Help Betsy Siggins Chronicle Folk Music History

We are sharing this Go Fund Me page for contributions that will enable our treasured Betsy Siggins to work with author Liz Thomson on the memoir she has long yearned to complete. Bad Boys & Daring Girls: Betsy Siggins & The Story of Club 47 & The Music That Changed the World. This biography will both chronicle and honor Betsy’s life’s work and times and, in so doing, fill in the missing pieces of a culturally important mosaic. The book’s value is immense, capturing the stories of a generation and a genre from the perspective of witness, participant, cheerleader, and influencer. Betsy’s involvement in and on the folk world spanned from the late 1950s to the present, with her holding folk music’s institutional memory eager to be recorded and preserved.

Let’s help Betsy and Liz capture the personalities of these exceptional musician friends who invigorated folk music and defined it for generations, among them Tom Rush, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Taj Mahal, Maria Muldaur, and many others. Betsy was there from the outset, helping to shape the Boston/Cambridge music scene. She housed and communed with influential musicians in times of racial segregation – many of those who slept on her couch were barred from Boston hotels and department stores. Betsy’s spirit was her hallmark always, and her drive and tenacity fueled the success of clubs such as Club 47 and Passim, where she was the link that helped vitalize the powerful folk movement that has spawned so many distinguished and shape-shifting careers.

As a community, we can help Betsy raise the money to engage Liz Thomson to travel from England to interview her and her many friends and colleagues in the folk music community. Liz will utilize the Folk New England Collection at UMass Amherst, a collection that Betsy founded and curated. Liz will also research Betsy’s work in Washington DC with the Smithsonian’s Folklife Project, and in New York City where, in the 1980s, Betsy set up some of the earliest projects to help those suffering from a new and frightening disease which the world would come to know as AIDS.

A classmate of Joan Baez during their spell at Boston University, Betsy witnessed her friend’s rapid rise from Club 47 to become the unannounced star of the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. She was in the front row at Newport in 1965 when her pal Bob Dylan went electric, and she was the one person with him in the green room right after. Later that evening, Betsy witnessed Dylan and Johnny Cash as they song-swapped late into the night in a hotel room.

Betsy can be found nowadays sharing laughter, concerts, friendship, and social hang-outs with musicians of all generations, a front row supporter when she can attend shows, including the Newport Folk Festival and Folk Alliance International. Her musician friends Ellis Paul, Mark Erelli, Lori McKenna, Mary Gauthier and countless others respect and honor her presence, with Betsy being a source of support for many.

Your contribution to this project will help chronicle this important piece of untold history. Any contribution helps, and Betsy's and Liz's project will still be able to benefit from your donation no matter what final total is realized. Thank you in advance for being a huge part in bringing this book to life!

We are also excited to announce that all donors contributing over $500 will be invited to a private party launch event when the book is completed.

Liz Thomson is a London-based journalist and author, and the founder of The Village Trip, an annual festival celebrating arts and activism in Greenwich Village and the East Village.

Praise for her book Joan Baez: The Last Leaf, which was awarded the Certificate of Merit in the Blues, Folk, and World Music category of the 2021 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research:

“With decades of access [Thomson] has written the definitive biography” – Michael Simmons, Mojo*****

“She writes beautifully and covers a cram-filled, spectacular life in a very knowledgeable way... a very well sourced and a very thoughtful book” – Will Swift, author of The Kennedys Amidst the Gathering Storm

Photo credit: Dick Waterman. Bob Dylan and Betsy Siggins

Sincerely,

-Tom Rush: musician, veteran of Club 47 & folk scene revival

-Joe Spaulding: ret. president & CEO of Boch Center, founder Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame, musician

-Monica Mansfield: music photographer, author, small concert host/musician supporter