Clarence Ashley with Doc Watson: The Banks of the Ohio (1961)

Рет қаралды 193,758

12 жыл бұрын

Clarence Ashley sings "The Banks of the Ohio," with fiddle by Fred Price and guitars by Clint Howard and Doc Watson, at Alan Lomax's West Third Street apartment in New York City. From the film "Ballads, Blues, and Bluegrass," directed by Lomax (who's holding the mic), shot by George Pickow, with sound by Jean Ritchie (who's seen at the beginning with Ramblin' Jack Elliott), and edited by Anna Lomax Wood. It's believed that this is the first footage shot of Doc Watson.
About "Ballads, Blues, and Bluegrass":
In the early 1960s, when Greenwich Village was bursting with a folk-music revival, an organization called the Friends of Old Time Music (founded by Ralph Rinzler, Izzy Young, and John Cohen) made it their mission to introduce New York City audiences to some of the era's best folk, blues, and bluegrass performers. After the first two F.O.T.M. concerts in early 1961 (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 Third Street apartment for an impromptu song-swap.
Filming was arranged on the fly, but 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: Holcomb, Ashley, Watson, Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, Jean Ritchie, Ernie Marrs, Peter LaFarge, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, the Greenbriar Boys, and the New Lost City Ramblers. The footage of Doc Watson is his first known film appearance.
"Ballads, Blues, and 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. It received its world premiere at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival, over 50 years after it was shot; a DVD was released by Media-Generation (media-generation.net/) to coincide with the premiere. It includes interviews with cinematographer George Pickow and the New Lost City Ramblers' John Cohen, reflecting on the film in 2010.
View the trailer here:
• Ballads Blues & Bluegr...

Пікірлер: 82

@hayleypoole7168 9 жыл бұрын

The man playing the fiddle was my Grandpa Fred Price!

@williamjones2767 8 жыл бұрын

really

@tortugabob 7 жыл бұрын

You must be proud. Hope you are playing the fiddle. It would be a great honor to him.

@shooterbrown823 7 жыл бұрын

Tom was my great uncle

@prestcoldandy910 7 жыл бұрын

Your a very lucky lady , this is priceless !

@robgillan2245 6 жыл бұрын

What a great fiddler he was . I also love his lead vocal on rank stranger

@davesiler4064 4 жыл бұрын

This piece of film is a national treasure!!!!!!

@robkunkel8833 6 жыл бұрын

I love how Mr. Ashby leads the group like a band conductor. This version of this song is the embodiment of old fashion music making.

@keiths7494 5 жыл бұрын

I don't think Clarence was actually conducting, as he would have known Doc Watson couldn't see his hand movements. I think it is much more for Clarence himself to keep the beat, like some people foot tap.

@michaelwhisman 3 ай бұрын

What I love about many of the old songs is that you do not have to have a beautiful voice to sing them. That goes for both men and women.

@AlanLomaxArchive 11 жыл бұрын

This was Greenwich Village in 1961, when it could still be credited with bona fide cultural vanguardism, be it expressed in music or hairstyles.

@frankkelch4553 9 жыл бұрын

There are a number of fine versions of this song, this is surely one of the best.

@robgillan2245 6 жыл бұрын

Love the way Clarence is conducting the orchestra :)

@keiths7494 5 жыл бұрын

Not conducting, surely, as Doc Watson couldn't see the hand movements. I think he is just keeping time for himself, like foot tapping.

@paperarrow1234 12 жыл бұрын

I sure wish music these days was half as good as this

@shooterbrown823 8 жыл бұрын

clarence was my great uncle some say i got his voice he was a great

@williamjones2767 8 жыл бұрын

really

@earlq6317 6 жыл бұрын

Clarence was also my great uncle, and had the opportunity to meet him at his home in Saltville, Va. Approximately 1963. He sang Pretty Polly for my family.

