Correction appendedImagine seeing Bob Dylan perform "Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance" for $2.50 or singing along to Pete Seeger and his banjo in an overcrowded Schwartz Hall. Picture yourself as a witness to the folk revival of the late 1950s and early '60s, swaying to the signature blues holler of Reverend Gary Davis or the sounds of the New Lost City Ramblers, an old-time string band.

The Brandeis Folk Festival, established in 1963, was an annual weekend of folk, blues and other traditional American "roots" music held on the Brandeis campus until at least 1967. After that, there is no mention of the festival in the Brandeis records. The festival recently made the news when a rare Bob Dylan recording was discovered at the home of Ralph J. Gleason, co-founder of Rolling Stone, according to Charles Radin director of Global Communications and Operations in the Office of Communications, in an article on BrandeisNOW. The recording was a tape of one of Dylan's earlier performances-an acoustic set performed at Brandeis at the first annual Brandeis Folk Festival in 1963.

The festival was in keeping with the spirit of the times, when folk music was flourishing. In the Vietnam War era, "folk music was where the songs of conscience were surfacing," recalls Arthur Levy '69, a former manager of Cholmondeley's. "Folk music has always had a big part to play in [social protest]," he adds.

It is clear that the student staff of Chum's greatly contributed to the founding of the Brandeis Folk Festival. "The Folk Fest was certainly an outgrowth from the folk music activity that was going on at Cholmondoley's. . [It] was a hotbed of folk music activity all through the '60s," says Levy. He remembers a time when he could book a folk act for $75 or $125 on a Saturday night, stressing the significance of Chum's as a meeting place for students-"It was the place to be."

Howard Barkan '67 and Greg Prestopino '69 both helped book acts at Chum's during their undergraduate years. Prestopino was especially active in the Brandeis music community, performing in a band called The Essential Noise. The staff at Chum's and the radio-show hosts at WBRS played a part in defining the music scene at Brandeis and the surrounding Boston suburbs. They also helped dictate the music acts for the Brandeis Folk Fest. Levy and Geoff Belinfante '69, who worked for WBRS along with Norman Winer '69, the host of "Out of the Norm," played progressive rock music over the airwaves and, according to Belinfante, Winer's late-night program was aired across the suburbs.

The staff at Chum's and WBRS informed Boston-based music manager Manny Greenhill of Folklore Productions of what acts they liked. "At that time, I was really into hillbilly country music, very old-timey," remembers Barkan. Greenhill then booked acts like the Charles River Valley Boys, Pete Seeger and the Silver Leaf Gospel singers for the first annual Brandeis Folk Festival.

Perhaps one of the most significant performances occurred at that first Festival, when a 21-year-old Bob Dylan hit the stage. He was described as "one of the new and most exciting blues performers" in an Apr. 30, 1963 issue of the Justice. According to the Justice, the rest of that night's lineup included Jean Redpath, a Scottish balladeer; the Lilly Brothers, from Boston's hillbilly Ranch; and the Silver Leaf Gospel singers among other country, blues and old-time folk acts. The Brandeis Folk Festival was small, but nevertheless, Brandeis managed to host some "top-notch, top-quality folk artists at the time," remembers a former festival organizer, Mitchell Kertzman, who attended Brandeis from 1966 to 1968.

"It was an incredible thing to be part of," recalls Levy. He remembers the wide array of music at the Brandeis Folk Fest; "big acts, local acts, white Appalachian acts like Jean Redpath and Roscoe Holcomb, as well as Delta country bluesmen like Mance Lipscomb and Son House."

The Brandeis Folk Festival also included square dancing and music workshops. The mission of the Festival was to "enable students not only to observe talent, but to share in the artists' creativity as well," according to an article published in an Oct. 3, 1967 issue of the Justice. Performers like Bob Siggins of the Charles River Valley Boys conducted guitar and banjo workshops in spaces across campus, according to the 1963 issue of the Justice. At the third annual Folk Festival in 1965, there was a banjo contest in the Olin-Sang Auditorium. The winner received a Vega brand banjo and the opportunity to play in the Saturday closing performance with blues performers like Judy Roderick and 69-year-old Mance Lipscomb, as reported by the Justice on Apr. 13, 1965. Concerts were widely attended by the student body. Howard Barkan's younger brother, Jon Barkan '71, recalls the festival in 1967.

"I remember what it was like to sit in the gym, and everybody went to these concerts. We just loved the Chambers Brothers," says Jon Barkan.

Kertzman considers the Summer of Love (the summer of 1967) as a turning point for music. The media began to acknowledge the countercultural "hippy" movement. Kertzman remembers it as "a very interesting transition from the folk era into the psychedelic era of underground rock. . It was a fascinating time in every dimension." In fact, at the last reported Folk Festival in 1967, the Chambers Brothers sang their normal "mixture of Gospel, rock, rhythm and blues," but concluded with "a twenty minute venture into psychedelic rock called 'Time Has Come Today,'" as reported in an Oct. 25, 1968 issue of the Justice.

The relevance of folk music began to wane in the late 1960s, perhaps explaining the apparent discontinuance of the festival after 1967. "Folk music was the journalism of the time. . the communication of [protest songs and poetry] was as vital as any newspaper," Levy says. "But by '69 and '70, it all changed; the end of the war in Vietnam was in sight." The festival faded from sight. "I don't remember it ending, but I don't remember it continuing, let's just say that," adds Levy. An attempt was made to host the Boston Folk Festival on the Brandeis campus in 1988, the Boston Globe reported on May 18, 1987. However, the Folk Arts Network was unable to raise the $300,000 necessary for the project. In an Aug. 17, 1987 issue of the Globe, FAN founder Stephen Baird explained, "The support simply wasn't there."

The story isn't so bleak. The spirit of the Brandeis Folk Festival was revived at last year's Leonard Bernstein's Festival of the Creative Arts with the re-introduction of a folk stage at Slosberg Music Center. The folk stage hosted up-and-coming singers such as Sarah Jarosz, a 2010 Grammy nominee, and Liz Longley, an International Acoustic Music Awards winner.

Correction: The article originally misspelled the surname of three individuals in an article. They are Mance Lipscomb, Judy Roderick and Mitchell Kertzman, not Mance Lipscome, Judy Roderich and Mitchell Kerzmann.