Passim putting '60s folk treasury within reach

Betsy Siggins, artistic director of the Passim Folk Music and Cultural Center, is working to expand its unique collection reflecting the music club's 50 years, including photos of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. "I want to make this archive sing, literally," she said. (Globe Staff Photo / Michele McDonald)

Within the offices of the Passim Center on Church Street, the '60s folk music revival is alive and well.

Photographs of Joan Baez crowd the walls. A framed, unpublished Bob Dylan poem memorializes a local, late-night writing frenzy. Jim Field from the '60s bluegrass band Charles River Valley Boys stops in to "drop off his bags" before taking a walk around Harvard Square. And Betsy Siggins, the 69-year-old artistic director, keeps a sign in her entranceway that reads: "Hippies use side door."

Since the 50th anniversary of Club Passim (the love child of Club 47 and Passim) in January, preserving the past has taken center stage. As the folk music and cultural center celebrated five decades, its 10-year-old collection of photos, records, tapes, posters, and other memorabilia - known officially now as the New England Folk Archive Project - took on new prominence.

"Just like in life, at 50, you start to look back and reflect," said Millie Rahn, the Passim archives coordinator and a professional folklorist. "We realized just how important this was, and we got very serious about our history."

Now, the archive is expanding and undergoing the beginning stages of organization. A walking tour (think Freedom Trail for significant Cambridge folk spots) is in the works for 2009, as well as an online compilation of oral histories and photos.

"Back then, no one thought that 50 years down the line anyone would be interested in this stuff," said Siggins, her pearl-color hair and animated stories pointing to a free-spirited personality. "It's only by luck and talent and chance that we're still even here."

While Club Passim is supported by memberships, grants, and donations, Siggins said the nonprofit would need "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to properly preserve the many fragile records. Acid-free boxes and storage space are just the beginning.

"I want to make this archive sing, literally," she said. "But some of the stuff deteriorates just by touching it."

Rahn, whose personal collection helped to jump-start the archive, wants to see it used more frequently for research and educational purposes. Currently, the Passim Center accepts research requests on a case-by-case basis. The goal is to make it accessible to everyone, from high school students to biographers.

"If we had all the money in the world," said Rahn, "our dream would be to buy this building and make a café, and host workshops and have listening stations, a gallery, and a place to do research.

"We'd also use money to travel to conduct interviews before it's too late. Many people are already gone, and their stories are lost."

But Siggins and Rahn face the challenge of funding.

"The economy is tough as it is, and it's harder to get people to donate to preserve the letters of Tom Rush," said Siggins. "People are more inclined to donate to children's programs."

Still, Club Passim is thriving with nightly shows - many of which sell out. Besides the baby boomers who had crowded in at Club 47 decades earlier, younger generations also find the archive worthwhile, said Elizabeth Butters, a 23-year-old archive assistant and ballad singer from Somerville who plays the Appalachian dulcimer.

"The most important aspect of the archive for young people is that they can see for themselves why things happened, instead of hearing myths," she said. "Something like Dylan doing electric [guitar] - the information you find here on that is much more immediate than hearing it after being regurgitated many times."

As a starting point, Rahn and crew are focusing on the decade between 1958 and 1968, which marked the peak folk revival that they say was sparked in Cambridge during that time.

Asked why the folk revival happened then, Siggins answers in a way that reflects her character.

"We came out of the '50s, which were really boring, and into the '60s. There was a party going on, and it was ours," she said.

Rahn, the folklorist, cites a more academic example.

"When a society is in stress, we tend to look back in time for a simpler model," she said. "It was post-World War II, and so much was going on politically. Young people used music as expression."

There are no business records of the early days of Club 47, when it was essentially a coffeehouse. Siggins recalls people drinking their morning coffee and reading The New York Times. It became a de facto day-care center when the musicians left their children there to work day jobs or write music.

"Black bands from the South came with guitar cases and battered suitcases and played in exchange for a place to sleep for the night," said Siggins. "It was a mix of Harvard kids and townies, and the music was the neutralizer."

Rahn said that the soon-to-be-launched walking tour will take people on a folk pilgrimage through old homes and haunts where musicians collaborated. Baez's apartment on Massachusetts Avenue and the original location of Club 47 on Mt. Auburn Street will be two highlights.

"We're always asked, 'What was it like? What does it sound like? What were the '60s like?' " said Rahn. "With the archives, we now have those answers in a tangible way."