Before it became home to wealthy yuppies, Greenwich Village was for decades an enclave of bohemian artists — and the site of a musical renaissance in the 1960s that grew out of the folk movement and political protests.
Documentarian Laura Archibald has rounded up an impressive group of survivors, some of whom went west as singer-songwriters decades ago (Judy Collins, Kris Kristofferson, Michelle Phillips and John Sebastian) as well as elder statesmen such as Pete Seeger and Oscar Brand.
Carly Simon and her sister Lucy Simon, who performed as the Simon Sisters, recall when they declined an invitation to join the Smothers Brothers in “something sexual,’’ while José Feliciano does a devastating impression of Bob Dylan (who is represented by a 1961 radio interview and one of many rare clips in the film).
Perhaps the most fascinating vintage footage in “Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation’’ depicts what happened in 1961 when the city sent police into Washington Square Park to stop the longtime Sunday practice of singing without a required permit.
The crowd sang “The Star-Spangled Banner’’ as arrests were made in what the press labeled a “beatnik riot,’’ which presaged antiwar protests later in the decade.