Freight and Salvage Coffee House

ABOUT FREIGHT Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse is an all-ages, non-smoking, alcohol-free performance venue located in Berkeley, California. Coffee, teas, sodas, desserts, and light snacks are available at the Freight food counter. Youth 21 years of age and under are admitted half-price. Senior discount is $1.00 Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse Berkeley Society for the Preservation of Traditional Music) is a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of traditional and roots music We are supported by your attendance, grants from the Alameda County ARTSFUND, Berkeley Civic Arts Program, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Edmund and Jeannik Littlefield Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Bernard Osher Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, Drs. Ben and A. Jess Shenson Foundation at the San Francisco Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation, musicians benefit performances, volunteer efforts, and your generous annual donations. The Freight's superb sound system is composed of speakers and amplifiers exclusively designed and installed by Meyer Sound Labs of Berkeley. We offer our sincere thanks to the folks at Meyer Sound for the generous support and assistance they have provided year after year. Their contribution has been indispensable in establishing the Freight is a premier listening room. FREIGHT HISTORY Berkeley, California, in the 1960s, was characterized by a free-wheeling mix of anti-establishment politics, radical life-style experimentation, struggles for racial and gender equality, and a profound respect for traditional cultures able to survive and even flourish outside commercial "mainstream This ethos was vitally linked to the city's music scene. Country Joe & The Fish, Barbara Dane, Alice Stuart, Asleep at the Wheel, Lightin' Hopkins, R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders, Brownie McGee, Utah Phillips, the East Bay Sharks, the Cleanliness & Godliness Skiffle Band are just a few of the artists who contributed to and were nurtured by this mix. Performance venues, including the Odyssey, the Cabale, the Jabberwock, New Orleans House, the Longbranch Saloon, Keystone, Mandrakes, and the New Monk, all had periods of glory. Today, there is but one performance venue that continues to reflect those heady times. Since its founding in 1968, the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse has been deeply rooted in that aspect of Berkeley's culture that embraced freedom, tolerance, cooperation, and innovation. It has resisted the bottom line mentality, and, instead, has been a mission-driven non-profit organization. The club not only survives, it has become a world famous venue for traditional music, be it folk, jazz, blues, bluegrass, world-beat, or gospel It all began when Nancy Owens took over the lease and the name of a failing used furniture store at 1827 San Pablo Avenue. Keeping her predecessor's business sign, telephone number, and yellow page listing, she re-opened the door as an 87-seat coffee house in June of 1968. "It was the first place that was available, " Nancy recounts. "I had a vision of a place where people could be whatever they wanted to be, as individuals and as members of a community. Almost immediately, kindred souls gathered around and gifted musicians emerged to fill the room with song." In those days, everything was done by hand. Volunteers baked cakes and cookies brewed tea and coffee on a small stove, and augmented the inventory taken over from the furniture operation with tables and chairs accumulated from a thrift stores, garage sales and donations "In 1968 psychedelic rock ruled the Bay Area, and the pop charts, and folk music was written off as dead, " Nancy recalls. Nevertheless, players picked guitars plucked banjos and the Freight's impact grew. By the end of its first year, we had presented an amazing array of talent from all over the world -- Mexican, Chinese, bluegrass, acoustic delta blues, jazz, Celtic fiddling and dancing. "From the start, my hope was be multi-ethn