Musicians revive Ash Grove’s spirit

The seats at Royce Hall were still empty when Ramblin’ Jack Elliott stepped onstage for his Friday afternoon sound-check and rehearsal, a black cowboy hat pulled low over his tangle of white, bushy hair. He sat on a stool and strummed his acoustic guitar, singing of coming west from the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, a musical cautionary tale written by his friend and mentor, the late Woody Guthrie.

“California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see,” Elliott sang in a voice rich and fittingly rough. “But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot, if you ain’t got the do re mi.”

He was joined by Dave Alvin and his band, all “Ash Grove babies,” musicians just old enough to have been teenage regulars at the old club on Melrose. “I can still smell it,” Alvin said. “Old wood and cinnamon, with tobacco smoke.” That 150-seat venue finally burned down in 1974, but only after a dozen years as a crucial West Coast room for folk, blues, bluegrass and other organic sounds of Americana.

Elliott and Alvin were among a powerful lineup at a weekend-long musical celebration of the club’s 50th anniversary, hosted by UCLA Live. On Friday, they shared the stage with Ry Cooder, Ben Harper and Holly Near, along with vivid eruptions of West African and Mediterranean folk music. (Saturday’s show would include Taj Mahal, Michelle Shocked and Watts Prophets.)

At 76, Elliott was ready for another gig among old friends. And watching from behind a video camera was his daughter, Aiyana, leading a documentary crew for a film on the Ash Grove’s legacy.

Out back having a smoke was Arlo Guthrie, the night’s surprise guest, set to open the show with his father’s “This Land Is Your Land.” His hair and mustache were long and silver now, and he remembered that he got his first West Coast gig at the Ash Grove when he was just 18.

“After 43 years of playing, there’s a lot of clubs and venues under the bridge, but I remember that one,” said Guthrie, who credited club owner Ed Pearl for emphasizing social consciousness over business.

As the night’s concert began, Alvin plugged in for the rumbling, bluesy “Ashgrove,” a song from 2004 that’s less a tribute to the club than a lament on years lost and a changed world, sung in Alvin’s fluid baritone: “All the old bluesmen have all passed on, and I’m out on this highway travelin’ town to town . . . I’m just tryin’ to raise the ghosts up out of their graves.”

Back in the 1960s, Cooder was a teen prodigy studying the blues and folk masters up-close at the club. And on Friday, he sat in for a short set of old-timey tunes with the folk and bluegrass masters Mike Seeger and Roland White. They picked through “She’s More to Be Pitied” (as recorded by the Stanley Brothers) with warmth and precision, but when Cooder slipped into a bit of modern technique, he shook his head and said, “I ought to be thrown out for doing that!”

During an intermission, Pearl watched musicians roll in and out backstage. “We’re an hour behind,” Pearl said, but he didn’t look unhappy. “It’s a wonderful show.” He was soon at the microphone himself, praising the music while comparing today’s grim political climate with that of the Ash Grove’s founding in 1958: “Art is always the escape valve.”

That political mission was fully represented by a moving and hilarious appearance by Culture Clash, as the comedy/theater troupe performed parts of its tragicomedy “Chavez Ravine.” Near spoke of ending the war in Iraq, and Laura Love sang the civil-rights anthem “We Shall Not Be Moved” to cheers as she added the lyric, “Like that man in the White House, they must be removed . . . .”

It was midnight when Taj Mahal introduced Harper, who brought a band that included his mother, singer Ellen Chase, once an Ash Grove regular. Together they performed Harper originals, from the dramatic folk of “Gather ‘Round the Stone” to the Dixieland of “Suzie Blue,” plus a new duet, “Spanish Red Wine.”

Before stepping onstage, Harper said he considered it “a very prestigious honor” to be considered part of the Ash Grove lineage. The music there represented “some of the best manipulations of silence that human beings have to offer. It’s some of the best music that has come out of this country.”