Folk music in Yorkville to 1962; the after-hours clubs

We’ll cover the early history of Yorkville Village and its emergence as a Bohemian hotspot in the early 1960s. The Purple Onion, the Village Corner and the Half Beat provided a home for Toronto’s growing folk music scene, including emerging artists like Ian and Sylvia and Buffy Sainte-Marie. After-hours clubs like the House of Hambourg, the First Floor Club and the Bohemian Embassy hosted jazz and folk music. Club Blue Note on Yonge was the rhythm and blues hotspot with electrifying house bands and guest singers like Shawne & Jay Jackson and Shirley Matthews, who scored a major hit with “Big Town Boy.”