Square Embraces Folk Music Roots

This month, Harvard Square will return to its folk roots and celebrate the area’s role in developing of folk music with special events and displays of archival photos in stores fronts around the square.

Joan Baez, best known for her folk hit “Diamonds and Rust,” got her start in the legendary Harvard Square folk venue Club 47, reincarnated as Club Passim. Her early recording of the Child Ballads, a collection of English and Scottish folk songs, is also representative of the area’s long-standing role in the folk music genre—the ballads were compiled by Harvard English professor Francis James Child.

Now, the New England Folk Music Archive (NEFMA) and the Harvard Square Business Association (HSBA) are working together to raise awareness for the continued folk tradition in Harvard Square.

Until last year, Club Passim maintained an archive of folk memorabilia, cataloguing photos and videos of the folk music scene in Harvard Square. But when the financial crisis hit and Club Passim could no longer actively support the archive, former executive director Betsy Siggins founded NEFMA, a nonprofit dedicated to keeping the Harvard Square folk tradition alive.

This month is the financial and emotional “kick-start” for the new nonprofit, she said.

Siggins played a large part in the square’s iconic place in the folk revival as a founder of Club 47.

“She likes to call herself the oldest hippie in Harvard Square,” said Denise A. Jillson, the Executive Director of the Harvard Square Business Association. “She’s been the go-to figure for all things folk for a long time.”

Local businesses have responded enthusiastically NEFMA, according to Jillson.

“It takes a village to celebrate music,” she said, “And this village is more than willing to step up to the plate.”

Jillson attributes the interest to businesses’ support for Siggins as a prominent community member.

Daedalus Restaurant, the site of the original Club 47, hosted the kick-off event for the celebration on Nov. 1.

Club Passim will be featuring different artists every night this month, and its Executive Director Daniel A. Hogan said that he thinks that the extra publicity has helped the club. He is currently working with the HSBA to create more promotion opportunities.

The HSBA and NEFMA is also sponsoring special events throughout the month, including a workshop for teens on folk song writing at the Coop next Sunday and a special screening of Festival, about the Newport Folk Festival, at the Brattle Theatre on Nov. 22.