The Day They Pulled The Plug-With Pete Seeger In Mind 

 

Danny Ross was a born contrarian, or what would pass for such a person until a more contentious one came along. You don’t believe me then listen to this. Danny had this very pretty, smart, sympathetic and convivial girlfriend, Dora Denny. Dora at the time of this story had gone to school in New York City, the esteemed Hunter College School in Manhattan and had graduated the same year, 1966, as her friend Josie Davis who was then an undergraduate at Wisconsin. Danny couldn’t remember whether Josie was a sophomore or a junior at Wisconsin since she had taken some time off to “find herself” read; get over an affair with a buffing folk singer, Todd Whiting, you might have heard of him since he was something of a hot coffeehouse act out in the Frisco scene before the acid-etched rock took the town over by a storm in the summer of love, 1967. Josie had met Todd during one summer break at Washington Square Park near New York University. Had met and fallen for hard while she was still in high school, hell he was only nineteen but things moved fast in the 1960s, after he dedicated a song, Angel In The Mercy Night, to her after another friend, Frida Hoffman had introduced her to him one Saturday afternoon. Todd left Manhattan for the West Coast to in turn “find himself” which he had apparently done with that local success he achieved out west.   

This is where Danny and his odd-ball ways comes in. Josie who had been close close friends with Dora, closer than with Frida at one point, since they both were seriously into English Literature, complete  with capitalization of the L to show how serious they were. One day after she had been seeing Todd a few times Josie took Dora over to Todd’s apartment to hear him do his rendition of Angel In The Mercy Night that song which he had dedicated to her that fatal day at Washington Square and which he was to perform that night at Murry’s Coffeehouse across for the Gaslight in the Village. (Everybody was almost forced to use that “Murry’s Coffeehouse across from the Gaslight” designation for Murry’s or he got his feeling hurt since his business, his coffeehouse success depended for a long time on grabbing the overflow from sold-out shows at the Gaslight to come in and listen to the new talent that performed three songs and out at the “open mics” he presented at his place).

Dora after hearing the song deemed it very good, very good as an example of what the new folksingers should be doing instead of just covering old traditional songs from God knows where about people who seemed to be clueless about doing anything but killing, boozing, and having worthless romantic relationships. Todd’s song spoke to the new wave folk listeners. And she told Todd so, and he told her to come hear him Saturday at Murry’s with Josie. She said she would try except she had a date with a guy, Danny, who she wasn’t sure had enough money to cover expenses. Jesus, Todd thought then and as he mentioned to Josie later, the guy couldn’t cover a couple of coffees and a shared pastry, and a couple of bucks for the “basket” to keep he and his date in the seats, the cheapest of cheap dates none cheaper that just hanging around the Hayes-Bickford watching the weird mixture of winos, rummies, con men, drifters, low profile poets, mad monk writers and flipped-out singers.          

As it turned out Danny, who was a struggling New York University student and hence the reason behind the “no dough” status somehow pulled enough money to take Dora to the show. Things went well enough for the “open mic” section and then Todd came on to do the first of his two sets. This first set was all the classics, the old time traditional stuff folk audiences expected to hear. Tom Dooley, East Virginia, Cuckoo Bird stuff like that. Pretty well received. The second set Todd came out and sat on the stool placed on the small stage which some performers used and began to fiddle with his guitar. What he was doing was plugging his guitar into an amplifier in order to get more sound out of the instrument although nobody could see the amplifier from the front of the house. Then he started playing Angel In The Mercy Night with the amplifier on. Sounded good from what both Josie and Dora said later, later after the new world was crushed.

See Murry went crazy when he heard what he thought was going to be some rock and roll song, was some rock and roll song what with the amplification, and had gone in back of Todd and pulled the plug so he never finished his song in that style. Murry made it clear that Todd, or any entertainer had to play acoustic or else forget Murry’s, go to Coney Island and weep sounds on the corners or something. So Todd finished up that night playing his usual acoustic guitar. Here is the weird thing Danny born like all of them to the sound of the rock and roll night sided with Murry, sided with Murry against Dora, Josie and from the startled applause most of the rest of the audience. Said folk music was only worthy of that designation when the juice was off. Jesus.