50 years later, Kaye is still in love with the music that made him Lisa Ellex | January 11, 2021 - 11:00 am
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CREDIT: Pete Still/Redferns
The Greenwich Village of the 1960s was a carnival of music, literature, poetry, coffee houses, free love, fashion and great ethnic food. The neighborhood’s heartbeat was Bleecker Street, where one could hear the soon-to-be-discovered Bob Dylan at The Village Gate, or Joni Mitchell at The Bitter End.
1967 saw the arrival of Village Oldies on Bleecker Street, a record store offering doo-wop, disco, rock and roll, blues, garage, and rare overseas finds. This open-all-night mecca of music soon became the late-night hang for the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa, and was where an aspiring poet/singer named Patti Smith met store clerk and musician Lenny Kaye.