@derekflockaflame 3 жыл бұрын

Yeah ok

@billcampbell9488 4 жыл бұрын

Just when I think people have lost interest in history then I remember Alan Lonax.

@WOKINTUSD 3 жыл бұрын

Very beautiful and very haunting

@JeebusDumonti 8 жыл бұрын

A sweetly innocent presentation of a dark story. What a great rendition.

@TenThumbsProductions 10 жыл бұрын

There is a big hole in our country today, I wish more families got to together and made music like this together today. I know that they aren't family, but I know that all those musicians did the same thing with their family on sunday afternoon with lemonade and chicken after church. The family that sings together stays together, just ask the Carters!

@lapboard340 2 жыл бұрын

Sara divorced Alvin and went to live with her lover. Sara, A.P. And Maybelle continued to record in spite of the breakup.

@hakanabrahamson8257 6 жыл бұрын

Beautiful! I still listen and learn from these artists, and try to sing and play like them on the other side of the ocean :-)

@garvinhooper 6 жыл бұрын

grew up on this kind of music so sad it has all but ended now god how I miss those days

@rwolfson1935 4 жыл бұрын

As great as this is, the Blue Sky Boys' rendition, used by Peter Bogdanovich in his film, Paper Moon, is more haunting in its close vocal harmony and strophic repetition. Worth checking out, as is the movie's entire soundtrack for exquisite depression era music.

@yesyoumay 6 жыл бұрын

I read about Clarence Ashley in Doc Watson's biography "Blind But Now I See" but this is first time I heard him....he's a pretty good singer!

@jimboooong 7 жыл бұрын

love this version and this tune simply amazing

@travisthree11 12 жыл бұрын

Fantastic.

@wimboer1433 3 жыл бұрын

The very best version of this song

@duececaboose 11 жыл бұрын

wow, really nice to see this clear footage of Clarence Ashley. I've only seen one other film clip of him performing. The Folkways recordings of him and Doc Watson literally changed my life. I first heard them nearly 20 years ago and I've been playing old time music ever since.

@daeusto 12 жыл бұрын

Thank you!!!!

@Peter-rg4ng 7 жыл бұрын

This music is so powerful....love it!

@hangdogit 10 жыл бұрын

I like Doc's ornamentation on the melody -- the bouncy way he works in another note or two (like old-time fiddlers, which I think is where he got that idea). Doc had a tremendous sense of hearing, enabling him to hear musical subtleties and details from great fiddlers, then transform them to guitar. Still unmatched. (I've played his stuff...or tried to... since about 1966 when I got his "Home Again" album.)

@lmariehills7681 3 жыл бұрын

oh mah goodness gracious isn't this a treasure

@MrSiciliano1946 12 жыл бұрын

E' un pezzo straordinario, che fa onore ad Alan Lomax, etnomusicologo, e a questi artisti spontanei e genuini degli USA di quegli anni.

@JaredAF 23 күн бұрын

♥♥♥

@theoldcrow4945 8 жыл бұрын

clarence this is as good as it gets.

@williamadams5472 11 ай бұрын

Beautiful song but very haunting

@JohnJackson-px5vv 11 жыл бұрын

I really enjoyed that, my type of music.

@dylangrove6146 7 жыл бұрын

oh my gosh i love this, thank you

@jackwarshawmusic 9 жыл бұрын

It doesn't get any better than this. That's Jean Ritchie in the frame at the very start.

@frankkelch4553 9 жыл бұрын

+Jack Warshaw Yeah, I recognized her.

@acapellapatrick 8 жыл бұрын

+Frank Kelch And Ramblin' Jack Elliot. Wish I'd been there

@mothergrace1 12 жыл бұрын

wow!! love you for posting this

@Bonshikadors 10 жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing, so good!!

@lumaz71 11 жыл бұрын

simply wonderful. thanks

@acapellapatrick 10 жыл бұрын

Great job, guys. And I love him at 1:15. Rock out, dude.

