Cafe Au Go Go
Encyclopedia
The Cafe au Go Go was a Greenwich Village
night club located in the basement of 152 Bleecker Street
. The club featured many well known musical groups, folksingers and comedy acts between the opening in February 1964 until closing in October 1969. Originally owned by Howard Solomon who sold the club in June 1969, to Moses Baruch who closed the club in October 1969. Howard Solomon became the manager of singer Fred Neil
.
The club was the first New York
venue for the Grateful Dead
. Richie Havens
and the Blues Project were weekly regulars. Jimi Hendrix
sat in with blues harp player James Cotton
there in 1968. Van Morrison
, Tim Hardin
, Tim Buckley
, Joni Mitchell
, Judy Collins
, Howlin' Wolf
, Muddy Waters
, John Lee Hooker
, the Youngbloods
, John Hammond, Jr., The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
, Michael Bloomfield
, Jefferson Airplane
, Cream
, The Chambers Brothers
, Canned Heat
, The Fugs
, Odetta
, Country Joe and the Fish
, all played there. Blues legends Lightnin' Hopkins
, Son House
, Skip James
, Bukka White
, and Big Joe Williams
performed at the club after being "rediscovered" in the '60s. Before many rock groups began performing there, the au Go Go was an oasis for jazz (Bill Evans
, Stan Getz
), comedy, and folk music.
Lenny Bruce
and the club's owner, Howard Solomon, were arrested there on obscenity charges in 1964. In April 1964, Bruce appeared twice at the Cafe Au Go Go with undercover police detectives in the audience. On both occasions, he was arrested after leaving the stage, the complaints pertaining to his use of various obscenities, club owner Howard Solomon was arrested too.
A three-judge panel presided over his widely publicized six-month trial, with Bruce and club owner Howard Solomon both found guilty of obscenity on November 4, 1964. The conviction was announced despite positive testimony and petitions of support from Woody Allen
, Bob Dylan
, Jules Feiffer
, Allen Ginsberg
, Norman Mailer
, William Styron
, and James Baldwin
– among other artists, writers and educators, and from Manhattan journalist and television personality Dorothy Kilgallen
and sociologist
Herbert Gans. Bruce was sentenced, on December 21, 1964, to four months in the workhouse; he was set free on bail
during the appeal
s process and died before the appeal was decided. Solomon later saw his conviction overturned; Bruce, who died before the decision, never had his conviction stricken in his lifetime.
On December 23, 2003, 37 years after his death, Bruce was granted a posthumous pardon
for his obscenity conviction by New York Governor George Pataki
, following a petition filed by Ronald Collins and David Skover with Robert Corn-Revere as counsel, the petition having been signed by several stars such as Robin Williams
. It was the first posthumous pardon in the state's history. Pataki said his act was "a declaration of New York's commitment to upholding the First Amendment
."
Cafe. Solomon managed the group until their breakup in late 1965.
The Au Go Go Singers included Kathy King (who later toured with Bobby Vinton
and appeared in the Broadway show, Oh Calcutta and currently works as Kathrin King Segal), Jean Gurney, Michael Scott (who later performed with the Highwaymen and the Serendipity Singers), Rick (Frederic) Geiger (who eventually was accepted into a light opera company in California), Roy Michaels (who later performed with Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys
and toured with Jimi Hendrix
), Nels Gustafson, Bob Harmelink, and soloists Stephen Stills
and Richie Furay
. (Gustafson and Harmelink had been in an earlier trio with Furay, but quit show business after the demise of the Au Go Go Singers.)
