk show hosts John Davis and the Larmans, Judi and I only held hopes for an audience of 20--we were new at this, after all. And we had thought, maybe afterward, a few would stay and swap a couple of songs.

The final count was 80. At 9 p.m., when the last of the dozens of revelers packed up their guitars and banjos and bid a reluctant farewell following some high-spirited music-making, we realized we were onto something.

Despite the all-embracing grip of rock ‘n’ roll (which, by the way, has borrowed more than a little from various folk styles), there remains a die-hard audience dedicated to a type of music that doesn’t necessarily have a strong backbeat, that isn’t screamed into a microphone, that may not enter the charts with a bullet.

On Sunday last, the throng never seemed perturbed about the cramped quarters, the hot sun or my 3-year-old daughter occasionally wandering over to get a closer look at the performers during the two 45-minute sets. And the Gillettes certainly couldn’t complain about the day’s take: Though admission was a mere $5 a head, multiply that by 80 (minus the cost of chair rentals) and it’s clear that the trip down to Long Beach was worth it. Plus, as Steve--a veteran of the music business--pointed out, “It’s nice to play someplace other than a smoky, dark bar where no one listens.”

At 10:30, as I did the final clean-up under a full moon--folding up the last chair, tossing away the last broken flat pick--I imagined a big-time, cigar-chomping rock promoter observing the scene. He would laugh at a crowd of 80. And he would gag at the fact that nearly every nickel taken at the door went to the artists. Clearly, major bucks are not made here. For artist or promoter.

Which is fine. We folkies of today measure success not in stadium grosses and multi-platinum sales (though, no doubt, the musicians wouldn’t mind a few extra shekels to rub together). For us, the honesty of the music and the people making it remain paramount. We feel almost protective of those few performers who are accessible, unaffected by their profession--who are essentially the same off-stage as on.

Not that we’re clinging selfishly and snobbishly to folk music, meeting secretly in homes, locking the world out.

No, we simply love the music and the people who create it. Whether the whole world comes along or stays home is of little concern. The experience of last Sunday only confirmed this.

Everyone seemed to get a chuckle when I brought Steve, as gentle and painfully modest as they come, onto our back porch with the standard cliched rock intro: “Here he is--The Hardest Working Guy in Show Biz. . . The Man Who Started It All . . . The Boss. . . .”

Sure, we’re an elite crowd, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We are not a gang of conspiring revolutionaries, thumbing our noses at the Pop Establishment. Well, maybe we are a little. Which might explain the dream I had that very night.

About 80 solemn individuals were working diligently in the backyard, painting posters protesting the Soviet treatment of Jews. Suddenly I hopped on the porch and gave a warm, lavish welcome to our Special Guest: Anatoly Shcharansky.