Some places are mythic only to those who don’t live there; others are mythic even to those who do. Geriatric US Beatle­maniacs, on pilgrimages to Menlove Avenue, Strawberry Field, Penny Lane and the site of the original Cavern Club, have a vastly different vision of Liverpool from present-day Scousers. The myth of Greenwich Village is equally strong. Although now a place of stylish wine bars, banks, drugstores and upscale restaurants, to some there will always be, in the words of Bob Dylan, ‘music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air’.

David Browne’s history of Greenwich Village is tightly framed, both culturally and geographically. In his introduction, he defines ‘the heart of the Village’ as ‘the area from Fourth Avenue to the Hudson River, east to west, and Fourteenth Street to Houston Street, north to south’ – in other words, the area formed by the West Village. For a time, it teemed with poets, painters and playwrights, politicos and panhandlers, writers and wrong ’uns, as well as musicians. A liberated, bohemian crowd coexisted uneasily with traditional working-class Italian and Irish communites. 

Above ground, there were jazz clubs and cafes where beat poets and unpaid musicians performed for tips; just below the radar there were gay bars too. Browne doesn’t neglect these, but his prime concern is folk and post-folk music. At the height of the Red Scare, folk musicians gathered