It was also at the Cafe Au Go Go that a new folk/rock group, The Company, was formed from some remnants of the Au Go Go Singers: Geiger, Michaels, Scott & Gurney (who together before the Au Go Go Singers performed as the Bay Singers, a popular group in Boston & New York City), and Stills. Immediately after the Au Go Go Singers breakup, the Rollins
and Joffe Talent Agency - managers of Dick Cavett
, Woody Allen
, and other notables - heard a reunion of the Bay Singers at the Cafe Au Go Go and offered the group a six-week Canadian tour. Rollins and Joffe did not originally include Stills on the tour, but Stills made it known to the Bay Singers that he wanted to join their group and the tour. Very comfortable in performing their arrangements and songs they perfected on their radio show and performances before joining the Au Go Go Singers, and knowing that Jack Rollins and Charlie Joffe offered the tour based on the Singers' performance, most of the Bay Singers were hesitant to add another member, but ultimately gave in to Stills. The new quintet switched to amplified instruments, took about a week to learn new material (some under the direction of the former Au Go Go Singers arranger, Jim Friedman), named their new group The Company, and then headed for Ontario
. While on tour the group first met local boy Neil Young
, who was performing with the Squires
, as the opening act for The Company. After leaving Canada The Company played at Mr. Kelly's in Chicago where Woody Allen was headlining. In less than a year after the group broke up, Stills, Young, Richie Furay, and two others formed the Buffalo Springfield
.
Howard Solomon not only had The Au Go Go Singers, but had also booked comedians such as George Carlin
and Lenny Bruce
. Who had regular stints at Cafe Au Go Go that would last either from one or two days to three weeks. Lenny Bruce's performances at the Go Go were controversial. On more than one occasion the Cafe Au Go Go was raided by the police because of the obscenities that had been used during his performances. By 1966, the police and the courts had managed to silence Lenny Bruce and taught him a lesson that he should not use "foul language" or disrespect the church and the law. Eventually bankrupting him just before his death that year. Though the police had managed to silence Lenny Bruce, George Carlin continued to do his controversial comedy. Carlin eventually went on to have his own trouble with the law. Controversy arose because of the use of obscenities in his counter-culture routine known at the "Seven Dirty Words". Both Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were two of the most influential stand-up comedians
of their time and they along with many others had come out of the Cafe Au Go Go.
When the Cafe au Go Go finally locked its doors for good, the now-famous Stephen Stills was a featured performer at the gala closing.
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
night club located in the basement of 152 Bleecker Street
Bleecker Street
Bleecker Street is a street in New York City's Manhattan borough. It is perhaps most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street is a spine that connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was once a major center for American bohemia.Bleecker...
. The club featured many well known musical groups, folksingers and comedy acts between the opening in February 1964 until closing in October 1969. Originally owned by Howard Solomon who sold the club in June 1969, to Moses Baruch who closed the club in October 1969. Howard Solomon became the manager of singer Fred Neil
Fred Neil
Fred Neil was an American folk singer-songwriter in the 1960s and early 1970s. He did not achieve commercial success as a performer, and is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material – particularly "Everybody's Talkin'", which became a hit for Harry Nilsson after being...
.
The club was the first New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
venue for the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
. Richie Havens
Richie Havens
Richard P. "Richie" Havens is an African American folk singer and guitarist. He is best known for his intense, rhythmic guitar style , soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.-Career:Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children...
and the Blues Project were weekly regulars. Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
sat in with blues harp player James Cotton
James Cotton
James Cotton is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who has performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time as well as with his own band.-Career:...
there in 1968. Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
, Tim Hardin
Tim Hardin
James Timothy "Tim" Hardin was an American folk musician and composer. He wrote the Top 40 hits "If I Were a Carpenter", covered by, among others, Joan Baez, Bobby Darin, Johnny Cash, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Robert Plant, and "Reason to Believe", covered by many, including Rod Stewart, as well...
, Tim Buckley
Tim Buckley
Timothy Charles Buckley III was an American vocalist, and musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years; his first album was mostly folk oriented, but over time his music incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, avant-garde and an evolving "voice as instrument," sound...
, Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
, Howlin' Wolf
Howlin' Wolf
Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....
, Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
, John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
, the Youngbloods
The Youngbloods
The Youngbloods was an American folk rock band consisting of Jesse Colin Young , Jerry Corbitt , Lowell Levinger, nicknamed "Banana," , and Joe Bauer . Despite receiving critical acclaim, they never achieved widespread popularity. Their only U.S. Top 40 entry was "Get Together".-Background and...
, John Hammond, Jr., The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival...
, Michael Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
, Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
, The Chambers Brothers
The Chambers Brothers
The Chambers Brothers is a soul-music group, best known for its 1968 hit record, the 11-minute long song "Time Has Come Today". The group was part of the wave of new music that integrated American blues and gospel traditions with modern psychedelic and rock elements, spawning a heady mix...
