Ballads Blues Bluegrass

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 prewar American traditional music After a 1961 series of concerts featuring Roscoe Holcomb Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson Alan Lomax invited the artists and a whos 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 manylayered 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 Carawanthe Greenbriar Boys and the New Lost City Ramblers