Lightnin Hopkins and John Hammond - Ash Grove, Los Angeles, 1970

It was on June 19, back in 1970 that the great Bluesman Lightnin Hopkins played for ten days along with John Hammond at the Ash Grove a folk Club in Los Angeles founded in 1958 by Ed Pearl… In its fifteen years of existence, the Ash Grove altered the music scene in Los Angeles and helped many artists find a West Coast audience. The club was a locus of interaction between older folk and blues legends, such as Mississippi John Hurt, Son House and Muddy Waters, and young artists that produced the ‘Sixties music revolution. Among those Pearl brought to the Ash Grove musicians such Doc Watson, Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, Hoyt Axton, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Ian and Sylvia, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Barbara Dane, Mance Lipscomb, Bukka White, Howlin’ Wolf, John Fahey, Willie Dixon and many others.