Ash Grove (music club)
Encyclopedia
The Ash Grove was a folk music club located at 8162 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, founded in 1958 by Ed Pearl and named after the Welsh folk song, "The Ash Grove
."
In its short fifteen years, the Ash Grove forever altered the music scene in Los Angeles and helped many artists find a West Coast audience. Bob Dylan
recalled that, "I'd seen posters of folk shows at the Ash Grove and used to dream about playing there...." He did.
The club was a locus of interaction between older folk legends, such as Mississippi John Hurt
, Son House
and Muddy Waters
, and young artists that produced the 'Sixties music revolution. Among those Pearl brought to the Ash Grove were Doc Watson
, Pete Seeger
, June Carter, Johnny Cash
, Phil Ochs
, Joan Baez
, Johnny Otis
, Ramblin' Jack Elliott
, Ian and Sylvia
, Kathy and Carol
, Sonny Terry
, Brownie McGhee
, New Lost City Ramblers
, The Weavers
, The Greenbriar Boys
, Lightnin' Hopkins
, Luke "Long Gone" Miles
, Barbara Dane
, Holly Near
, Arlo Guthrie
, Mance Lipscomb
, Guy and Candie Carawan
, John Jacob Niles
, Bukka White
and Kris Kristofferson
.
first played back-up guitar at the Ash Grove when he was sixteen years old. Linda Ronstadt
got her start hanging out at the Ash Grove. "My goal in those days was just to play the Ash Grove in Los Angeles because that was the center of folk music at the time", she remembered. "The first place I went in Los Angeles was the Ash Grove. That is where I met Kenny Edwards. Kenny liked Mexican music and we started the Stone Ponys." Future Byrds Chris Hillman
and Clarence White
met at the Ash Grove while both were in high school.
While the club was best known for "folk" or "roots" music, such as bluegrass
and blues
, Ed Pearl also featured socially-committed jazz
and rock
artists, such as Oscar Brown
, Jr., Chuck Berry
, James Booker
and Jackson Browne
. And, long before there was a recognized "world" genre in the music industry, the Ash Grove provided a venue in Los Angeles for such diverse performers as Ravi Shankar
, Mongo Santamaría
, Miriam Makeba
and the Virgin Islands Steel Band.
The Ash Grove also became associated with the cultural and political ferment of the 1960s. In the coffee house tradition, Pearl encouraged an occasional mix of music with poetry, lecture, film or comedy. Lenny Bruce
, Mort Sahl
, Rowan & Martin and Steve Allen
brought their comedy and commentary to the Ash Grove. Luis Valdez
's El Teatro Campesino performed, as did Dr. Demento
, poet Charles Bukowski
and artists campaigning against the Vietnam War, such as Jane Fonda
.
s. A series of fires, including what patrons believed was an arson attack, led to the club's demise in 1973.
Following the military coup in Chile that same year, Pearl lent his expertise to Los Angeles solidarity activists, helping them set up major concerts for such Latin American nueva canción
groups as Inti-Illimani
, Quilapayún
, Los Parra
and Los Folkloristas
, as well as the first-ever Los Angeles concert by Catalan singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat
. These events were part of the gestation of world music
in Los Angeles.
In a way, the Ash Grove was a victim of its own success, helping develop Los Angeles audiences for younger musicians who then needed larger venues for their concerts. But none of the city's new clubs consistently emphasized the roots music that Pearl put at the heart of the Ash Grove's line up. Pearl blamed consolidation in the music industry for undermining the coffeehouse music tradition and closing the door on socially-committed artists. The big companies bought up small labels to gain control of their catalogues, he said; but they then did not support or promote new folk music talent. Corporate control of radio playlists homogenized musical culture, according to Pearl.
After the Ash Grove closed in 1973, LA Times music critic Robert Hilburn wrote its obituary, which included an anecdote about the club's influence on the Rolling Stones: "On his way out of the Ash Grove one night, Mick Jagger, a frequent visitor to the club, shook Pearl's hand in gratitude. He simply wanted to thank Pearl for all the entertainment – and no doubt musical education – the club had given him." And, Hilburn concluded, "The Ash Grove's contribution to this city's musical heritage was invaluable."
The Ash Grove
The Ash Grove is a traditional Welsh folk song whose melody has been set to numerous sets of lyrics. The most well-known was written, in English, by John Oxenford in the 19th century....
."
In its short fifteen years, the Ash Grove forever altered the music scene in Los Angeles and helped many artists find a West Coast audience. Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
recalled that, "I'd seen posters of folk shows at the Ash Grove and used to dream about playing there...." He did.
The club was a locus of interaction between older folk legends, such as Mississippi John Hurt
Mississippi John Hurt
John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...
