When They Were Good

"Suddenly Southern Californians could see the real thing. Doc Watson, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Skip James, Roscoe Holcombe, Mother Maybelle Carter and more all came through. Their audiences included young musicians who would soon create their own folk, blues and rock hybrids, often using the Ash Grove as their platform.
"Roger McGuinn played his first professional solo show and met future Byrds bandmate David Crosby there. Cooder and Mahal announced their arrival with the incandescent rock band the Rising Sons. Country-rock guitar icon Clarence White and his brother Roland did the same with the Country Boys. Later, the Blasters' Phil and Dave Alvin hustled rides from Downey when they were teenagers to study the blues masters.
"'There was no other place in my recollection that had such a commitment, kind of fearless and almost foolish at times, and ability to present some wonderful and obscure artists,' said Mike Seeger, whose mountain-music trio the New Lost City Ramblers made its first Ash Grove appearance in 1960.
"'There was a lot of the blues guys that only came out here because of Ed,' said Dave Alvin, now a stalwart of the current folk scene.
"'Some of the more idiosyncratic performers like Juke Boy Bonner, Rev. Gary Davis, these were people that only came out here because of the Ash Grove, and so it really was a place where you could see kind of mythological figures come to life.'"

Richard Cromelin in the Los Angeles Times recalls the Ash Grove, L.A.'s pioneering folk-music nightclub.