#bruce farwell

[thislovintime]

Bruce Farwell and Peter Tork in Greenwich Village, early 1960s.

“In spite of all his clowning, Peter was a rather serious chap. […] Peter was a loud, powerful singer (I used to call him a romp’em, stomp’em type of singer), while I was a soft ballad singer. He had enormous stage presence and I had very little. He played the banjo, I played the guitar. […] He was restless and intense, while I was calm. He loved to be with a lot of people all of the time, whereas I liked to be completely alone some of the time. And last, but not least, Peter Tork had quite a way with the girls. […] One night at the Why Not?, the owner came over and told us business wasn’t too good. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that if you guys can make a little more noise, we can get more people in off the streets. Why don’t you sing together — and loud?’ Peter and I went over to the corner and talked it over and came up with several tunes which we both knew. Soon, we were up on the stage singing Fennario, Dark As A Dungeon and Blowin’ In The Wind. We took turns wailing away at lead and then harmonizing together. […] Overnight, we became the unfamous, unknown duo — Tork & Farwell.” - Bruce Farwell, 16 Magazine’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967) “It was Aug. 3, 1963. I was on a date at the Club Rafio in Greenwich Village, N.Y. [Musicians] were on stage and no one seemed to pay much attention to them. I felt sorry and when they finished, I enthusiastically clapped and called them over to our table and told them that I thought they were great and could I have their autograph. They were totally surprised and said no one had ever asked for their autograph. They sat down with us and wrote on the Club Rafio menu: ‘To Eileen, the first to ask for our autographs. Hang onto them, they will be valuable.’ Signed Peter Thorkelson (Tork) and Bruce [Farwell].” - Eileen LaRocco, News Press (June 30, 2001) “Peter and I met in Greenwich Village after both of us dropped out of college to pursue our folk singing interests. We sang together in the Village for close to a year before separating to follow some different interests. We stayed in touch with each other over the years. It was wonderful to see him gain as much popularity with the Monkees as he did, and his later work with Shoe Suede Blues produced some excellent music as well. I was so sorry to learn of his passing; I will miss him greatly, as will so many others who enjoyed him and his music. My heart-felt condolences to his family. RIP, my old friend and singing partner; save a place for me at the table.” - Bruce Farwell, MLive dot com (2019)

[coolcherrycream]

Passing along a message I received yesterday:

My name is Bruce Farwell and I'd like to add a blurb to your website. Peter Tork and I were lifelong friends ever since arriving in Greenwich Village within a week or two of each other in early February 1963.

When we found each other, we got to know each other and found we had several things in common. We were both college dropouts in our junior year, Peter from Carleton College in Minnesota and me from Brown University in Rhode Island. We were born about 2 weeks apart, me on Jan. 30, 1942, and Peter on Feb. 13, 1942. We both had fathers who were economists.

Peter had gotten more deeply into folk music earlier than I had, but we were both strong folk enthusiasts and pretty good musicians. We liked each others styles, and we started singing together shortly thereafter. We played most of the Village basket houses together and a few college gigs as well. For awhile, we were joined by Carol Hunter, who later became the lead guitarist for Neil Diamond.

I joined the National Guard in late 1963 and went away for active duty in 1964. During that time, Peter played with a couple of other groups, including the Phoenix Singers along with a mutual friend and great guitarist, Lance Wakely.

When I returned to the Village in late 1964, Peter and I moved in to an apartment together. I was tired of playing basket houses, and I started auditioning for various groups, winding up with the Bitter End Singers for a couple of years. Peter later moved to the west coast, auditioned and was accepted for the Monkees, and the rest was a great story for Peter.

Nevertheless, we stayed in fairly constant contact with each other, and I saw Peter on several occasions, either alone or with one of his other groups, the Dashboard Saints, as well as in concert with the Monkees after he rejoined them for various reunion tours. I also saw him alone in a Peter Tork Retrospective concert in L.A. a few years ago.

It's hard to believe that Peter is gone now. I knew he had cancer of the mouth several years ago, but I thought he had beaten it. He was one of my very best friends and I will miss him greatly, as will many others who came to know him.

[thislovintime]

Tork & Farwell in Greenwich Village, early 1960s.

