The Revivalist

[mjzee]

Interesting article on the life of John Cohen. Excerpt:

Forty-seven years later, Cohen is a spry 68-year-old whose rust-orange beard is now nearly white, and whose career defies categorization. As a photographer, Cohen captured the cultural tumult of midcentury Manhattan, including many pictures of the young Bob Dylan; as a documentary filmmaker, he has made some 16 films about traditional communities in the United States, Greece and Peru. His recording of a Peruvian wedding was even selected by NASA as part of Voyager’s Golden Record to represent humanity to the cosmos.

As a musician, he was an early instigator of the folk music revival in the 1950s and ’60s, laying the groundwork for such subsequent cultural movements as the klezmer revival of the 1970s. And, according to what Cohen calls a “true rumor,” he was the inspiration for the Grateful Dead song “Uncle John’s Band.”

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/133534/#ixzz17OR9lyrs

[Larry Kart]

John Cohen was born in 1932, as the article says. Thus he is 78, not 68, as the article also says.

[AllenLowe]

he was a founder, with the late Mike Seeger, of the New Lost City Ramblers, one of the truly fine bands of the revivial.

[jlhoots]

I have his book There Is No Eye.

Nice book.

He signed it for me when I met him.

[paul secor]

I have his book There Is No Eye.

Nice book.

He signed it for me when I met him.

Yeah. Many interesting and beyond photographs in that book.