I received an email from an old friend last week. We'd been sharing memories of a mutual friend who recently died. While I haven't seen her in over 40 years, I do recall a brief visit when she was passing through the Bay Area in the late 1970s.
I used to date her sister and she dated my best friend. These were teen-age dates, mostly, but their importance and dare I say significance has surfaced since we've been talking about our lost friend.
It's about the music. Those dates from the mid 1960s until the early 1970s revolved around the music scene in Los Angeles. While those years are most notable for the Rock and Folk-Rock groups that emerged, it was the small club scene that we frequented. The Ash Grove was a small folk music venue on Melrose Blvd. in Hollywood that emerged as the place to go. Here we saw many of the blues greats in their prime. The irony, of course, is that many of these performers were well into their 60s and 70s and would not be around all that much longer.
When I tell younger people today that I saw Son House, Howlin" Wolf, and Big Mama Thornton in a small club, they are in awe. But that was reality back then. My friend's recent email asked me to send her a list of all the artists we saw back then. She was hoping it might jog her mind and help her memory. So recently, I sat down and deliberately made such a list.
On my list are the above mentioned names as well as a who's who of folk and blues that includes the likes of Lightnin' Hopkins, Doc Watson, Sleepy John Estes, Taj Mahal, and Elizabeth Cotton. As the late 60s turned into the early 70s, there were other special shows too. Two come to mind. One was a special promotion called the "Angry Arts." It featured a program of writers, musicians, and graphic artists all opposed to the Vietnam war who had produced anti-war works of some kind.
I went to one such performance and recall a reading given by Dalton Trumbo, the author of the anti-war novel Johnnie Got His Gun. Trumbo had been blacklisted in the 1950s for his politics, but continued to screen write for various movie producers under other names. He chose a selection from his novel to read that night. It ended with the following lines:
What's noble about being dead? Because when you're dead mister, it's all over. It's the end. You're less than a dog, less than a rat, less than a bee or an ant, less than a whiter maggot crawling around on a dungheap. You're dead mister and you died for nothing
You're dead mister. Dead.
Trumbo's voice rose and fell. The last few words were delivered almost in a whisper. Then, with the audience entranced, he delivered the last word in a loud rage. And the lights went out. Total blackness. It was chilling.
Another special show featured a bluesman I'd never heard of until that night. Arthur "BigBoy" Crudup was a Chicago bluesman who had made some recordings in the 30s and 40s. He was virtually obscure until being rediscovered in the late 60s. That night, in the Ash Grove the house was packed. In the audience were all manner of young local musicians. many of them currently playing at the many LA venues. Who was this guy Crudup that they all turned out?
Arthur Crudup had written and recorded a song in 1946 called "That's All Right." In 1955 an unknown Elvis Presley had taken the song and recorded it in a classic rockabilly style. The rest is history. Crudup had never received proper royalties but the young musicians began referring him to the "Father of Rock and Roll." They knew, and they wanted to see this seminal figure. He died a few years later, but that night, at the Ash Grove, in a small way, he got his due. Too bad he didn't get the money he was denied.
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