, Son House
Son House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
and Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
, and young artists that produced the 'Sixties music revolution. Among those Pearl brought to the Ash Grove were Doc Watson
Doc Watson
Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson is an American guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. He has won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music are highly regarded...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, June Carter, Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
, Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
, Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, Johnny Otis
Johnny Otis
Johnny Otis is an American singer, musician, talent scout, disc jockey, composer, arranger, recording artist, record producer, vibraphonist, drummer, percussionist, bandleader, and impresario.He is commonly referred to as The Godfather Of Rhythm And Blues.-Personal life:Otis, the son of Alexander...
, Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer and performer.-Life and career:Elliot Charles Adnopoz was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents in 1931. Elliott grew up inspired by the rodeos at Madison Square Garden, and wanted to be a cowboy...
, Ian and Sylvia
Ian and Sylvia
Ian & Sylvia were a Canadian folk and country music duo which consisted of Ian and Sylvia Tyson, née Fricker. They began performing together in 1959, married in 1964, and divorced and stopped performing together in 1975.-Early lives:...
, Kathy and Carol
Kathy and Carol
Kathleen Larisch and Carol McComb are American singers and instrumentalists who performed together in the 1960s as Kathy and Carol. As a duo, they released an acclaimed 1965 folk song album on Elektra Records, before pursuing separate careers...
, Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...
, Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...
, New Lost City Ramblers
New Lost City Ramblers
The New Lost City Ramblers is a contemporary old-time string band that formed in New York City in 1958 during the Folk Revival. The founding members of the Ramblers, or NLCR, are Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley...
, The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
, The Greenbriar Boys
The Greenbriar Boys
The Greenbriar Boys were a seminal northern bluegrass music group who first got together in jam sessions in New York's Washington Square Park. Along with the New Lost City Ramblers, their urban traditional country sound inspired a generation of musicians and fans.-Biography:In 1959,...
, Lightnin' Hopkins
Lightnin' Hopkins
Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...
, Luke "Long Gone" Miles
Luke "Long Gone" Miles
Luke "Lone Gone" Miles was an American Texas blues and electric blues singer and songwriter. He was a protégé of Lightnin' Hopkins, and variously recorded or performed with Hopkins, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Willie Chambers...
, Barbara Dane
Barbara Dane
Barbara Dane is an American folk, blues, and jazz singer.-Early life:Barbara Dane's parents arrived in Detroit from Arkansas in the 1920s. Out of high school, Dane began to sing regularly at demonstrations for racial equality and economic justice. While still in her teens, she sat in with bands...
, Holly Near
Holly Near
Holly Near is an American singer-songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist for social change.-Early years:...
, Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
, Mance Lipscomb
Mance Lipscomb
Mance Lipscomb was an American blues singer, guitarist and songster. Born Beau De Glen Lipscomb near Navasota, Texas, United States, he as a youth took the name of 'Mance' from a friend of his oldest brother Charlie .-Biography:Lipscomb was born April 9, 1895 to an ex-slave father from Alabama and...
, Guy and Candie Carawan
Guy Carawan
Guy Carawan is an American folk musician and musicologist. He serves as music director and song leader for the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee....
, John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles
John Jacob Niles was an American composer, singer, and collector of traditional ballads. Called the "Dean of American Balladeers", Niles was an important influence on the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, with Joan Baez, Burl Ives, and Peter, Paul and Mary, among others,...
, Bukka White
Bukka White
Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...
and Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
.
A university of folk music
Folk singer Ross Altman likened the Ash Grove to a "West Coast University of Folk Music." Ry CooderRy Cooder
Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
first played back-up guitar at the Ash Grove when he was sixteen years old. Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
got her start hanging out at the Ash Grove. "My goal in those days was just to play the Ash Grove in Los Angeles because that was the center of folk music at the time", she remembered. "The first place I went in Los Angeles was the Ash Grove. That is where I met Kenny Edwards. Kenny liked Mexican music and we started the Stone Ponys." Future Byrds Chris Hillman
Chris Hillman
Christopher Hillman was one of the original members of The Byrds which in 1965 included Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, and Michael Clarke....
and Clarence White
Clarence White
Clarence White was a guitar player for Nashville West, The Byrds, Muleskinner, and the Kentucky Colonels. His parents were Acadians from New Brunswick, Canada...
met at the Ash Grove while both were in high school.
While the club was best known for "folk" or "roots" music, such as bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, Ed Pearl also featured socially-committed jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
artists, such as Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown, Jr was an American singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, civil rights activist, and actor.He ran for office in the Illinois state legislature and U.S...
, Jr., Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
, James Booker
James Booker
James Carroll Booker III was a jazz, New Orleans rhythm and blues and soul musician born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.-Biography:...
and Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
. And, long before there was a recognized "world" genre in the music industry, the Ash Grove provided a venue in Los Angeles for such diverse performers as Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...