“[Peter] was a funny kind of a guy. He ran around in an old sweat shirt with ‘TORK’ lettered on the back of it and always carried his five-string banjo á la Pete Seeger. He also had what was considered ‘lots of hair’ in those days. […] Peter had a way about him. I mean, he could soften up the toughest audience. If people didn’t like his serious songs, he would play his funny ones. If they didn’t like his funny ones, he would play romantic ones. If they didn’t like his romantic songs, he would sing his ‘provocative’ ones. Usually, the audience was pretty warmed up by then — but just in case it wasn’t, Peter would throw in a spate of funny gags, followed by a series of the most comic faces one could ever see. […] In spite of all his clowning, Peter was a rather serious chap. […] Peter was a loud, powerful singer (I used to call him a romp’em, stomp’em type of singer), while I was a soft ballad singer. He had enormous stage presence and I had very little. He played the banjo, I played the guitar. […] He was restless and intense, while I was calm. He loved to be with a lot of people all of the time, whereas I liked to be completely alone some of the time. And last, but not least, Peter Tork had quite a way with the girls, while I was the shy one. […] [W]e became the unfamous, unknown duo — Tork & Farwell. Where did we work? Where didn’t we work would be more like it. We worked at the Why Not?, The Basement, The Cyclops, The Third Side, The Four Winds, The Samurai, The Dragon’s Den, The Raven, The Id — and all the time we kept adding to our repertoire. […] At that time, most people who hung around the Village were pretty phony. Peter never was. He talked hip, but basically he was a real person with a lot to offer, and he never changed. He was true to his music and he was not going to stay in the Village like a lot of the guys had. One night, when we were working at The Basement, Carol Hunter, a girl I knew, was there. She was an excellent guitarist and a groovy soloist, and kind of a wild, groovy girl. We both liked her as a friend and respected her as an artist. Peter had already sung with her once or twice. ‘Hey,’ he said to me after we did couple of numbers, ‘let’s let Carol sing with us tonight.’ ‘Good idea,’ I agreed. She knew all of our tunes, so we just got up there and wailed them out together. We felt so good about Carol that we asked her to join the group, and we rechristened ourselves Tork & Farwell Plus One. During the time that we worked as a trio, we were still passing the basket, and people wouldn’t donate any more money to Tork & Farwell Plus One than they would to just plain Tork or Farwell alone. So there we were, three people getting the ‘wages’ of one performer. Needless to say, it wasn’t enough to live off of, as none of us had any other income. I was the first one to suggest that we break up. Peter was all against it, but there really wasn’t much he could do. […] He is a great guy and he was like a brother to me. I will never forget him — intense, friendly, frank, very funny and clever with an intelligence that goes beyond book learning, and an understanding that goes beyond the surface. And as for the girls — it’s a cinch that Peter still has a way with them. He’s just doing the same thing he used to do — standing up there, making faces, grinning, jumping up and down, singing and laughing and running all about — only now he is doing it for 20 million people all over America, instead of just for a handful of tourists in Greenwich Village.” - Bruce Farwell, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967)

Requested: more about Farwell and Hunter. Did some digging and found this:

Carol Hunter — went to Julliard; worked as a session musician with Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Richie Havens, Janis Ian and more; recorded a solo album in 1973 (The Next Voice You Hear); passed away in 2018. In an interview for the website Neil Diamond Homepage (2001), Hunter noted, “From the time I was a teenager playing the little clubs in Greenwich Village in New York, I wanted to be part of a musical ensemble rather than a solo artist, and I suppose I was something of a bargain to the artists I worked with, since they got something of a two-for-one with me; guitar player plus background singer. Sometimes it was a little awkward being the only girl in the group, and sometimes the locals mistook this overly dressed-up girl with a lot of makeup hanging around backstage for something other than one of the musicians, which was occasionally hilarious.”

Bruce Farwell — Farwell mentioned in the …Here We Are! article that he “still talk[s] to Peter on the phone and see[s] him when he flies into New York.”

In 2011, Berkshire Fine Arts shared a review for an album (Heart, Heart & Soul): “A s a student at Brown, Bruce Farwell fled campus on the weekends during the early, early, ‘60s to come up to Boston and work the coffeehouse circuit. His nimble fingers and picking style earned him many fans. Dropping out of school he abandoned Boston for Greenwich Village, teamed up for awhile with Peter Tork, sometimes with Carol Hunter, and eventually became a member of The Bitter End Singers. After a hitch with the armed forces, a return to college and decades of work as a psychologist he met and married Renata Decher, with whom he now performs as Gemini.”

[thislovintime]

Peter in 1964 (photo © Andrew Sandoval); in photo 2, the Phoenix Singers (from left to right: Roy Thompson, Arthur Williams and Ned Wright) are pictured at the October 1964 Denver campaign event mentioned below (photo by Steve Fitzgerald for the Messenger & Inquirer).

