Rick Allmen opened the Café Bizarre in 1957, one of the first Beat Generation clubs in Greenwich Village. Odetta was the opening night headliner. Jazz acts followed and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg had readings there. Larry Love, the Singing Canary, landed his first paid engagement at the Bizarre in 1962. Love later changed his name to Tiny Tim.

Jackie Gleason was born February 26, 1916. Gleason’s formative years were spent in Brooklyn. where he grew up, went to school and honed his comedic skills in the borough’s bars and vaudeville theaters. Enjoy this excerpt, the introduction of the eBook The REAL Brooklyn of Jackie Gleason and The Honeymooners.

Nils Lofgren is best known for his solo work as a singer-songwriter and as a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and Neil Young’s band, Crazy Horse. But in 1968, Lofgren was 17, a struggling musician who’d left Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, MD, and headed for New York City.

The Eternals were a doo wop group that formed in New York’s South Bronx. “Sometimes when we would sing in theaters they would say, ‘The Eternals, the only Hispanic, all-Puerto Rican group in the history of doo wop.’ And that made us proud,” lead singer Charlie Girona told NBC News.

"The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep." — Woody Allen

The Anderson Theater at 66 Second Avenue was named after theatrical agent Phyllis Anderson. The hall opened in 1957 and presented Yiddish plays through the 1960s. In 1968 Crawdaddy magazine sponsored a series of rock shows that featured the Yardbirds, Traffic, Procol Harum, Moby Grape, and Big Brother & the Holding Company with Janis Joplin.

As a budding musician, Richard Lloyd, the former guitarist, singer, and songwriter of the band Television attended many Fillmore East shows without buying a ticket. In this excerpt from the book Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever, Lloyd recalls his ploys to get the best seat in the house: backstage at Fillmore East.

“Spanish Harlem” was Ben E. King’s first hit after leaving the Drifters. Written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector, the song was a №15 hit on the R&B chart in 1960. The song’s arrangement by Stan Applebaum features Spanish guitar and marimba to suggest the neighborhood’s Latino population and cultural heritage.

Opened in the 1880s, the Chelsea Hotel has been a temporary home for many writers, artists, and actors. Years of disrepair earned the hotel its seedy reputation, which did nothing to discourage scores of musicians from visiting.

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” — W. C. Fields

Genya Ravan fronted Ten Wheel Drive, the dynamic horn band formed in 1969. On Feb 6–7, 1971, Ten Wheel Drive performed at Fillmore East on a bill that featured bluesman Luther Allison, who opened the show, and headliner Steppenwolf.

In May 1981, the Clash — Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon — were in New York City to promote their album Sandinista! The British punk rockers were too popular for a small club like CBGB but were not yet ready to headline an arena like Shea Stadium, where they would open for The Who in 1982. Bond International Casino, which held 3,500 people, was ideal. Eight shows were originally scheduled.