Terri Thal was part of the 1960’s Greenwich Village folk music world. She was Bob Dylan’s first manager shortly after the 21-year-old musician came to New York City. She also managed Dave Van Ronk (her then-husband and always friend) and others, including Maggie and Terre Roche and the Holy Modal Rounders. Her apartment on Waverly Place was a gathering place for musicians such as Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton; and her “home away from home” was the now-legendary Gaslight Café on MacDougal Street, where she met and hung out with old-timers like Mississippi John Hurt.

Terri Thal’s other passion is social justice. She was a member of a socialist organization through most of the 1960s, worked with civil rights and civil liberties groups, lost a job because of FBI intervention, and later meshed her professional work in not-for-profit organizations with her work for social change.  

When you meet Thal, she’ll talk mostly about her folk music world, which she says was musically exciting, professionally supportive, and one in which people had fun. What was it like to be the young, female manager of Van Ronk and Dylan? She’ll tell you. Why did she become involved in the left-wing movement just after the McCarthy era? She’s figured that out. Questions? She’ll answer them.    

She’ll sign copies of her book, My Greenwich Village: Dave, Bob and Me (McNidder & Grace).