“One night, I was sitting around the Kettle of Fish, the private hang-out of the folk singers who live in the Village, and Peter came in with a big grin on his face. ‘Bruce,’ he yelled, ‘I got a job, a real job!’ And when he told me how Lance Wakely (one of the best guitarists on the scene then and now) had gotten him a job backing up the Phoenix Singers, I was really happy for Peter — and he, of course, was overjoyed.” - Bruce Farwell, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967) “We worked with the Phoenix Singers for about seven months, and during the last couple of months there were bad vibrations in the air. Pete loved to clown around on stage and the Phoenix Singers didn’t dig that. Pete also disliked being ordered around or told what to do. These two elements clashed, and the fireworks that resulted were the following: It was in October 1964, and we had just finished an in-person, fund-raising concert for Lyndon B. Johnson in Denver. As I said, the pressure had been building for several months. Two of the Phoenix Singers didn’t want Pete in the group, but my buddy Ned wanted him to stay because he dug him musically. I had mixed feelings at the time. I agreed that musically Pete was excellent, but I felt that he had to cool it a bit on stage because there was a personality conflict between him and the two Phoenix Singers mentioned. […] [W]e got on the plane to New York. It was on the way from Colorado to New York, at 30,000 feet in the air, that the three Phoenix Singers had a meeting, and two against one (for Ned still dug Pete’s musicianship) they voted Tork out of the group. Peter was quiet for the whole flight, and I could tell he was not very happy. I don’t think he cared about the Phoenix Singers that much, but I think he cared about the security that the job had provided and the fun he had been having on the road. I stayed on with the Phoenix Singers for quite a while, and Pete went on to the old routine down in the Village.” - Lance Wakely, 16 Magazine, April 1967 (More about that Denver campaign event here.) “I played bass as an accompanist for a group called James Hendricks and Vanessa.” - Peter Tork, Off the Record with Steve Escobar

[thislovintime]

Tork & Farwell in Greenwich Village, early 1960s.

“When I left college the second time, I went to New York — Greenwich Village — where I scrounged around trying to make dimes and quarters to make enough to eat. Some weeks I made six or seven dollars, and I never made more than fifty. Sometimes I needed a handout from home — my father teaches at the University of Connecticut — but I got along without very much. Once I had a day job as an office boy for a music agent but got fired after a month because I couldn’t get there on time — I was burning the candle at both ends.” - Peter Tork, Seventeen, August 1967 “In spite of all his clowning, Peter was a rather serious chap. […] Peter was a loud, powerful singer (I used to call him a romp’em, stomp’em type of singer), while I was a soft ballad singer. He had enormous stage presence and I had very little. He played the banjo, I played the guitar. […] He was restless and intense, while I was calm. He loved to be with a lot of people all of the time, whereas I liked to be completely alone some of the time. And last, but not least, Peter Tork had quite a way with the girls. […] One night at the Why Not?, the owner came over and told us business wasn’t too good. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that if you guys can make a little more noise, we can get more people in off the streets. Why don’t you sing together — and loud?’ Peter and I went over to the corner and talked it over and came up with several tunes which we both knew. Soon, we were up on the stage singing Fennario, Dark As A Dungeon and Blowin’ In The Wind. We took turns wailing away a lead and then harmonizing together. […] Overnight, we became the unfamous, unknown duo — Tork & Farwell.” - Bruce Farwell, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967) “It was Aug. 3, 1963. I was on a date at the Club Rafio in Greenwich Village, N.Y. [Musicians] were on stage and no one seemed to pay much attention to them. I felt sorry and when they finished, I enthusiastically clapped and called them over to our table and told them that I thought they were great and could I have their autograph. They were totally surprised and said no one had ever asked for their autograph. They sat down with us and wrote on the Club Rafio menu: ‘To Eileen, the first to ask for our autographs. Hang onto them, they will be valuable.’ Signed Peter Thorkelson (Tork) and Bruce [Farwell].” - Eileen LaRocco, News Press, June 30, 2001 (x)

[thislovintime]

Bruce Farwell and Peter Tork onstage in Greenwich Village, early 1960s.

