Music10. “Talking Folklore Center,” by Bob Dylan. I knew Izzy Young in the sixties and early seventies, at which point he left for Sweden. When Izzy was a young man he came into my father’s Raven Book Shop and offered to work for free in order to learn the book business. He stayed with my father for a couple of years and he developed a section of books of his own in the field of folklore. He eventually left and went on to open the Folklore Center on MacDougal Street in the Village. My father and I would drop in and visit him now and then. At one point he gave me this copy of “Talking Folklore Center.” In the early 2000’s we renewed our communications through email. “Talking Folklore Center” is a single sheet folded to make four pages. There is a fine cover illustration of a young, corduroy-capped Dylan playing harmonica. This is the first separate printing of a song by Bob Dylan. Dylan wrote this song on March 19, 1962. It’s also one of the earliest appearances in print of a Dylan Song. The only song that preceded it was the appearance of “Talking John Birch” in the February 1962 issue of Broadside magazine. “Talking Folklore Center,” written as an homage to the Folklore Center’s proprietor, Izzy Young, is a humorous talking blues about Dylan’s arrival in NYC, and how he stumbled onto the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village: “on MacDougal Street, I saw a cubby hole / I went in to get out of the cold / found out after I entered / The place was called the Folklore Center / —Owned by Izzy Young—he’s always in back—of the center.” A terrific, very early Dylan item—a song written for one of his earliest champions, never recorded or published elsewhere, written and published right around the time that his first LP was released, and the item received no distribution of any kind, other than being available at the Folklore Center for .25 cents. It measures 8.5″ x 7.” You can find one for sale at Skyline Books for $2K. VG. $1000
Music610. Fuson, Harvey H. Ballads of the Kentucky Highlands. London: The Mitre Press, 1931. First Edition. This scarce book has a beautiful dust jacket in protective plastic sleeve. It’s blue cover has gilt imprints, shiny and new. There are two copies of this title listed on Bookfinder.com, one for $306, one for $753, neither with dust jacket; one is ex-lib (the more expensive one!). Anyway, this one is excellent with DJ. $250
Music850. Longstreet, Stephen. Sportin’ House: New Orleans and the Jazz Story. Los Angeles, California: Sherbourne Press, Inc., 1965. First edition hardcover with dust jacket in protective plastic sleeve. VG. $20