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11 October 2024

7 thoughts on “MY YORKVILLE VILLAGE MEMORIES

  1. I saw two different live shows in Yorkville (Tim Hardin and Johnny Hartford)…my problem is I cannot remember the name of the coffeehouse. Is there an available list of names?

    1. Many of the coffee houses in Yorkville supported local talent, and could not afford to pay musicians much to play. Tim Hardin and John Hartford were both well-known American folk/bluegrass legends and I have to think they were playing at the Riverboat when you saw them. Check out details on the Riverboat coffee house on the Internet.

    1. Very difficult to focus on Yorkville Village without including other scenes, such as Rochdale, but for brevity I did so. The banner photo, showing a young Buffy Ste Marie, is actually of a protest rally held in Queen’s Park in the late 60s. Queen’s Park is a green space surrounded by the provincial parliament buildings and University of Toronto. It is within a couple of blocks of Yorkville, and no doubt gathered an audience from the Village. Ste Marie is still performing and protesting and is famous for writing several well-known folk songs, including Universal Soldier.

      1. Hi Cindy.. Your memory is wrong !! I am Bobbi Lee Justice lead singer for Bobbi Lee and The Scepters and we were the house band at The Mynah Bird from 64 to 66 and also the original ” Mynah Birds ” and first to record The Mynah Bird song for Colin Kerr and Rajah the Mynah Bird … Neil Young and Rick James version of The Mynah Birds and came after us… They never played or were house band at Mynah Bird from 64 to 67 .. We were !! This is well documented on the web if you had done your research so please make the correction and give credit to who were the actual house band at Mynah Bird .. Thank You. BLJ

        1. Bobbie Lee, please accept my apologies if my comments on The Mynah Bird offended you, and convey them also to Dan Roach. I did indeed do research on the Mynah Bird and did not come across your name, using several Internet sites, especially Wikipedia, and also scholarly books from Brock U. library. The “history” of Yorkville is still based on the recollections of those who were there (that will change in a few years when we are all gone). This is far from reliable, and in fact is sometimes prone to bias on the part of who is telling the story. However, these personal stories should be retained, even if they clash with others, to preserve the colour of the times. Give me some time to make changes, and I will note your involvement in my article.

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