Beginning in the 1940s, New York City was the center for a roots revival of American folk music. Many New Yorkers, especially young people, became interested in blues, Appalachian folk music and other roots styles. In Greenwich Village, many of these people gathered; the area became a hotbed of American folk music as well as leftist political activism.

The performers associated with the Greenwich Village scene, many of whom were not originally from New York, had sporadic mainstream success in the 1940s and 50s; some, like Peter Seeger and the Almanac Trio, did well, but most were confined to local coffeehouses and other venues. Performers like Dave Van Ronk and Joan Baez helped expand the scene by appealing to college students, while Bob Dylan became a mainstream folk-rock star in the 1960s. Article courtesy of Wikipedia

Popular music

New York is the center of the American music industry, and by extension, is one of the major centers for popular music worldwide. The city attained an iconic musical status in the early 20th century. Later, New York retained its position as the major center for the American music industry, despite the rise of other cities, like Nashville, San Francisco, Detroit and Chicago.

The African American genre of jazz was closely associated with New York by the middle of the 20th century, when a number of avant-garde performers helped created styles like hard bop and free jazz. Later still, New York was the major American home for the punk rock and New Wave movements, and was the scene for the invention of both African American hip hop music and Latino salsa music. Musicians from New York have also dominated the Jewish-American klezmer scene, the Greenwich Village old-time music revival, and the straight 1960s pop music exemplified by the Brill Building sound. Article courtesy of Wikipedia