[HandyDandy]

My vague reference to the full fledged folk scene actually meant Greenwich Village.
You’ve got the Beats mixed up. The Beats go back to Jack Kerouac. I’m sure that you will recall that Neal Cassidy was Kerouac’s character Dean Moriarity in On The Road. Kerouac wrote about the Beat Generation. The same Neal Cassidy became the driver of Ken Kesey’s “Furthur” bus full of the Merry Pranksters (who appeared at Woodstock). That is why I said that Kesey/Cassidy are the link between the Beats and the hippies. Of course you know that the Beatles got their name from the Beats. I think they were playing in Germany as early as 1960. You just don’t get much earlier into the sixties than that! Funny footnote, the “Beats” were changed to “beatnik” to emphasis their Commie persuasions, ala Sputnik. No question the folkie faction in Greenwich Village were also “fellow travelers”.

[nopardons]

No, I got NOTHING at all mixed up and know all about what you've written.

You ONLY mentioned Mass., which is WHY I jumped down your throat. Sorry about that, but I lived through this stuff, was a bit interested in THE BEATS ( not FOR that scene, just found it curious and somewhat off putting ), but hey...I was a teen. ;

Going off a bit, diverging into the music scene in London/the UK, in the late 1950s, ALL groups were heavily influenced by American R&R, as were the Beatles!

This was the age of the "dandy" dressed lower class thugs, wearing velvet jackets, "winkle pickers" ( pointy toed shoes), ruffled shirts, and long hair styles;"THE MODS"!

It all really goes a farther back, into say '58, than the Beatles, re the UK music scene!

Actually, the folk music scene in America, started off with VERY clean cut, NON-LEFTIES, IF one ignores the STINKING COMMIES of THE WEAVERS, who by that time had been around for DECADES.

Also, don't forget about Burl Ives! And he goes back to the early 1950s or earlier. And he was very POP CULTURE and loved by everyone, including little kids.