The Great Louie Lefkowitz

It came up just the other day. Who was the best blues harmonica player ever? Someone to my right mentioned a member of a successful band. I almost choked on my soup. Then, one by one, my friends rolled off a list of their favorites: John Lee Curtis, Little Walker, Sonny Terry, and Charlie Musselwhite. All outstanding harpists and masters of the blues vibe.*

“But,” I interposed, ” you forgot Louie Lefkowitz.” There was an incredulous “Who?” from the far end of the table. That’s when I started telling them about Lefkowitz and his unique abilities. Lefkowitz was in the Village at the same time as me. Anytime someone was playing blues at a local club or bar, you would likely find Louie backing them up on harp. Lots of us went just to hear him play. He was sought after because he could make a so-so guitarist sound like a million dollars. Every once in a while, he’d back me up, and I always felt that there was something special about those nights.

But Lefkowitz had other abilities, too. Given a theme, he could compose a satirical ditty on the spot right out of his head. We’d be sitting around in the back room at Rienzi’s, and Louie would pop in. Someone would comment on what was happening in New York City politics, and out would pop a satyrical verse.

Lefkowitz was also hard to miss. He was short and skinny, Black, and very Jewish. He spoke English, Yiddish, and badly accented Spanish. Like most of us, he had an intricate backstory that was parsed just so as to conceal some of the parts we preferred to hide. In those days, nothing in Greenwich Village was quite what it let on. The mystique was an essential part of the existence. But Louie had the mystique by the horns and shook it up. Not much to look at, but you focused on him as soon as he played the harp.

He upset people, too. Just about a week before I blew the scene to head to Boston, we were all sitting around Rienzi’s Coffeehouse as Louie taught us the words to a newly created satire of Dylan’s “Hey, Mr. Tamborine Man.” Just about then the man himself walks in. Louie stands up like a conductor, waves his hands, and goes 1 and 2 and – “Hey, Mr. Tangerine man….” and leads us through the verses about Dylan and his then-girlfriend. Dylan turned without a word and walked out.

As I mentioned, I hitched up to Boston to look for a gig about a week later and returned late in the fall. In those days, that was an entire generation in the Village. Folk Rock had started appearing in the clubs. A new crop of Dylan and Baez wannabes had appeared, and many of my friends had split the scene. Lefkowitz was one of the departees.

Where did he go? My Ex, Sue, thought that he’d gone back to Brooklyn. Someone else mentioned that they heard he enrolled at Yeshiva and was serious about becoming a Rabbi. Louie had always taken his faith very seriously.
I knew just a bit more about Louie than was expected on MacDougall Street. He was the son of a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant and a Nigerian woman whom his father had met at the UN. Educated at private schools and a resident of Brooklyn, he was not really the street-savvy tough guy he pretended to be. But like me, he understood that walking the walk and talking the talk was a part of performing. Who’s going to take you seriously on a stage in Greenwich Village when they hear that you went to fancy private schools and chummed around with the kids of the diplomatic community? So, you were a high school dropout from Brooklyn.

I have no idea what happened to Lefkowitz. Like my Road Bum persona, he may have simply dissolved as other events shaped his life. But I was adamant in maintaining to my friends that the great Louis Lefkowitz had to be in the Top Ten.

We old Folkies have to stick together; there are few of us left!

• So you heard the bit about “you can’t make up stuff like this?” It’s true. I’ve fictionalied bits of this, but it is based on true events, and real people. Like lots of the 60’s and 70’s scenes they were as much fantasy as reality.