On a warm Sunday afternoon in 1964, two teenage folkies, each with a guitar in hand, found one another by the fountain in Washington Square Park. They hung out together that summer, frequenting the movie houses of Greenwich Village, picnicking in Central Park, watching the July 4th fireworks from a rooftop in Queens, and making lots of music. Then Genny Haley returned to sunny California (well, really to foggy San Francisco), leaving Steve Suffet behind to fend for himself on the fetid streets of the Big Apple. Now they are about to meet again for the first time in 60 years. We don’t know what is going to happen, but we assure you it will be something wonderful.
Genny Haley
Genny Haley is a folk/roots music singer and songwriter. She is a founding member of the all-female Any Old Time String Band that recorded two albums, and that played regularly in the SF Bay Area and at major US and Canadian folk and bluegrass festivals and venues in the 1970s. Genny then sang for 21 years with the Zenith Jazz Band, a traditional New Orleans style band that also played festivals and recorded an album. She once drove a ’66 Chevy Carryall across the country, camping in it, going to old-time and folk music festivals, and meeting her musical icons like Doc Watson and Alice Gerrard. Genny’s songs, like that old truck, will take you lots of miles and keep running strong. On her recent CD, Blue Highways of My Heart, she invites you to ride shotgun, turn up the radio, open the window, and sing along while the wind blows your hair around. If you hear the ghosts of old Highway 99, don’t be surprised – you’re hearing real, authentic folk music from a real, authentic California original. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Soundcloud
Steve Suffet
Better known in the United Kingdom than back home in the USA, Steve Suffet is best described as an old fashioned folksinger in the People’s Music tradition, as well as a long-time Peoples’ Voice Cafe performer. His repertoire is a mixture of railroad songs, trucker songs, coal miner songs, cowboy songs, union songs, old time ballads, blues, ragtime, Gospel, bluegrass, topical-political songs, Woody Guthrie songs, Irish songs, and whatever else tickles his fancy, including several songs he has written himself in traditional style. What all his songs have in common is that they are about working people, their lives, their loves, their hopes, and their struggles.
stevesuffet.com
For more information, please visit https://www.peoplesvoicecafe.org/.
When: Saturday, May 11, at 8:00pm. Doors open at 7:15pm.
Where: The Peoples’ Voice Cafe, 239 Thompson St, New York, NY 10012 & streaming online.
Admission: Suggested contribution: $20. Friends of PVC, Students & Youth, Folk Music Society of New York Members, and Judson Memorial Church Members: $12. More if you choose, less if you can’t. No one turned away for lack of money. To purchase tickets, please visit: https://aftontickets.com/pvc.
Cover Image: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Washington Square Park. New York, NY” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1940 – 1979. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b1084230-120d-0133-852d-58d385a7b928
The Folk Music Society of New York 