Our December 2025 Bob Dylan Club Book-of-the-Month is Terri Thal’s My Greenwich Village: Dave, Bob, and Me, published in 2023. Our discussion will be hosted by Bob Dylan Book Club Member Karen Lievense. Karen appreciates Bob Dylan for the way his music makes her feel, and, in Pete Hammill’s words, for “his more fugitive song : allusive, symbolic, full of imagery and ellipses, and by leaving things out, he allows us the grand privilege of creating along with him.” Karen lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, near Dylan’s home town of Gallup. [!] Karen also supplied some of the links below.
We are so lucky to have Terri Thal’s first hand account of a formative time in American music, the arts, politics, civil rights, women’s rights, idealism, and the stretching and redefinition of social norms. Terri Thal’s lively book describes her involvement and unique observations with insight and humor. To slip in a reference to a Bob Dylan song: “No one else could play that tune”—it was up to her. Terri Thal’s book joins memoirs by Peter McKenzie (Bob Dylan on a Couch and Fifty Cents a Day, 2021), Suze Rotolo (A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties, 2016), Dave Van Ronk (The Mayor of MacDougal Street: A Memoir, 2012—a book brought to publication after Van Ronk’s death in 2002 by Elijah Wald), and Bob Dylan (Chronicles Volume One, 2004). These books describe the core of Bob Dylan’s world, beginning with his arrival in New York City on January 24, 1961. In fact, you can’t get any closer to the center of Bob Dylan’s Greenwich Village world than these five memoirs! For a list of other books that are important, too, see the Bob Dylan Book Club’s Recommended Curriculum on Greenwich Village, the Folk Scene, & the Rise of Bob Dylan.
One of Terri’s roles was to help folk singers get performance dates and to promote their performances—and many Dylan fans know that she was Dylan’s first manager, serving in that role until 1962 when Bob announced that he had signed with Albert Grossman. Terri helped other musicians as well, including Dave Van Ronk (whom she married), Maggie and Terre Roche, and the Holy Modal Rounders.
Our discussion host Karen Lievense summarized Terri Thal’s importance this way: “so much of what we know and value now pivoted around her active participation in the scene then.” Karen also noted that Dylan had written about Thal in Chronicles Volume One, writing that she was definitely “…not a minor character.” Reading her book underscores her leadership and personal strength.
One feature in the book that I want to call special attention to: Pages 189-193 present an alphabetical list titled "Folk Singers and Related People in New York City, Mid-late 50s Through Mid-late 60s”. I found this list an astounding—and even moving—homage to the folk scene that calls our attention to the diversity of voices, albums, and songs of that place and time. A middle section of the book presents amazing and little seen pictures from Terri’s own collections.
We are excited and honored to have Terri Thal join us at the December meeting.

Terri Thal is also renown for having recorded Dylan’s very first demo tape (also known as The First Gaslight Tape). The recording took place at the Gaslight Cafe in September, 1961. Songs included Old Man, Friend of Mine, Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues, Song to Woody, Car Car, and “most of” Pretty Polly.
Thal commented: “I didn’t have video—I didn’t have a record. I needed something to show, to play for people to give them an idea of what the guy sounded like.” The original tape was auctioned recently—and the website has an a video commentary by Thal, HERE.
In another interveiw she said that “I took it to Philadelphia and I took it to Boston and I took it to Saratoga Springs. Everybody said “go away””. Thal was persistent and completely confident in Bob’s abilities—and the tape eventually paid off, leading to gigs outside New York City. Her support for Bob resulted in the booking of an important gig at Gerde’s Folk City in the City, leading to a rave review by Robert Shelton in the New York Times, published on September 29, 1961. He came to the notice of producer John Hammond, Sr., and Dylan’s career was fast developing.

Links
Terri Thal has attracted an enormous amount of attention for her book—and she has been very generous with her time in telling her story. I think this attention reflects the honesty, warmth, and independence that can be found in her book.
Flagging Down the Double Es
Princess Wow! (not to be missed!)
The Bitter End
Bob Porco’s Substack, here and here.
Marc Percansky
Meet the Author
UCR Classic Rock and Culture
Rock and Beat Generation, PART 1, PART 2, PART3
The Dylan Review
Meet the Author

—Peter White, November 2025

On July 29th, 1961, an all day Folk Festival was held at the Riverside Church as the launch of WRVR-FM’s Live Music Protject—8 consecutive hours of live folk music performance broadcast live. Terri Thal secured a slot for Bob Dylan. The event was signficant in other ways—including the beginning of Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo’s relationship, the meeting of Bob and blues and jazz performer Victoria Spivey (Bob would later play harmonica on Spivey recordings), and Robert Shelton’s review of the event in the New York Times. Ray Padgett of the Flagging Down the Double Es gave us a history of the event, including Shelton’s column and recordings of Dylan’s performances—linked HERE.