Folklore Center

Folklore Center, corner of Mt. Auburn St. and JFK St. (in Garage)

The Folklore Center became a popular guitar shop and hangout for musicians around the area. It was run by Don West, one of the first few African-Americans on the Cambridge folk scene in the 1960s and now a well-known Boston-based photographer.

With the popularity of venues like Club 47, there arose a service industry to folk music that included instrument shops, record stores, publishers of song collections, and periodicals like Boston Broadside, Sing Out!, and music coverage in local publications like the Real Paper. Before performers self-produced recordings or downloads, musicians were at the mercy of a handful of record labels that recorded folk music. In the words of one producer commenting on the burgeoning folk scene, “You were good or you were gone.”