Sam Smith - Joan Baez who yesterday received a Kennedy Center honor got her first radio appearance on the Harvard station WHRB, back in the Fifties when I was on the staff there. A note I wrote at the time says:
We had the usual motley collection of musicians and would-be
musicians. The best by far were Bill Woods and a beautiful girl named
Joan. Joan was a Boston folksinger brought to the station by her friend
and later Vietnam casualty, Lew Walling. Lew also helped launch her career,
getting her a seminal serious gig at 47 Mt. Auburn.
The later owners of the club described the early days: "The first few months were rocky as the club was shut down by the Cambridge police. The local blue laws at the time prohibited more than three stringed instruments in a place that served food and beverages. So they got a non-profit educational charter and reopened as a private club, making people members at the door. It wasn't long before it earned a reputation for good music, coffee, and company. And it was here that a friend of then unknown 17-year-old Joan Baez rented the club out just to get her on stage. Baez quickly built a worshipful following and became a regular feature. Here, she introduced Bob Dylan who played between acts. The Club was shut down by Cambridge police once again, but the performers rallied and held their own hootenannies to keep the music going."
"The club would become increasingly famous with time, eventually becoming more important for folk singers than similar spots in New York. Bruce Springsteen was refused a gig there, Bonnie Rait hung out there, and Muddy Waters attracted the Cambridge police who, according to one account, "couldn't believe that the loud music could be coming from a place that only plays 'folk' music." Other musicians who cut their teeth at the club over the years included Tom Rush, Peter Wolf, Taj Mahal, Judy Collins, Suzanne Vega, Nanci Griffith, and Shawn Colvin/"
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