Club Passim is an American

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

club in the

Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue (Boston), Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, C ...

area of

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

. It was opened by Joyce Kalina (now Chopra) and Paula Kelley in 1958, when it was known as Club 47 (based on its then address, 47 Mount Auburn Street, also in Cambridge; it moved to its present location on Palmer Street in 1963), and changed its name to simply Passim in 1969. It adopted the present name in 1994; a combination of the earlier two names. In 1994 the venue also became a non-profit. At its inception, it was mainly a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

club, but soon branched out to include ethnic folk, then singer-songwriter folk.Alarik, Scott. "From Club 47 to Club Passim", in '' Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground'' (2003). Black Wolf (Cambridge, Mass.) Artists who have performed there include

Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (, ; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing mo ...

Shawn Colvin Shawn Colvin (born Shawna Lee Colvin, January 10, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her 1997 Grammy Award-winning song "Sunny Came Home". Early life Colvin was born Shawna Lee Colvin in Vermillion, South Dakota, and ...

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

Tom Rush Tom Rush (born February 8, 1941) is an American folk and blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter whose success helped launch the careers of other singer-songwriters in the 1960s and who has continued his own singing career for 60 years. Life ...

Joni Mitchell Roberta Joan Mitchell (née Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and painter. As one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitch ...

Suzanne Vega Suzanne Nadine Vega ( Peck; born July 11, 1959) is an American singer-songwriter of Folk music, folk-inspired music. Vega's music career spans 40 years. In the mid-1980s and 1990s she released four singles that entered the Top 40 charts in the ...

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...

Jimmy Buffett James William Buffett (December 25, 1946 – September 1, 2023) was an American singer-songwriter, author, and businessman. He was known for his tropical rock sound and persona, which often portrayed a lifestyle described as "island escapis ...

John Mayer John Clayton Mayer ( ; born October 16, 1977) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, but he left for Atlanta in 1997 with fellow guitarist Clay Cook, with whom he formed the short-liv ...

, Matt Nathanson, and Brian Webb. At times the club was a place for blues musicians like

Paul Butterfield Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer, and bandleader. After early training as a Western concert flute, classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored ...

and

Elvin Bishop Elvin Richard Bishop (born October 21, 1942) is an American blues and rock music singer, guitarist, bandleader, and songwriter. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 2015, and in ...

to play as well. In the 1960s, the club (when known as Club 47) played a role in the rise of folk-rock music, when it began to book folk-rock bands whose music was unrelated to traditional folk, such as

the Lovin' Spoonful The Lovin' Spoonful is a Canadian-American folk-rock band formed in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1964. The band were among the most popular groups in the United States for a short period in the mid-1960s and their music and image influ ...

. The club's importance to the 1960s Cambridge folk scene is documented extensively in Eric Von Schmidt's ''Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years''. Scott Alarik described Club 47 as being "the hangout of choice for the new folkies" during that time. Today there is a Passim School of Music program, which offers workshops and classes to teens and adults.

Musicians

described to ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

's''

Kurt Loder Kurt Loder (born May 5, 1945) is an American entertainment critic, author, columnist and television personality. He served in the 1980s as editor at ''Rolling Stone'', during a tenure that ''Reason'' later called "legendary". He has contributed ...

how she began performing at Club 47 in 1958 as a largely unknown

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

student, playing on Tuesday nights as a means of providing entertainment because the jazz musicians who played there had Tuesday nights off; she would continue to perform regularly there through the early 1960s. In 1961,

was said to have played at the club between sets for free so that he could say he had played at Club 47. ''Dylan: A Biography'' gives a detailed account of Dylan's first visit to Club 47, where he saw

Carolyn Hester Carolyn Sue Hester (born January 28, 1937) is an American folk singer and songwriter. She was a figure in the early 1960s American folk music revival. Biography Hester's first album was produced by Norman Petty in 1957. She made her second a ...

perform and performed between Hester's sets in the hopes of impressing club manager Paula Kelley.Spitz, Bob (1989). ''Dylan: A Biography''. Norton (New York).

Bonnie Raitt Bonnie Lynn Raitt (; born November 8, 1949) is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. In 1971, Raitt released her Bonnie Raitt (album), self-titled debut album. Following this, she released a series of critically acclaimed Americana (mu ...

chose to attend

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

in Cambridge to be near Club 47, though the club closed temporarily after her first year as a student (1967). Bill Staines mentions Club 47 in his autobiography, ''The Tour''. He saw his first coffeehouse (event) performance there in 1962, as a sophomore in high school, and described Club 47 during the 1960s as "one of the premier folk venues in the country."

Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American Rock music, rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Nicknamed "the Boss", Springsteen has released 21 studio albums spanning six decades; most of his albums feature th ...

was refused a gig at Club Passim.

Dining at Club Passim

For some years, Club Passim shared space and featured food from the vegetarian and vegan restaurant Veggie Planet until the end of August 2014, when Veggie Planet closed. , brunch is served on Sunday mornings, as well as dinner to ticket holders for matinee and evening shows. According to ''Vanity Fair'', Facebook co-founder

Chris Hughes Christopher Hughes (born November 26, 1983) is an American entrepreneur and author who co-founded and served as spokesman for the online social directory and networking site Facebook until 2007. He was the publisher and editor-in-chief of ''The ...

and his husband

Sean Eldridge Sean Eldridge (born July 31, 1986) is a Canadian-born American political activist from New York. Eldridge is the founder and president of Stand Up America, a progressive advocacy community. He previously served as political director of Freedom t ...

met each other on a blind date at Veggie Planet inside Club Passim.

References

* Loder, Kurt (1983). "Joan Baez: The Rolling Stone Interview". ''

'' 4/14/83 (issue # 393).

External links

Passim website

Website for "For The Love of the Music"
a documentary film about Club 47 {{Authority control Folk music venues in the United States Buildings and structures in Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard Square Music venues in Massachusetts Restaurants in Cambridge, Massachusetts Tourist attractions in Cambridge, Massachusetts Nightclubs in Massachusetts 1958 establishments in Massachusetts Restaurants established in 1958 Event venues established in 1958