The 1960s were big for folk music, and the Kingston Trio led the way. They were the ones who started it all. The music was fresh and alive. College kids loved it and their parents did, too.
I think, especially among the New York intelligentsia at that time, that there was a reason Bob Dylan went to New York to happen, because there was a culture developed there around the ideas of civil rights, around the idea of democracy growing out of Emerson and Thoreau, these ideas of the fanfare for the common man.
Judy Henske, who was the then reigning queen of folk music, said to me at The Troubadour, 'Honey, in this town there are four sexes. Men, women, homosexuals, and girl singers.'
When I first moved to London, there was talk of a folk revival, with annoying names like nu-folk that made me feel slightly ill.
There is a black folk music audience. They're just very small.
Folk rock was my real roots. I did a few gigs as a folk artist, in the style of Fairport Convention.
I grew up in Greenwich Village. Dad was friends with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
I was a young folk singer, or wanted to be. I really wanted to be a New England folk singer, but they never would accept me. I was always hard to categorize, and people wouldn't know what to make of it.
