Alumni Bulletin - Winter 2009 - (Page 26)

United States, and many don’t have that folk room feel that Godfrey’s has.” THE LEHIGH CONNECTION That “folk room feel” that’s so special to Forbert and generations of other musicians and audience members has its roots just a block north at Lehigh University. “Lehigh had quite a folk scene on campus during the late ’60s and early ’70s, and I got involved,” Fry says. Fellow Drinker Hall dorm mate Robert “LA” Williams also was part of that Lehigh scene, and the two became fast friends. (Williams completed the last two From left, admission to a Godfrey Daniels show includes a token good for a free beverage or cookie; musical instruments, including this hungry guitar, adorn the walls; eclectic gewgaws, including a bust of W.C. Fields, the man who inspired the coffeehouse’s name, watch over shows; Fry performs at Lower Macungie Elementary School in the Lehigh Valley; Fry includes the children as part of the show. “ Godfrey’s is the quintessential It’s place for the folk scene. the real deal. seed of an idea that had been planted with The Catacombs into Godfrey Daniels. “I mentioned to the owner of Lehigh Tavern (now the Fun House on Fourth Street) that it would be nice to have a nonbar listening room around here. He told me the doughnut shop next door was for sale and, with a cadre of friends, we put it together and opened on the first day of spring in 1976,” Fry reminisces with a smile. The folksy décor of Godfrey’s owes much to Lehigh. “It was really important to Dave that Godfrey’s have a Lehigh connection. And so the walls were painted Lehigh brown, and the pews were discards from Packer Chapel,” Williams says. The paint color isn’t the only thing on the walls with a Lehigh connection. Caricatures, the works of Gene Mater ’71, add a comic nature to the serious venue that doesn’t take itself seriously. Antique musical instruments, records, W.C. Fields photos, and posters have also been added over the years—many by patrons. Why W.C. Fields? That’s how the venue got its name. Unable to swear on ” years of his B.A. in anthropology at Boston University, then moved back to Bethlehem.) The center of the scene was an underground coffeehouse. “Somebody got the idea to turn the basement of Packer Chapel into a coffeehouse,” Williams recalls. “We called it The Catacombs and people played there. It was a lot of fun.” Fry and Williams played together locally in what Fry often referred to as “a sophisticated jug band” called the Shimerville Sheiks. The band, a group of mostly Lehigh friends, also included Roy Smith, the late Jerry Bastoni, Chris Simmons, and Will Hart. They played a mix of Irish, folk, English, country, and rock. “It was a great time,” Williams says. “We were just college buds playing together.” Home base for the group was a “hippy- dippy farm,” as Fry recalls, in Seisholtzville, a village outside of Shimerville, Pa. After graduation, Fry worked a construction job during the day and played music in the evenings. He loved performing, and the Lehigh Valley club scene was hopping, but he was beginning to tire of noisy bars with chaotic atmospheres. “I wanted to sit down, watch somebody play, and be able to listen,” he says. A trip to Caffe Lena, a legendary coffeehouse and folk music listening room in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., helped turn the 26 LEHIGH UMNIULLETIN AL B

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Alumni Bulletin - Winter 2009

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