“As a matter of fact, the interesting thing is that it [Tork] came about because in my Greenwich Village days, I was wearing my father’s high school sweatshirt and it said ‘Tork’ on the back of it because it was his nickname. [Thorkelson] got shortened that way, and for a long time, I wasn’t even Peter Tork, I was just Tork. And some of my friends from back then still just call me Tork as though it were my first name, which is kind of funny.” - Peter Tork, DGB, February 12, 2006

Q: “Why did you get into the music business?” Peter Tork: “Approval. Respect. Love. Girls.” Q: “How did you get into the music business?” PT: “I was in Greewich Village in 1963, with some college buddy of mine, listening to some folksinger, when my buddy said, ‘go back uptown and get your banjo, you can do at least as well as this character.’ So I did, and I could and I never looked back.” - Beachwood Confidential newsletter, 1995

“When I left college the second time, I went to New York — Greenwich Village — where I scrounged around trying to make dimes and quarters to make enough to eat. Some weeks I made six or seven dollars, and I never made more than fifty. Sometimes I needed a handout from home — my father teaches at the University of Connecticut — but I got along without very much. Once I had a day job as an office boy for a music agent but got fired after a month because I couldn’t get there on time — I was burning the candle at both ends. I finally left the Village. There was only so much of that scene I could stand. I took off for the West Coast when a friend invited me out to stay with him. I began looking around for work as a singer. One place I walked into offered me a job as a dishwasher and I took it. I saved a hundred dollars in a month, making fifty dollars a week. I don’t need money. Money doesn’t mean anything to me. If you can’t be happy poor, you can’t be happy rich.” - Peter Tork, Seventeen, August 1967

“He was a funny kind of a guy. He ran around in an old sweat shirt with ‘TORK’ lettered on the back of it and always carried his five-string banjo á la Pete Seeger. He also had what was considered ‘lots of hair’ in those days. […] Peter had a way about it. I mean, he could soften up the toughest audience. If people didn’t like his serious songs, he would play his funny ones. If they didn’t like his funny ones, he would play romantic ones. If they didn’t like his romantic songs, he would sing his ‘provocative’ ones. Usually, the audience was pretty warmed up by then — but just in case it wasn’t, Peter would throw in a spate of funny gags, followed by a series of the most comic faces one could ever see. […] In spite of all his clowning, Peter was a rather serious chap. […] Peter was a loud, powerful singer (I used to call him a romp’em, stomp’em type of singer), while I was a soft ballad singer. He had enormous stage presence and I had very little. He played the banjo, I played the guitar. […] He was restless and intense, while I was calm. He loved to be with a lot of people all of the time, whereas I liked to be completely alone some of the time. And last, but not least, Peter Tork had quite a way with the girls. […] One night at the Why Not?, the owner came over and told us business wasn’t too good. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that if you guys can make a little more noise, we can get more people in off the streets. Why don’t you sing together — and loud?’

Peter and I went over to the corner and talked it over and came up with several tunes which we both knew. Soon, we were up on the stage singing Fennario, Dark As A Dungeon and Blowin’ In The Wind. We took turns wailing away a lead and then harmonizing together. Afterwards, Peter was exuberant. ‘Hey, I thought we were great, man!’ he exclaimed. I admitted to myself that I owed it a lot at the time, but I remembered that my main interest was to become a soulful folk singer. ‘Hey,’ Peter raved on, ‘let’s become a duet.’ Well, it took me a couple of days to make up my mind, but there wasn’t much money and when I got good and hungry I found Peter and we started rehearsing together at his apartment on Bedford Street. Overnight, we became the unfamous, unknown duo — Tork & Farwell. Where did we work? Where didn’t we work would be more like it. We worked at the Why Not?, The Basement, The Cyclops, The Third Side, The Four Winds, The Samurai, The Dragon’s Den, The Raven, The Id — and all the time we kept adding to our repertoire. […] I had moved into an apartment on Broome Street and Peter had had to give up his Bedford Street pad due to a lack of funds. So he started rooming at my place, occasionally. Let me tell you, it was really ‘enchanting.’ A five story walk-up, just off New York’s infamous Bowery. […] Things got tougher and tougher, and Peter finally had to take a job writing music arrangements, just to pay his share of the rent. One night Peter got sick and went home to Connecticut to stay for a few days. I went off to the mid-west on a gig, and when we both came home we found that our apartment had been robbed. All of my instruments were gone. Fortunately, Peter had taken his banjo and guitar with him. […] He is a great guy and he was like a brother to me. I will never forget him — intense, friendly, frank, very funny and clever with an intelligence that goes beyond book learning, and an understanding that goes beyond the surface. And as for the girls — it’s a cinch that Peter still has a way with them. He’s just doing the same thing he used to do — standing up there, making faces, grinning, jumping up and down, singing and laughing and running all about — only now he is doing it for 20 million people all over America, instead of just for a handful of tourists in Greenwich Village.” - Bruce Farwell, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967)