, Canned Heat
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...
, The Fugs
The Fugs
The Fugs are a band formed in New York in late 1964 by poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, with Ken Weaver on drums. Soon afterward, they were joined by Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber of the Holy Modal Rounders...
, Odetta
Odetta
Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...
, Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish
Country Joe and the Fish was a rock band most widely known for musical protests against the Vietnam War, from 1966 to 1971, and also regarded as a seminal influence to psychedelic rock.-History:...
, all played there. Blues legends Lightnin' Hopkins
Lightnin' Hopkins
Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...
, Son House
Son House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
, Skip James
Skip James
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
, Bukka White
Bukka White
Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...
, and Big Joe Williams
Big Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...
performed at the club after being "rediscovered" in the '60s. Before many rock groups began performing there, the au Go Go was an oasis for jazz (Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
), comedy, and folk music.
Legal problems
ComedianComedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
and the club's owner, Howard Solomon, were arrested there on obscenity charges in 1964. In April 1964, Bruce appeared twice at the Cafe Au Go Go with undercover police detectives in the audience. On both occasions, he was arrested after leaving the stage, the complaints pertaining to his use of various obscenities, club owner Howard Solomon was arrested too.
A three-judge panel presided over his widely publicized six-month trial, with Bruce and club owner Howard Solomon both found guilty of obscenity on November 4, 1964. The conviction was announced despite positive testimony and petitions of support from Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
, William Styron
William Styron
William Clark Styron, Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.For much of his career, Styron was best known for his novels, which included...
, and James Baldwin
James Baldwin (writer)
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
– among other artists, writers and educators, and from Manhattan journalist and television personality Dorothy Kilgallen
Dorothy Kilgallen
Dorothy Mae Kilgallen was an American journalist and television game show panelist. She started her career early as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation's New York Evening Journal after spending only two semesters at The College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York...
and sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
Herbert Gans. Bruce was sentenced, on December 21, 1964, to four months in the workhouse; he was set free on bail
Bail
Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
during the appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
s process and died before the appeal was decided. Solomon later saw his conviction overturned; Bruce, who died before the decision, never had his conviction stricken in his lifetime.
On December 23, 2003, 37 years after his death, Bruce was granted a posthumous pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
for his obscenity conviction by New York Governor George Pataki
George Pataki
George Elmer Pataki is an American politician who was the 53rd Governor of New York. A member of the Republican Party, Pataki served three consecutive four-year terms from January 1, 1995 until December 31, 2006.- Early life :...
, following a petition filed by Ronald Collins and David Skover with Robert Corn-Revere as counsel, the petition having been signed by several stars such as Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
. It was the first posthumous pardon in the state's history. Pataki said his act was "a declaration of New York's commitment to upholding the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
."
Au Go Go Singers and Comedians
In 1964, Solomon brought in a large group of singers and musicians from an off-Broadway show and christened them the Au Go Go Singers, to rival the Bitter End Singers across the street at The Bitter EndThe Bitter End
The Bitter End is a nightclub in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened its doors in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to The Other End during the 1970s...
Cafe. Solomon managed the group until their breakup in late 1965.
The Au Go Go Singers included Kathy King (who later toured with Bobby Vinton
Bobby Vinton
Bobby Vinton is an American pop music singer of Polish origin. In pop music circles, he became known as "The Polish Prince".-Early life:...
and appeared in the Broadway show, Oh Calcutta and currently works as Kathrin King Segal), Jean Gurney, Michael Scott (who later performed with the Highwaymen and the Serendipity Singers), Rick (Frederic) Geiger (who eventually was accepted into a light opera company in California), Roy Michaels (who later performed with Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys
Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys
Cat Mother and The All Night Newsboys was an American musical group, originally formed in New York and later based in Mendocino, California, most active in the late 1960s and early 1970s.- History :...
and toured with Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
), Nels Gustafson, Bob Harmelink, and soloists Stephen Stills
Stephen Stills
Stephen Arthur Stills is an American guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash . He has performed on a professional level in several other bands as well as maintaining a solo career at the same time...
and Richie Furay
Richie Furay
Richie Furay is an American singer, songwriter, and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member who is best known for forming the bands Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Bruce Palmer, and Dewey Martin, and Poco with Jim Messina, Rusty Young, George Grantham and Randy Meisner...
