Coffee Gallery Backstage

Don't miss The Roadhouse Series' Bob Dylan birthday tribute concert this Saturday in Covina, CA at The Fret House. The show features many of the Roadhouse Regulars who performed regularly here at Coffee Gallery Backstage. Get tickets at https://frethouse.com/ 🎟️

If you miss listening room shows at Coffee Gallery Backstage, make sure to follow Full Moon Saturdays at Stonywood summer concert series in Pasadena, CA. They do one show per month on their gorgeous stage during summer. All monies go to the artists! Be sure to give them a follow and check out their next five shows:

https://www.facebook.com/fullmoonsaturdays

Terry Paul Roland's Roadhouse Series that began at Coffee Gallery Backstage has moved to The Fret House Underground in Covina CA. These are high-quality variety shows starring some of LA's finest musicians, singers and songwriters. The next Roadhouse show is May 23rd, a tribute to Bob Dylan! Give their page a follow: https://www.facebook.com/RoadhouseSeries/

Now, more than ever.

Pete Seeger was right. How many of us learned "The Hammer Song" as children? The notion that we have the tools to change the world if we want to seems naive and innocent now, but with the tools we now have at our disposal, it is more true than ever before. 🤠

We have the hammer of . 🔨 We have the bell of . 🔔 We have a song of 💕 between our brothers and our sisters all over this land. 🎶 Let's put our shoulder to the wheel!

Not nearly enough people know this interesting story about the West Coast folk music revival in LA.

This man, Will Geer, was much more than Grandpa “Zeb” Walton. He was - as a singer, actor and social activist - a pivotal figure in American folk music. He was known to have collaborated with his close friend, folk icon Woody Guthrie. It was Geer who introduced Guthrie to Pete Seeger, and who organized progressive benefit concerts as early as 1940. 🌹

Since Geer was sympathetic to socialism, he was blacklisted in the early 1950s for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. As a result, Geer founded, with his wife, actress Herta Ware, the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga, CA in 1951. This theater’s productions featured similarly blacklisted actors as well as folk singers like Guthrie, Seeger, and Burl Ives.

Beginning in 1952, Guthrie, suffering from Huntington’s disease, lived in a small building on Geer’s Theatricum property for several years, where, though he had ceased performing, continued to write songs.

In our early days, we actually performed in front of the Woody Guthrie “shack” at Theatricum twice, both 4th of July Celebrations. Pretty cool! 🤠

The celebrated Roadhouse Series that began here at Coffee Gallery Backstage back in 2016 is continuing on at The Fret House in Covina. Terry Paul Roland is producing some great shows with some of the best musical talent in the region. Please give this page a follow and share far and wide! 🎶

https://www.facebook.com/RoadhouseSeries

Ken Marshall (left) with Bob Stane in front of their "Fork in the Road" sculpture in Pasadena, erected in honor of Bob's 75th birthday. Who has seen it in person?

What's the phrase? "When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me"?

Never Assume! 🤣 George Clooney lip-synching “Man of Constant Sorrow” and Dan Tyminski, the actual singer of the song popularized in the film “O Brother, Where Art Thou”.

"They assumed I could sing because my aunt was Rosemary Clooney, and I assumed I could sing. It literally sounded like a cat caught in the wheel well of a truck driving down the street,” Clooney said. “Then they brought in Dan Tyminski and he sang it for me. It was pretty humiliating.” Never assume! 🤠

Tyminski was a member of Alison Krauss' Union Station, but as a singer-songwriter, musician, composer, vocalist, and instrumentalist, he is a bluegrass star in his own right. The song received a Grammy in 2002.



Image of Dan Tyminski: Frank Baker

Music is rising from the ashes! 🎶

Music is rising from the ashes! 🎶 Fender Guitars has crafted a fine Telecaster guitar made from reclaimed wood harvested from salvaged trees from the Eaton Fire that ravaged Altadena, CA. 🔥 The guitar is up for auction, with 100% of net proceeds benefiting SGV Habitat for Humanity's work rebuilding homes for wildfire survivors. Auction link in the comments!

The Canadian Folk Music Scene of the Sixties!

Groovy, folk music-playing hippies congregate outside The Purple Onion Folk Club, which operated from 1960 to 1965. In the basement was The Riverboat, another iconic folk music coffee house located in Toronto’s Yorkville district. These two legendary venues helped launch the careers of Canadian musicians like Gordon Lightfoot, Bruce Cockburn, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young.

Much like the Ice House in Los Angeles and The Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, The Purple Onion and The Riverboat were key venues for folk music and singer-songwriters during latter part of the the American folk music revival of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. 🎶

[It has been pointed out that this image is most likely AI-generated. It faked us out! We are leaving the post up because we value the discussion of Folk Music venues and the place of AI. Please keep comments positive.]