Audience
When I first came back to Canada from New York City, I was shocked by the audience's reaction to performers. They just sat there and then, at the end, they would clap, sometimes politely, sometimes very heartily, but just clap. Nobody moved to the music. Nobody grooved to the music. They just sat there and, at the end, they clapped. In New York, on the folk scene in the 60s, those were our people up there on stage and we were listening to them and watching them make mistakes but hearing what they were doing. It was a creative period happening with people we knew personally up on a stage and singing songs that we were familiar with. It was part of our subculture, I guess you could call it. I had the good fortune to attend several performances at New York City's Apollo Theatre up in Harlem and I saw there an audience like you would not believe. The black culture there was embodied in the music. Embodied is a good word for it. What was going on there on stage was refle...