, Mongo Santamaría
Mongo Santamaría
Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría Rodríguez was an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussionist. He is most famous for being the composer of the jazz standard "Afro Blue," recorded by John Coltrane among others. In 1950 he moved to New York where he played with Perez Prado, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader, Fania All...
, Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba , nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award winning South African singer and civil rights activist....
and the Virgin Islands Steel Band.
The Ash Grove also became associated with the cultural and political ferment of the 1960s. In the coffee house tradition, Pearl encouraged an occasional mix of music with poetry, lecture, film or comedy. Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
, Mort Sahl
Mort Sahl
Morton Lyon "Mort" Sahl is a Canadian-born American comedian and actor. He occasionally wrote jokes for speeches delivered by President John F. Kennedy. He was the first comedian to record a live album and the first to perform on college campuses...
, Rowan & Martin and Steve Allen
Steve Allen
Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...
brought their comedy and commentary to the Ash Grove. Luis Valdez
Luis Valdez
Luis Valdez is an American playwright, writer and film director.He is regarded as the father of Chicano theater in the United States.-Education:...
's El Teatro Campesino performed, as did Dr. Demento
Dr. Demento
Barret Eugene Hansen , better known as Dr. Demento, is a radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograph records to the present....
, poet Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles...
and artists campaigning against the Vietnam War, such as Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
.
Attacks and closing
When travelers returning from Cuba gave talks or showed Cuban films, the Ash Grove became the target of angry demonstrations and threatened violence by Cuban exileCuban exile
The term "Cuban exile" refers to the many Cubans who have sought alternative political or economic conditions outside the island, dating back to the Ten Years' War and the struggle for Cuban independence during the 19th century...
s. A series of fires, including what patrons believed was an arson attack, led to the club's demise in 1973.
Following the military coup in Chile that same year, Pearl lent his expertise to Los Angeles solidarity activists, helping them set up major concerts for such Latin American nueva canción
Nueva canción
Nueva canción is a movement and genre within Latin American and Iberian music of folk music, folk-inspired music and socially committed music...
groups as Inti-Illimani
Inti-Illimani
Inti-Illimani is an instrumental and vocal Latin American folk music ensemble from Chile. The group was formed in 1967 by a group of university students and it acquired widespread popularity in Chile for their song Venceremos which became the anthem of the Popular Unity government of Salvador...
, Quilapayún
Quilapayún
Quilapayún are an instrumental and vocal folk music group from Chile and among the longest lasting and most influential exponents of the Nueva Canción Chilena movement. Formed in Chile during the mid-1960s, the group became inseparable with the revolution that occurred in the popular music of the...
, Los Parra
Parra family
The Parra family is a Chilean family known for its many artists. Members of the Parra family are noted contributors to Chilean culture with almost every member being a distinguished national artist. The family is not related to the Parra brothers, members of the Chilean rock fusion group Los...
and Los Folkloristas
El Norte
The Spanish phrase El Norte may refer to any of the following places or things:* El Norte , a 1983 motion picture directed by Gregory Nava.* El Norte , a Mexican daily newspaper, published in the state of Nuevo Léon....
, as well as the first-ever Los Angeles concert by Catalan singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat i Teresa is a Catalan Spanish singer-songwriter.Serrat is considered one of the most important figures of modern, popular music in both the Spanish and Catalan languages...
. These events were part of the gestation of world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
in Los Angeles.
Legacy
Some 3,000 hours of recorded live performances at the Ash Grove have survived. In 2007 Aiyana Elliott, who made an award-winning 2000 documentary about the life of her father, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, began work on a film exploring the history of the Ash Grove. A three-day concert and workshop series commemorating the Ash Grove's fiftieth anniversary was held April 18–20, 2008, at UCLA.In a way, the Ash Grove was a victim of its own success, helping develop Los Angeles audiences for younger musicians who then needed larger venues for their concerts. But none of the city's new clubs consistently emphasized the roots music that Pearl put at the heart of the Ash Grove's line up. Pearl blamed consolidation in the music industry for undermining the coffeehouse music tradition and closing the door on socially-committed artists. The big companies bought up small labels to gain control of their catalogues, he said; but they then did not support or promote new folk music talent. Corporate control of radio playlists homogenized musical culture, according to Pearl.
After the Ash Grove closed in 1973, LA Times music critic Robert Hilburn wrote its obituary, which included an anecdote about the club's influence on the Rolling Stones: "On his way out of the Ash Grove one night, Mick Jagger, a frequent visitor to the club, shook Pearl's hand in gratitude. He simply wanted to thank Pearl for all the entertainment – and no doubt musical education – the club had given him." And, Hilburn concluded, "The Ash Grove's contribution to this city's musical heritage was invaluable."