Product Review

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 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, 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.

Ballads, Blues, & Bluegrass is a remarkable portrait of a brief but fabled era that was widely documented in recordings but all too under-represented in moving image. This DVD is the first release of the film in any form.

The DVD also includes interviews with the cinematographer, George Pickow, and John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers reflecting on the film in 2010.