Ballads, Blues & Bluegrass

Ballads, Blues & Bluegrass — Plot

In the early 1960s, when Greenwich Village was bursting with a folk music revival, the Friends of Old Time Music made it their mission to introduce urban audience to some of the legends of pre-war American traditional music. After a 1961 series of concerts featuring Roscoe Holcomb, Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson, Alan Lomax invited the artists and a who’s who of the folk revival back to his West 3rd Avenue apartment for an impromptu song swap. Filming was arranged on the fly and a raw, many-layered evocation of the art and attitude of the period emerges from the footage, with some of the biggest names of the era, old timers and revivalists alike: Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, Jean Ritchie, Ernie Marrs, Peter LeFarge, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Guy Carawan,the Greenbriar Boys, and the New Lost City Ramblers.

• Release date
• June 19, 2012
• Runtime
• 35 min
• Genres
• Documentary, Music
• Director
• Alan Lomax

Ballads, Blues & Bluegrass — Cast

Alan Lomax Self Memphis Slim Self

W

Willie Dixon Self Jean Ritchie Self Jack Elliott Self