Coffee Gallery Backstage

09/08/2026

What are your favorites?

Folk music has a rich history of honoring workers, labor movements, and the fight for labor rights. Traditional and contemporary folk artists have documented the struggles, tragedies, and victories of the working class. 🎶

Here’s a short list of folk songs that reveal the daily realities, systemic struggles, and quiet resilience of laborers across different eras and industries. 🛠️👷👷🏻‍♀️🦺✊🏻 Share your favorites in the comments! 🙏

Essential Union Anthems

· "Solidarity Forever" by Pete Seeger. This is widely considered the ultimate anthem of the American labor movement.
· "There Is Power in the Union" by Utah Phillips. A powerful classic detailing the strength of organized labor.
· "Which Side Are You On?" by The Almanac Singers. Written by Florence Reece in 1931 during a Harlan County miners' strike.

Songs of Work, Struggle & Tragedy

·"Joe Hill" by Paul Robeson. A haunting tribute to the executed IWW labor activist and songwriter.
·"Bread and Roses" by Judy Collins. Inspired by a discovery of textile strikes, linking the fight for fair wages to dignity.
· "1913 Massacre" by Woody Guthrie. Tells the tragic story of the Italian Hall disaster during a Michigan copper miners' strike.
· "The Rebel Girl" by Hazel Dickens. A tribute to labor activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Industry & Mining Ballads

· "Black Waters" by Jean Ritchie. A powerful protest song about the devastating environmental and human impact of coal mining.
· "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford. A stark look at the crushing debt and labor of a coal miner.
· "Fire in the Hole" by Hazel Dickens. A gritty portrait of the harsh realities inside working coal mines

All songs are available on YT. Enjoy! Happy Labor Day!

09/08/2026

Another important American folk music family!

09/01/2026

This book is collectable! Does anyone have one in hand?

Bob Stane is a legendary American businessman, concert promoter, and a central figure in the West Coast folk music revival of the 1960s. He is also our dear friend and mentor. 🤠

Bob wrote How to Run a Coffee House in 1959 while running his venue, The Upper Cellar, in San Diego. His guidebook was filled with clever, sharp business tips meant to help others learn how to build and operate a successful coffeehouse from the ground up. ☕🎶

Born in 1934, Bob is highly celebrated for his unique eye for discovering talent and managing some of Southern California's most historic live entertainment venues.

He was instrumental in nurturing, supporting, and launching the careers of massive stars early in their journeys - including Steve Martin, The Smothers Brothers, The Dillards, The Association, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Bob is widely regarded as a beloved mentor and a "man behind the music" who spent decades helping others achieve fame.

08/07/2026

This is the way to do it.

He didn't plead the 5th. He told them it was none of their business! 🪕

A stunning image of Pete Seeger testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee on August 18th, 1955. Seeger, without pleading the 5th, refused to answer questions and accused the committee, itself, of being un-American. He was cited for contempt of Congress, faced prison time, but the case was eventually thrown out.

The committee was investigating the supposed communist infiltration of the entertainment industry. An informant - an unnamed New York actor - told federal investigators under oath that Seeger was a member of the Communist Party … a devastating accusation.

Seeger stated: “I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this.”

When pressed about whether he had performed for communist groups, Seeger answered:

"I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life. I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody. That is the only answer I can give along that line."

After this statement, Seeger stated that he would gladly talk about his music all day and offered to sing the committee any song he knew. The committee denied his offer and refused to let him sing.

Though Seeger avoided prison time, the fallout from his combative First Amendment defense cast a long shadow over the musician.

He was blacklisted due to his past ties to the Communist Party and his leftist political activism. Radio stations banned his music, his record label dropped him, and major television networks refused to book him for many years.

The heavy restrictions on Seeger gradually subsided by the 1960s as he re-emerged as a prominent voice in the folk-protest and civil rights movements.

08/04/2026

Who remembers Ed? Bob said:
"Ed Pearl had the best taste in music of all of the venue owners. He, and the lighting and atmosphere of The Ash Grove, inspired me to do my best at The Ice House and at The Coffee Gallery Backstage. He was the best and chose the very finest and most genuine artists for his stage. He guided me as far back as 1958. I will miss you, Ed. You were a brave and important pioneer."

This is Ed Pearl, founder of the Ash Grove, a folk music club that opened in Los Angeles in 1958 and named after the Welsh folk song “The Ash Grove”. It was a key and vital venue in the West Coast folk music revival. Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley, Bill Monroe, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Jerry Garcia, and many other blues, bluegrass, traditional, and folk legends performed there. 🎶

Pearl was an open-minded, progressive and visionary thinker who modeled his club in the coffee house tradition, presenting not only music, but also poetry, lectures, films and comedy. The venue became associated with the cultural and political ferment of the 1960s, with artists speaking out against the Vietnam war. A series of arson fires - after angry demonstrations and threatened violence by Cuban exiles against Pearl and the venue - closed the original Melrose venue in 1973. Ed Pearl died in 2021.

Pearl and The Ash Grove radically changed the musical and cultural landscape of Los Angeles and the West Coast music scene. Who in our community performed there? Which of you were in the audience? Please share stories! 🤠

05/21/2026

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/ 🎟️

05/08/2026

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

05/08/2026

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/

05/08/2026

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!

04/16/2026

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! 🤠