San Francisco’s Castle Folk Club
by Dick Holdstock
with assistance from David Brown (performer list)
and Riggy Rackin (photos)
published in The Folknik March-April 2024

One night in the late summer of 1983, Carol and I with Allan Macleod were at the Edinburgh Castle Pub, at 950 Geary Street enjoying Guinness and fish and chips from the shop down the alley behind the pub. We were telling Allan about our much-enjoyed visits to British folk clubs earlier that year and how much the Edinburgh Castle reminded us of the pubs where those clubs met. Allan told us that he knew an owner of the Castle named Robert Johnson, who had been married to Jean Redpath in the mid-sixties. We checked the place out and found a mostly unused messy room upstairs of sufficient size for the kind of club we wanted. On that same floor were chairs and what might have been old wooden church pews that could fit in to that old room. Allan told us he would ask if we could use the facilities there to start our own British type folk club.

Allan soon told us that Johnson had given us permission to use the upstairs room for free on the first and third Thursdays, nights when the pub could use the extra business. We would be required to clean up the room and take what pews and chairs we needed as long as we put them back after each use. We decided to go for it starting October 6, 1983, with meetings for nine months a year with June, July, and August off.

In those days, Allan had been running a singers’ circle at the old Freight and Salvage on San Pablo Avenue. After we became Holdstock and Macleod around 1976, I began attending those sessions as often as I could after work at UC Davis. From those Freight sessions, we got Faith Petric, Ricky Rackin, and Redmond O Colonies to join us as club residents. We chose the name “Castle Folk Club” and decided to use the traditional Brit club format for our two meetings each month. After the long hard job of moving all the heavy furniture into the room Allan, the residents and I led the “Calling On Song” with all those in attendance. Then two resident singers and two floor singers (from the audience) would each sing a couple of songs. Our guest performers then sang a forty-minute set before a short break to get more to drink. The second half included two more residents, two floor singers, followed by another set by the guest performer and ended with everyone singing “The Leaving of Liverpool.” Then we lugged all the furniture back.

Some advertising was done in the Folknik, and we also gathered names and addresses of attendees, so Carol could send them quarterly post cards giving the schedule of our guests. For guest performers, Allan usually invited visiting British performers and local Brits, as well as some great local folkie performers as guests. We committed to paying all guests a minimum fee of $200 vs 80% of the door, regardless of the group size. We rarely collected that much, but made up the difference from our H&M recording account, although Allan often generously beat me as the club’s treasurer to paying it himself.

After a few years Redmond left, and was replaced by Louis Killen and later by Peter and Gail Kessler. Around 1990 the Castle was sold, so we moved to the “Connecticut Yankee” on Potrero Hill holding our first meeting there on January 16, 1992. The club continued at the Connecticut Yankee until closing in May of 2000.

It was wonderful to have the pleasure of running that club with Allan for all those years. I retired from my job at UCD in 1989 and took on a consultancy at the California Academy of Sciences on the first and third Thursdays, making getting there from Davis much easier. Although the club was a consistent financial drain on us, we always loved attending and getting to know so many great folkies. I hope to write another episode of this story when we get a better list of the names of our wonderful guest performers. Please help my memory on that if you can (Holdstocks@dcn.org), as many of our Folkie friends helped me with this.

-- Dick Holdstock


David Brown writes: 

Below is an incomplete list of performers at the Castle Folk Club, reconstructed from my datebook calendars, old Folkniks or the quarterly postcards (of which we have scans of just a few). Other folks may have old calendars or personal memories.

Most of the entries are obvious, but there are a few that would benefit from the description on the postcard (or elsewhere).

The club moved to the Connecticut Yankee in January 1992.

I am surprised that I have only one entry for Len Graham & Skylark - I am sure I saw them several times. Perhaps they played at Plowshares other times.

Early entries in my datebook just say "Ed Castle" without listing guests - either there were fewer guest artists in the early days, or I just made a point of attending (or at least consider attending) no matter who was there. 

1983


1984

Earliest mention in the Folknik (Jan 1984 Folknik pg 2)

EDINBURGH CASTLE

Dick Holdstock and Allan MacLeod are happy to say that their new folk club, FOLK AT THE CASTLE, upstairs at the Edinburgh Castle, 950 Geary St., S. F., has already become a popular gathering place on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month for lovers of good folk music. FOLK AT THE CASTLE has an authentic flavor of the English folk club, with a well-stocked pub downstairs and fish and chips to order. The music begins at 8:00 pm and ends at the traditional hour of 11:00 pm. Coming on Feb. 16th: Special guest Cathy Whitesides and Jody Stecher.




1985



1986



1987