{"id":1090,"date":"2025-04-19T12:51:45","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T12:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2025-04-19T12:51:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T12:51:45","slug":"how-chicago-coffeehouses-shaped-folk-musics-revival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1090","title":{"rendered":"How Chicago coffeehouses shaped folk music’s revival"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

When, in the late 1960s, Kathy Garness wandered down a cobblestone block to the corner of Lunt and Glenwood avenues, she had no idea that the Rogers Park<\/a> coffeehouse she found there would change her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember seeing this kind of cavernous place there. It was all dark, but there was music coming from it,\u201d Garness says of her first encounter with No Exit coffeehouse. <\/i>\u201cI could smell teas and the coffee \u2026 a whole ambiance that wafted out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garness was one of countless youth in their teens and twenties who made coffeehouses like No Exit into a second home in Chicago. She even attributes her work as a botanical artist and natural lands steward for the Northern Illinois region to the politics and environmentalism she was exposed to there.<\/p>\n

No Exit and many other similar Chicago caf\u00e9s \u2014 notably It\u2019s Here, the Amazingrace, the Why?, Medici on 57th and Ali\u2019s on 63rd \u2014 were all part of the folk revival movement. From the end of the 1950s through the early 1970s, acoustic music and songs from rural areas became popular with the American public \u2014 especially young people.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n<\/picture>\n
\n

No Exit, It\u2019s Here and the Why? cafes were all part of the folk revival movement.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/p>\n

\n

Sun-Times file; courtesy of Tom Barret<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Coffeehouses were key to that growth, offering young audiences and the musicians who played for them a safe gathering place without alcohol.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had a whole audience of younger people who had never heard this music before, and it sounded much more raw and real than what was happening on the radio,\u201d says Mark Guarino, author of \u201cCountry and Midwestern: Chicago and the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival.\u201d \u201cIt really was kind of an underground subculture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n \"Steve<\/p>\n<\/picture>\n
\n

Many of the folk performers who became household names \u2014 like Steve Goodman, left \u2014 got their first gigs at these coffeehouses. Other locally famous performers included Art Thieme and Dodie Kallick.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/p>\n

\n

Sun-Times file; Sun-Times File; C.T. Thieme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n \"John<\/p>\n<\/picture>\n
\n

Major artists like John Denver, shown here in a 1971 concert, would perform in coffeehouses as well as big venues while on tour.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Many of the folk performers who became household names \u2014 like Steve Goodman, Michael Smith and Fred Holstein \u2014 got their first gigs at these coffeehouses. They often began as music fans themselves, seeing other folkies play and joining this burgeoning community of Chicago.<\/p>\n

One was Art Thieme, who was a regular performer at No Exit for over three decades. The owner at the time, Joe Moore, gave him his first chance in 1959. Thieme died in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had a $1 cover, and he made one-quarter [of whatever money came in],\u201d says Thieme\u2019s son, C.T. Thieme. \u201cIt cost him more to get back home than he made that night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore credits Dodie Kallick, another local musician, as the originator of folk music at the No Exit. Once Kallick was a consistent act, more musicians and folk fans followed. \u201c[It\u2019s] how the coffee shop worked \u2014 things grew in it,\u201d Moore said in a 1977 interview<\/a>. \u201c[A] chess tournament grew in it, the folk singing grew in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without the coffeehouses, young people would have been locked out of the live music scene. Some community organizations, like the YMCA, even set up coffeehouses because they were so motivated for young people to have a social place that didn\u2019t depend on alcohol.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n \"Photo<\/p>\n<\/picture>\n
\n

A group of young fans (top) get excited before a Steve Goodman and John Prine performance at the Chicago Fest main stage in 1981. Steve Goodman and fellow musicians John Prine, Jimmy Buffett, Fred Holstein and Ed Holstein (bottom) enjoy a meal in Goodman\u2019s apartment in 1972. <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Other caf\u00e9s opened explicitly as performance venues \u2014 It\u2019s Here, also in Rogers Park, could seat several hundred people. It was known as \u201cKiddie Big Time,\u201d after the local young folk hopefuls who would get the chance to perform when the era\u2019s biggest stars, including John Denver and Joni Mitchell, weren\u2019t putting on a show.<\/p>\n

Looking back, many of the regulars from the \u201960s and \u201970s say these places helped shape them and find their community. That impact lives on: Lesley Kozin, whose parents owned No Exit after Moore, says that even today at her favorite neighborhood bar, she\u2019ll instinctively look up when someone enters to see if she knows who it is \u2014 just as she would do at the No Exit.<\/p>\n

Kozin says of the pull of the community: \u201cIf it was a place that called to you, you may never leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n \"Collage<\/p>\n<\/picture>\n
\n

No Exit became popular for chess tournaments each Sunday (top left). Owners Brian and Sue Kozin (top right) at No Exit. The stuffed armadillo on the mantle above the No Exit Stage (bottom left) was named Claude for his saddle and reins, after actor Claude Rains. Claude can still be found in the old No Exit storefront, now Le Piano. A photo of Roger Benson, Jan Burda and Vic Radin (bottom right) in 1981 at No Exit.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/p>\n

\n

Sun-Times file; Rogers Park West Ridge Historical Society; C.T. Thieme. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

By the late 1970s, the heyday of the folk revival had passed, and caf\u00e9s either had to adapt or shutter. In 1977, Leslie\u2019s parents, who had been regulars and employees, bought No Exit.<\/p>\n

For the coffeehouse to survive, Brian and Sue Kozin turned it into a venue for more than just folk music. In the \u201980s and \u201990s, No Exit put on poetry readings and comedy nights. Comedian Michael Shannon performed there regularly for several years; he went on to write No Exit into a sketch on \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the essential character of the community didn\u2019t change. Over the 22 years they owned No Exit, the Kozins spent almost as much time chatting with close friends at the regulars table as they did behind the counter. No one around to answer the phone or make a drink? No problem \u2014 any patron was welcome to do it themselves.<\/p>\n

The Kozins would host No Exit holiday parties as well. \u201cThe No Exit Thanksgivings were epic,\u201d Lesley says. \u201cIt was just a bunch of us \u2014 we call ourselves hippie cousins.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n \"Snapshots<\/p>\n<\/picture>\n
\n

Snapshots from performers and patrons at No Exit.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/p>\n

\n

Rogers Park West Ridge Historical Society<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n \"A<\/p>\n<\/picture>\n
\n

A mural commemorating No Exit still stands at Lunt and Glenwood avenues in Rogers Park.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/p>\n

\n

Rogers Park West Ridge Historical Society<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2000, No Exit was one of the last of its kind to close in Chicago. It held on for as long as it did because of the Kozins\u2019 passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just never made any money off the damn place. \u2026 We barely made a living,\u201d Brian Kozin says. \u201cYou know, it\u2019s about the music. It\u2019s not about the money. If it were about the money, we wouldn\u2019t have been there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with these coffeehouses, young Chicagoans lost an important \u201cthird space\u201d \u2014 a place to call their own, spend hours talking with friends and see local musicians try out new songs. \u201cI would love to see something like that return again,\u201d C.T. Thieme says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n