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The Sacred Mushroom, a North High Street coffeehouse in the 1960s, was hardly the only place in town to play and hear live music.

But it was a special place, a crucible of sorts, where several cultural components not only co-existed, but were melded into a common vibe.

This year's Columbus Folk Festival, set for May 6-8 at Battelle-Darby Metro Park in Galloway, will pay tribute to that vibe with a Sacred Mushroom Reunion. As many of the venue's regulars as could be found have been invited back, and the festival has received commitments from more than a handful ready to reminisce and recapture, at least for the moment, the vibe.

"I've used the metaphor that it's like the Mayflower or Woodstock," Columbus Folk Music Society president Hank Arbaugh told The Beat. "That as time goes on, more and more people claim to have been or played there."

Arbaugh managed the Mushroom in its later years, in addition to being a staple on the basement stage there through the mid-'60s, but credited Joan Gibbons with fostering the cross-pollination that made the place special.

The Sacred Mushroom Coffeehouse was opened in the early '60s by jazz guitarist Warren Stephens and his partner, James Crawford. Jazz programs started after midnight, typically consisting of jams featuring players who'd played at swank jazz clubs, including vocalist Nancy Wilson and saxophonist Eddie Davis, joining in with regulars such as Stephens, Freddy Thomas, Bill Binns and others.

In 1962, they asked Joan, a musician and art dealer, and her husband, Miles, an art professor at Wilberforce College, to run a folk music stage on Wednesdays. Joan Gibbons brought in aspiring local folk musicians and bluegrass artists (including the national act The Country Gentlemen), and worked to open the ears of the academics at The Ohio State University across the street to what was happening in this new scene.

"People were starting to see that people who wrote topical songs were really modern folk singers," Arbaugh explained. "Some of the folk studies people at the university became interested in this new generation of folk singers."

Arbaugh's Mayflower metaphor aside, there are many musicians who started at or came through the Mushroom, including Phil Ochs, who was a journalism student at OSU at the time, but went on to make a giant mark through his protest songs after moving to New York City. Others included now-acclaimed bluegrass musicians John Hickman and Frank Wakefield; Fred Starner, who performed with Pete Seeger; Thom Ewing, who played guitar in Bill Monroe's band; folk singer Ed Trickett; and renowned dobro player Dan Milhon. In addition, Austin City Limits host Jerry Jeff Walker was, for a time, a regular at the Mushroom.

Bass player Karl Fulton, who resides on Columbus' East Side, typifies the cross-cultural nature of the Mushroom. Fulton played the jazz sets there, and eventually started coming early to sit in with the folkies.

"I enjoyed the folk music. I thought it was fun," he said, adding with a laugh, "I was probably the only black player there for a long while."

The 76-year-old Defense Supply Center of Columbus retiree hopes to take in the reunion, "as long as I feel good."

Starner, retired two years ago as a college professor and living in Los Angeles, is a collector and occasional writer of hobo songs. He will lead two workshops at the festival, as well as participate in the reunion. "I wonder what they all look like," he asked, tongue-in-cheek, of folks he hasn't seen in more than 30 years. "I have not changed at all."

Milhon had been playing bluegrass clubs on the South Side for a while when he discovered the Mushroom.

"I thought the coffeeshop thing was neat," he said. "It was just a big family of musicians."

Arbaugh himself has pursued a music career -- like many other Mushroom alumni, alongside a full-time job. In Arbaugh's case, it was as an English teacher in the Whitehall City Schools. He is a respected singer, multi-instrumentalist and folk music historian.

His side-by-side musical and academic pursuits epitomize the Mushroom's legacy.

"It was like going to a second college," said Arbaugh, an OSU graduate student at the time. "There were so many different styles of music and performers, I just tried to absorb as much as I could. There were a lot of people like me that went there and became seriously interested in folk music."