Handbill announcing the "Folklore Center Traveling Hootenanny" at Town Hall in NYC, 1962. - Rare Book Insider
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DYLAN, Bob.

Handbill announcing the “Folklore Center Traveling Hootenanny” at Town Hall in NYC, 1962.

NY: Privately published, 1962.: 1962
  • $3,500
At the top of the sheet is a charming color illustration of dancing-and-music-playing hootenanny country folk against the backdrop of the NYC skyline. The text reads: "A special hootenanny will take place from the stage of Town Hall. Members of the audience will be selected to sing from the stage in this exciting event. Bring your guitars and banjos." It lists Bob Dylan, Sandy Bull, Judy Collins, Lynn Gold, John Lee Hooker, and Ian & Sylvia as participants. Dylan was still relatively unknow at this time, the hootenanny taking place after the release of his first LP, but before the second. At the event he sang songs from both albums as well as ones that later appeared on his third. Noted at the bottom is the fact that tickets can be purchased at the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village who sponsored this event. The Folklore Center was an early hangout for Dylan when he first arrived in the city where he became friends with its proprietor, Izzy Young, one of Dylan's earliest supporters about whom he wrote the song "Talking Folklore Center." The "traveling" hootenany, originally intended to tour colleges around the country, never made it beyond this one-time event. Tiny loss to tips of top corners, old creases where once folded in eighths, very good. One of the rarest paper items from this period when Dylan's career was still in its earliest phase.
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  • $7,500
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[LA: Privately published, 1966].

Handbill announcing the "Freak-In" at the Shrine Exposition Hall in LA, 1966. Handbill, printed in black on yellow stock, for this early event from the burgeoning LA hip scene, taking place the same month LSD became illegal and preceding the famous riots on Sunset Strip. The featured performer was seven-year-old soul singer Little Gary Ferguson, and among the other performers were The Mugwumgs soon to be renamed The Mamas & the Papas. However, the most intriguing attraction was "The world-famous artist and sculptor VITO with his wife, his child and his entire entourage of dancers and freakers." Vito Paulekas was a noted bohemian and bizarre character in the LA hippie scene who was the leader of a band of "freaks" who lived a semi-communal lifestyle and engaged in "sex orgies and free-form dancing whenever they could." Their dancing at various clubs often overshadowed the main performers. He rented a rehearsal space to Arthur Lee and Love, as well as the Byrds, and he and his troupe (some of of whom became The GTO's a.k.a. Girls Together Outrageously) accompanied the Byrds on their national tour. Vito fell-in with Frank Zappa and he and his friend Carl Franzoni contributed to the Mothers first LP "Freak Out" (he also recorded a single of his own as "Vito and the Hands" titled "Where It's At"). Vito has been credited with first using the term "freaks" and "freak out" to describe the hippie scene, and he also appeared in several documentaries of the period including Mondo Hollywood and You Are What You Eat. The Freak-In was an Acid Test inspired event emblematic of the period offering "light show nirvana and optical psychout" and "The Way Out with the ecstatic sounds of eternity," as well as being a high-profile gig for Vito, a hugely influential, though under-publicized, member of the LA freak scene. Fine.
  • $60