Last edited Thu May 29, 2014, 05:27 AM - Edit history (2)
I knew the song without having seen the play or knowing it came from that. Only because in the mid-sixties I used to go to a folk club in West Hollywood where I often heard the song performed as part of the repertoire of folk singer Terrea Lea, whose rendition remains my favorite.
Unfortunately, that version is not available online--and we lost Terrea Lea last year. Her loss was a blow to many. I found a website devoted to her club that describes the scene...
Once Upon A Time
In West Hollywood ...
... there was a coffee house called The Garret. It was owned and operated by a folk singer called Terrea Lea and her business partner, Betty "BJ" Moore.
From 1958 through 1971 The Garret was open for business at 923 N. Fairfax Avenue in West Hollywood, California, making it the longest lived coffee house of that period. Others that came and went included The Blue Grotto, The Fifth Estate, The Epicurean, The Unicorn, The Snail, The Insomniac, The Bit and The Ash Grove. The latter, reincarnated as the Improv, actually outlived the Garret until it was destroyed by a fire (it was briefly resurrected in Santa Monica in the mid 1990s). The Ice House, in Pasadena, is still in business as a comedy club and Doug Weston's Troubadour now books rock and alternative bands.
During the folk music revival of the 1960s The Garret was a popular place for musicians to relax and hang out. Terrea was always the main performer on stage, but just about every major folk music act in the business could have been found around the fireplace at some time or other.
One night it was remarked that a bomb in the place would have instantly wiped out most of the folk music movement. Reported present at the time were Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Theodore Bikel, Joni Mitchell, Bud and Travis, Hoyt Axton and assorted other greater and lesser lights of the day.
...
http://thegarret.info/
But we still have multiple performances by the original cast member who sang the song--Jerry Orbach...
ETA: That excerpt about Terrea and The Garret is really a blast from the past, as I also haunted some of the other clubs mentioned back at that time. While Terrea's club was a musical venue where I would go an a date, the others were "hippie" hangouts that didn't have formal entertainment. I was especially surprised that they mentioned The Epicurean--my favorite hangout, but it was little known. It was in a two-story frame house across from Hollywood High School. The upstairs was a piano teacher's studio and The Epicurean had the ground floor.
The Epicurean was run by a slightly rotund black dude called 'Smitty' who said he used to work for the IRS but got tired of chasing down ordinary people and giving them grief over tax issues.
The coffeehouse had five or six rooms, each one dedicated to one thing. One had a radio playing jazz or blues; one was open to anyone who wanted to come in and play guitar or whatever; one was a game room where I kept getting my ass kicked at chess until my opponent eventually confessed that he was the reigning California Intercollegiate Chess Champion (I think he was a grad student at UCLA); one I don't remember much about; and the communal room in the front, where people discussed civil rights, the Vietnam War, and other issues of the day. And in any discussion or debate, Smitty could go on at length or just pose a penetrating question, and he was mesmerizing. Smitty had a brilliant mind and definitely was not someone to cross swords with.
I never knew what happened to Smitty and the Epicurean or the rest of the coffeehouse scene , as I was inducted and left for Army Basic Training in March '67--despite my coffeehouse friends at places like The Epicurean and The Fifth Estate trying very hard to talk me out of reporting.
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