. (Gustafson and Harmelink had been in an earlier trio with Furay, but quit show business after the demise of the Au Go Go Singers.)
It was also at the Cafe Au Go Go that a new folk/rock group, The Company, was formed from some remnants of the Au Go Go Singers: Geiger, Michaels, Scott & Gurney (who together before the Au Go Go Singers performed as the Bay Singers, a popular group in Boston & New York City), and Stills. Immediately after the Au Go Go Singers breakup, the Rollins
Jack Rollins
Jack Rollins may refer to:* Jack Rollins , long-time producer of Woody Allen's films* Walter E. Rollins , American songwriter, nicknamed "Jack"...
and Joffe Talent Agency - managers of Dick Cavett
Dick Cavett
Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues...
, Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, and other notables - heard a reunion of the Bay Singers at the Cafe Au Go Go and offered the group a six-week Canadian tour. Rollins and Joffe did not originally include Stills on the tour, but Stills made it known to the Bay Singers that he wanted to join their group and the tour. Very comfortable in performing their arrangements and songs they perfected on their radio show and performances before joining the Au Go Go Singers, and knowing that Jack Rollins and Charlie Joffe offered the tour based on the Singers' performance, most of the Bay Singers were hesitant to add another member, but ultimately gave in to Stills. The new quintet switched to amplified instruments, took about a week to learn new material (some under the direction of the former Au Go Go Singers arranger, Jim Friedman), named their new group The Company, and then headed for Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
. While on tour the group first met local boy Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, who was performing with the Squires
The Squires
The Squires from Bristol, Connecticut were an American garage band in the 1960s.They released just one single, which failed to be even a regional hit, but which is now regarded as a classic of its era...
, as the opening act for The Company. After leaving Canada The Company played at Mr. Kelly's in Chicago where Woody Allen was headlining. In less than a year after the group broke up, Stills, Young, Richie Furay, and two others formed the Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield is a North American folk rock band renown both for its music and as a springboard for the careers of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Jim Messina. Among the first wave of North American bands to become popular in the wake of the British invasion, the group combined...
.
Howard Solomon not only had The Au Go Go Singers, but had also booked comedians such as George Carlin
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
and Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
. Who had regular stints at Cafe Au Go Go that would last either from one or two days to three weeks. Lenny Bruce's performances at the Go Go were controversial. On more than one occasion the Cafe Au Go Go was raided by the police because of the obscenities that had been used during his performances. By 1966, the police and the courts had managed to silence Lenny Bruce and taught him a lesson that he should not use "foul language" or disrespect the church and the law. Eventually bankrupting him just before his death that year. Though the police had managed to silence Lenny Bruce, George Carlin continued to do his controversial comedy. Carlin eventually went on to have his own trouble with the law. Controversy arose because of the use of obscenities in his counter-culture routine known at the "Seven Dirty Words". Both Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were two of the most influential stand-up comedians
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
of their time and they along with many others had come out of the Cafe Au Go Go.
When the Cafe au Go Go finally locked its doors for good, the now-famous Stephen Stills was a featured performer at the gala closing.
See also
- Live at The Cafe Au Go GoLive at The Cafe Au Go GoLive at The Cafe Au Go Go is the debut album by the American band The Blues Project, recorded live during the Blues Bag four-day concert on the evenings of November 24-27, 1965 at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York City...
- The Gaslight CafeThe Gaslight CafeThe Gaslight Cafe was an American coffee house located in the basement of 116 MacDougal Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York...
- Gerde's Folk CityGerde's Folk CityGerdes Folk City was a music venue in the West Village in New York City. Initially opened as a restaurant called Gerdes, by owner Mike Porco, it eventually began to present occasional incidental music. It was located at 11 West 4th Street , having moved in 1970 to 130 West 3rd Street before finally...
- The Bitter EndThe Bitter EndThe Bitter End is a nightclub in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened its doors in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to The Other End during the 1970s...