By B. Noel Barr, Music Columnist
“If you’re terrified of offending everybody, you usually say nothing.
I never did that from the beginning. I’m not gonna do that now.”
— Ed Pearl
There are some people whose destiny is born in the heart on a path that never strays. Ed Pearl was one such man, I’m glad to have known him, if only briefly. Yet, he had affected three-quarters of my life. The type of work I engage in today is mainly because of Ed Pearl.
Producer, social activist, owner of the iconic Ash Grove performance venues and founder of The Ash Foundation, Ed Pearl died due to complications from COVID-19 and pneumonia on Feb. 7, 2021. (Obituaries RLn 02/18/2021)
Edward Morton Pearl grew up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was in the middle of five children, whose parents fled Russia during a time of Jewish persecution in the early 1900s.
The East Los Angeles neighborhood was ethnically and racially diverse, where sounds and ideas across cultures melted together. Ed’s older sister Bernice presented hootenannies — folk music gatherings — in the family home. Bluesman Brownie Mcghee would be one of the artist guests in the Pearl household.
In my work at Random Lengths News, I had the opportunity to meet and interview the music venue owner.
We talked about the then-upcoming 50th anniversary of The Ash Grove Celebration that took place on the UCLA campus. Ed regaled me with stories of the historic nightclub and the talented artists who were upcoming music talent of the day. Traveling from all over the Southland to hear these legendary musicians of folk, country, blues and various ethnic music styles.
Dave Alvin of The Blasters in his song, Ash Grove speaks to the vibration we all got when we went to The Ash Grove, to sit at the feet of these musicians, “To watch them raise ghosts right out of their graves.”
I was one of those kids. In my case, I hitchhiked up to Los Angeles from the Harbor Area to hear the old bluesmen play.
I wasn’t alone, as I learned the first time Ed and I spoke. Dave and Phil Alvin, Katy Segal (actor/singer), Ry Cooder and Linda Ronstadt all did the same thing. We wanted to hear music that was authentic and real. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would roll in and catch sets of their favorite bluesmen while they resided in the Hollywood Hills. Careers were started at The Ash Grove where various members of one-day popular bands would meet playing folk or blues music.
What I admired about Ed was his bold courage and commitment to the artists he booked. This was music you searched out, The Ash Grove was where you would find it.
Ed would produce a dozen major plays for The San Francisco Mime Troupe (1978-84), The Credibility Gap (Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Gene Chandler singer/songwriter). The Ash Grove presented an anti-war documentary by Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.
The Ash Grove was home for social-political causes as much it was for divergent music styles.
According to an essay by Carol Wells, “The Ash Grove hosted events and was a social meeting place for people involved in a variety of causes — from the Civil Rights to the Anti-Nuclear and emerging student movements. As the VietNam War deepened, he helped found the Peace & Freedom Party in 1967.”
As one friend told me once, “The Ash Grove was the living room to the left.”
It had its start at UCLA. When the then-blacklisted Pete Seeger was kept from performing on the campus, Ed took the show to the very large Presbyterian Church next door in Westwood. The show was sold out, the seed for The Ash Grove was planted.
From 1958 to its final shows in 1973 at the original location — later at the short-lived Santa Monica Pier location — the spirit of community was ever-present as a music venue as well as the focal point for the left.
“Ed was unabashed about his politics and it created enemies,” Wells said.
In the book Set The Night On Fire by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener, they talk of the fires that eventually lead to the closing of the Ash Grove in the chapter titled “The Ash Grove and The Gusanos”
They describe a group of anti-Fidel Castro Cubans who made a clear declaration of war on anyone supporting the Havana regime. More than a dozen sites were bombed in Los Angeles. Five during a single, three-hour period on July 19, 1968.
During this time, The Socialist Workers Party had been attacked by The Gusanos multiple times. The Social Workers Party moved their offices to the Ash Grove building on Melrose.
The Ash Grove burned down three times, in 1969, 1970 and 1973. Twice it came back strong, but by the third fire it was over.
“I dignified people’s culture and I brought ethnic musical heritage and culture to the people in Hollywood,” Ed said later.
He would try once more in Santa Monica, which would only last a year.
Ed kept moving on, eventually building the Ash Grove Foundation that continues to this day.
In all those years, he had served and started multiple social and political groups. In 1997, Ed Pearl was the recipient of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics’ “Culture of Liberation” award. The award title comes from a quote from Amilar Cabral, “Culture contains the seed of opposition becoming the flower of liberation.”
Ed Pearl was a man of strong unshakeable conviction, he lived a life with art, and the possibilities of a better and equal tomorrow for all.
For all that you did brother, thank you.
B. Noel Barr, aka. The Music Writer Dude has covered the LA Harbor and Long Beach music scenes for Random Lengths News since 2011. Under the moniker Buzz Barr, B. Noel Barr has been heard on Kbeach with Kari at The Prime Spot, and later as Bobby The Wheel with Mike Stark’s LA Radio Sessions and Lunch at the Barr on www.hotmix106.com with live and recorded interviews and music.