Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation (June 12th and 14th at the Cleveland Museum of Art)

[GREENWICH VILLAGE: MUSIC THAT DEFINED A GENERATION screens Wednesday June 12th and Friday June 14th at 7:00 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art.]

 Review by Pamela Zoslov

The 1960s American folk music scene has enjoyed so many commemorations that scenes of Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary singing protest songs against a backdrop of Vietnam War footage are by now entwined with our cultural DNA. So Laura Archibald's new documentary, GREENWICH VILLAGE: MUSIC THAT DEFINED A GENERATION, has an overly familiar feeling. In the words of folk-rock luminary David Crosby, “I feel like I've been here before.”

The talking-heads doc focuses on New York's Greenwich Village, the working-class immigrant enclave that in the 1950s and '60s  was a mecca for artists, musicians, poets, misfits and idealists. With guitars slung casually across their backs, these pilgrims made the Village the birthplace of an exploding folk music movement. Their passionate, relevant songs became the soundtrack of the turbulent '60s. “We had found a place where we all fit,” recalls Judy Collins, whose angelic voice popularized so many of the era's loveliest songs.