Jan. 26, 1974: The evolution of folksinger Jerry Raven

 

Buffalo’s folksong stalwart steps out of the Limelight … his Limelight Gallery coffeehouse, that is. 

Jan. 26, 1974

Folk Singer Raven Plays a Strolling Minstrel 

JERRY RAVEN rests the trident fork in mid-salad and cocks an ear to the taped music floating like an Elizabethan perfume through the elegant Saturday night multitude assembled in the great Hall of the Park Lane Manor.

          “Hear that?” he whispers in revelation. “It’s Steeleye Span!”

* * *

IT CERTAINLY IS. And nobody else knows it. When the British folk-rock group fades into an 18th century jig without a trace, there’s an impish grin on the creator of that private joke, that modern kink in that Olde English tape.

          Like the tape, there’s more to restaurateur Peter Gust Economou’s new medieval world enterprise on Gates Circle than meets the eye. Jerry’s good for those revelations too.

          Such as how the architect began as a set designer (“You’ll notice how the lighting brings certain things out,” Jerry confides), how the plans were laid after an extensive study of European manors, the imported brick, which manor fireplace the one in the Great Hall is a replica of, the Anne of 1,000 Days chandelier.

          What’s more, the Park Lane Manor’s Olde English fantasy seems custom-made for Jerry.

          As musical consultant and a strolling minstrel on long-term contract for every night but Monday, he seems as much at home in the Great Hall as he does in the Limelight Gallery, the coffeehouse and folksong center at Franklin and Edward that he’s run since 1960.

          Wearing a red Sherwood Forest jerkin sewn by his wife, Carol, he strolls from table to table with a guitar, chatting, joking, taking requests.

          “The Park Lane is nothing but groovy people to work for,” he exclaims. “When they called me up and said can you come down and talk about being a balladeer, I didn’t have to bring a guitar. I didn’t audition.

          “I watched them build whole rooms in there. I was really quite taken with it. Instead of building a building and decorating it, they built it from the foundations up like a 16th century manor house.”

* * *

YEARS OF memories of Jerry’s singing can’t recall a time when his voice sounded better. In a warm, bemused baritone, he serenades not just one table at a time, but the hall at large through the sound system. His secret? An electronic transmitter attached to his belt.

          “My origins in commercial folk music were great for this. It taught me all kinds of songs,” he says. “You remember how it was in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. There were all those old English ballads, those international songs.

          “The people who come into the Park Lane are from a broad spectrum and they’re generally well-traveled. Maybe someone wants to hear a song like they heard in Acapulco last year. Well, I can play them ‘Malegueña.’

          “I make them feel great and I get a feeling back from them: ‘It’s great what you’re doing.’ It’s like a synergy thing, it gets neater and neater and neater.”

* * *

JERRY’S GOT a personal synergy going as well. There seem to be more opportunities popping up for him at 35 than there were in those youthful days in the ‘60s when he and Don Hackett – Hackett & Raven – reigned over Buffalo’s folk music kingdom.

          Between phone calls and big, irrepressible barking dogs in the century-old house he and Carol have in lower Allentown, Jerry’s possibilities and plans and accomplishments dance about like precocious children.

          The phone calls are coming in on two of these enterprises. First for a folksinging job he’s trying to fill in a Niagara Falls hotel for which he’s been entertainment consultant as a result of his work at the Park Lane. Secondly, there’s the Limelight, which Carol runs in his absence.

* * *

“IT’S STILL an entity,” Jerry says, “and the stage is open for single performers who need development in a sympathetic environment. People listen to what’s going on on stage there.

          “Not just anybody can walk in and play. We do maintain a scale. Someone calls and says, ‘Hey, can I play?’ and I tell them to come down to the Sunday night hootenanny.

          “We get to hear them and they get to play for the crowd they’ll have to please if they play there regularly. We’ve found a lot of good people that way.

          “Carol does the business end. Other than being my wife and all that entails, Carol’s been a good person for me. As a performer and musician type, you go through stages as you go along and sometimes these stages are very down stages. She’s made sure my head’s stayed where it’s at.”

* * *

IN THE WORKS is a move for the Limelight. From its 14-year hangout to an ancient brick house being renovated a block north at Franklin and Virginia. Sometime this spring.

          Claire Livingston, his partner in Young Audiences programs in public schools, owns the place. The new Limelight will have three main rooms, one secluded from the stage.

          Jerry’s even more excited about doing movies with Buffalo photographer and commercial film producer Sherman Greenberg. One is a bank in-house film for employees. The other is independent.

          “Sherman says he doesn’t feel right unless he’s got a relevant project going,” Jerry says. “He had me sing some songs one night at the Park Lane and asked me to write five or 10 minutes of music for a film.”

          What emerged was 26 minutes of music based on a Brave New World theme – including a political lullaby and a general affirmation that people can, and must, change things even as they happen.

* * *

SONGWRITING never was one of Jerry’s concerns. “Until last year, I felt I couldn’t write songs as good as other people’s,” he says.

          But now he has a growing collection of homegrown songs, some of which he’s shown to enthusiastic old music business friends in Woodstock. He plays a demo tape. There’s possibilities of recording.

          Especially good are the John Masefield sea ballads he’s set to music, among them a reflective “I Must Go Down to the Sea Again” and a catchy picaresque tale called “Cape Horn Gospel.”

          Suddenly it’s getting late to depart for the Park Lane. Jerry wants to get there a little early, besides. Somebody’s having a surprise birthday dinner and they’ve decided that a wandering balladeer is just the one to break the good news.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: Jerry Raven as troubadour.

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FOOTNOTE: Jerry Raven founded a folk group called the Hill Brothers in 1977 that performed extensively in schools from Albany to Cleveland to Pittsburgh. A glimpse of his work with kids can be seen at jerryraven.com. His system, called “Learning Through Songs and Movement,” takes learning the alphabet and turns it into fun.

Young Audiences of Western New York has honored him for his “ongoing commitment to learning in and through the arts.” The full array of Hill Brothers programs for kids can be found on the Young Audiences website.

Currently living in Florida, he was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in 2009.