@wimboer1433 3 жыл бұрын

I do agree! great!

@ulrichfriehe3459 2 жыл бұрын

Wonderful document, thank you.

@softailspringer9915 8 жыл бұрын

Wow, this is priceless, Captures that moment when young urban kids were just soaking up this music and the American folk boom began.

@philallard986 8 жыл бұрын

and this is 1961 on 3rd street..so we know that just a few blocks away at the Cafe Wah! a 20-year old, scruffy kid named Bob Dylan was playing harmonica for Fred Neil.

@softailspringer9915 8 жыл бұрын

Isn't that Fred Neil in the opening seconds, sitting to the left of Fred Price? We also see Ramblin Jack Elliot at one point.

@andrewcrane5250 11 жыл бұрын

its crazy that the young people in this video are now old

@mothergrace1 12 жыл бұрын

whats not to love???thank you!!!

@sasongs 2 жыл бұрын

This is Gold right here

@rasputinsghost 12 жыл бұрын

Wow.

@gmucbay 9 жыл бұрын

Ein super Video, ich höre es immer wieder gerne....

@antonmikofsky2073 10 жыл бұрын

I swear it's Ramblin' Jack Elliott, sideburns and all.

@drallsnow3 12 жыл бұрын

very very nice

@dansaver8247 Жыл бұрын

Tremendous.

@southernswimbait 8 жыл бұрын

shooooots!

@ElRazTheGreat1 11 жыл бұрын

May God bless us all, thanks for sharing. Be Well, Godspeed, El Raz

@sheldonallman4078 11 жыл бұрын

The Best Allays the older the better

@hirundine 11 жыл бұрын

Ever see pictures of Elvis, before military? In England in the fifties, the "Teddy Boys" were big on them. Long hair too, at the back. As well as dyed hair. Blonde mainly, but blue and green also.

@squeakystool 11 жыл бұрын

I'd say this was 1963 during Newport Folk Festival time.

@RoryVanucchi 4 жыл бұрын

treasure

@PHJimY 9 жыл бұрын

Is that Pat Sky at 2:17?

@wjhall307 11 жыл бұрын

I find it hard to believe this recording is from 1961. I do not recall young people having hairstyles with long sideburns like the young fellow in the audience until later in the 60's, It seems to me this film was shot in 1965 or 1966.

@shooterbrown823 7 жыл бұрын

wjhall307 no sir this was 1961 my uncle Clarence tom Ashley died in 67

@keiths7494 5 жыл бұрын

Elvis had long hair and sideburns in the 1950s, copied by many!

@keiths7494 5 жыл бұрын

Pure Elvis hairstyles on at least a couple of the listeners, and Elvis wore his hair like this in the 1950s.

@tnthorses 3 жыл бұрын

Do ya have anymore of these guys?

@mikelisacarb 11 жыл бұрын

Any chance that the pictures of the listeners were added in later years when Pickow did an edit? I'm inclined to agree with wjhall307 about the hairstyles. They are definitely post-Beatle in every way. By the same token, the film of the actual performance seems extremely 1961.

@Deuce_Allan Жыл бұрын

Can someone tell me what key this is?

@AlExander-nb6fc 2 жыл бұрын

Ashley without the banjo?

@psaint60 3 жыл бұрын

Imagine trying to write a song about drowning a girl today. Murder ballads are freaky like that. That goes for you too Tom Dooley! 😆

@nozecone 3 жыл бұрын

We've put all that into movies, now.

@gracekouvali6903 2 жыл бұрын

There should be more of this on the airwaves and TV, instead of what the crap that's played and showed today.

@michaelwhisman7623 2 жыл бұрын

His name wasn't Clarence Ashley.

@michaelwhisman7623 2 жыл бұрын

I can read music but don't like too. I know many so-called musicians who claim that one cannot tune a violin or guitar without pitch-pipes or a piano. LOL My grandfather didn't carry a piano on his horse when he went to play for a dance.