The Gaslight Cafe was an American coffee house located in the basement of 116 MacDougal Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York. The Gaslight (alternatively known as "The Village Gaslight" opened in 1958 and was a well known venue for folk music and other musical acts, until it closed in 1971. There is currently (September - June, 2012) a revival of the Village Gaslight with Sheriff Bob's Gaslight Revival presenting concerts the 2nd and 4th Tuesday and Bob Porco presenting a concert series on Saturdays nights, dubbing them a "Friends of Mike Porco Production" [1]

The Gaslight was originally a "basket house" where unpaid performers would pass around a basket at the end of each set and hope to be paid. Opened in 1958 by John Mitchell, the dark, steamy, subterranean Gaslight had showcased beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso but later became a folk-music club. Clarence Hood bought the club in 1961, and he and his son Sam managed the club through the late 1960s. Ed Simon, the owner of another popular Village coffeehouse, The Four Winds, reopened the Gaslight in 1968. The club was run by Betty Smyth (who is the mother of Scandal lead singer Patty Smyth), and blues guitarist/performer Susan Martin until its closing in 1971.

Bob Neuwirth (born June 20, 1939, Akron, Ohio) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and visual artist. A mainstay of the early 1960s Cambridge, Massachusetts, folk scene, he subsequently became a friend and associate of Bob Dylan alongside whom he appears in D.A. Pennebaker's documentary Dont Look Back and Dylan's own self-referential romantic fantasy/tour film Renaldo and Clara. Neuwirth assembled the backing band for Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue. With Janis Joplin and poet Michael McClure, he co-wrote the song "Mercedes Benz". He also introduced Kris Kristofferson to Janis Joplin.

William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and utopian socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. He founded a design firm in partnership with the artist Edward Burne-Jones, and the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti which profoundly influenced the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century. As an author, illustrator and medievalist, he helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, and was a direct influence on postwar authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien. He was also a major contributor to reviving traditional textile arts and methods of production, and one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, now a statutory element in the preservation of historic buildings in the UK.

Morris wrote and published poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts throughout his life. His best-known works include The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858), The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870), A Dream of John Ball (1888), the utopian News from Nowhere (1890), and the fantasy romance The Well at the World's End (1896). He was an important figure in the emergence of socialism in Britain, founding the Socialist League in 1884, but breaking with that organization over goals and methods by the end of the decade. He devoted much of the rest of his life to the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891. Kelmscott was devoted to the publishing of limited-edition, illuminated-style print books. The 1896 Kelmscott edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is considered a masterpiece of book design.

Christopher Joseph "Chris" Isaak (born June 26, 1956) is an American rock musician and occasional actor.

Isaak was born in Stockton, California, at St. Joseph's Medical Center, the son of Dorothy (née Vignolo), a potato chip factory worker, and Joe Isaak (1929–2012), a forklift driver. Isaak's mother is Italian American, originating from Genoa. His father is German American.^{[citation needed]}

Isaak signed a contract to Warner Bros. Records in 1984 for his first album Silvertone. The tracks "Gone Ridin'" and "Livin' for Your Lover", from this album, were featured in David Lynch's cult classic Blue Velvet. Isaak's second self-titled album Chris Isaak was photographed by fashion photographer Bruce Weber. Isaak's contract was renewed in 1988 when Warner Bros. moved him to their Reprise Records label.

His best-known song is "Wicked Game." Though released on the 1989 album Heart Shaped World, an instrumental version of the song was later featured in the 1990 David Lynch film Wild at Heart. Lee Chesnut, an Atlanta radio station music director who was obsessed with Lynch films, began playing the vocal version and it quickly became the station's most-requested song. Chesnut spread the word to other radio stations around the country and the single became a national Top 10 hit in February 1991. The music video for the song was directed by Herb Ritts and was a big MTV and VH1 hit; shot in black and white, it starred Isaak and Danish-Peruvian supermodel Helena Christensen rolling on the beach, embracing and whispering in each other's ears. Another less-seen version of the "Wicked Game" is directed by David Lynch and comprises scenes from the film Wild at Heart. "Wicked Game" also featured as the backing music in the 2001 TV advert for the Jaguar X-Type range of cars in the UK. In 1995 Isaak split with long time guitarist James Calvin Wilsey, and that year's Forever Blue and the accompanying tour featured Hershel Yatovitz on guitar.