´May his memory be a blessing…´. A short appreciation of Happy Traum
July 21, 2024
Bill Taylor writes: Linda Thompson’s words on Facebook can hardly be bettered:
“A fabulous musician, and a wonderful man, but above all, an incredible husband and father. When all is said and done, that’s the measure of a great man.
“May his memory be a blessing.”
Happy Traum died in New York City last Wednesday. He was 86.
Stop the proverbial person in the street and there probably wouldn’t be a lot of recognition. Outside of the circles in which Traum moved and played and sang and taught, his name wasn’t widely known.
But he was one of the fundamentals, one of the building blocks of modern North American folk music, front and centre at the Greenwich Village coffeehouse folk revival of the 1960s.
Everyone has heard – and heard and heard and heard – of Bob Dylan. Happy Traum was sought out by Dylan as a co-performer.
Recalling his time with the New World Singers, Traum told one interviewer that Dylan “liked our group a lot. He used to follow us to different gigs around the city.”
The groundbreaking 1963 album Broadside Ballads Vol. 1 (which also features, among others, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs) includes a duet by Traum and Dylan (performing, perhaps for contractual reasons, as Blind Boy Grunt) on the latter’s antiwar ballad “Let Me Die in My Footsteps.” Traum takes lead vocal, Dylan sings backup.
“There’s probably a thousand recordings of that song,” Traum noted later. “I don’t think it says in any history books, but ours was definitely the first time it was recorded.”
On Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 album of 1971, Traum sings harmony and plays guitar, banjo and bass on “Down in the Flood,” “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “I Shall Be Released.”
He recalled on his website – www.happytraum.com – how Dylan had called him in Woodstock, New York, where the two both lived, and asked him to show up next day at the Columbia recording studio in Manhattan with his instruments.
“Never mind that I didn’t own a bass and had never played one in public before,” Traum wrote. “I borrowed one – fast.”
That was the measure of the man, the esteem in which he was held. He played with the likes of Pete Seeger, Jerry Jeff Walker, Maria Muldaur, Eric Andersen, Rick Danko and Levon Helm, of The Band, even reggae star Peter Tosh.
He and his younger brother Artie, who died in 2008, put out five albums together. Here they are at the 1973 Clearwater Festival in Kingston, New York:Traum – named by his parents Harry Peter but known from infancy as Happy – was a superb finger-picking guitarist and banjo player. He was not only a performer but a music teacher of some note. He and his wife Jane started Homespun Music Instruction, which put out instructional books and videos.
Traum had studied himself with blues legend Brownie McGhee.
He was active on the folk scene for a good – and they were very good – six decades. Here he is two years ago doing “Careless Love,” which McGhee had taught him. He’s 84 years old and it’s a tour de force:
The world of folk music, of music as a whole, is so much the poorer for Happy Traum’s passing. RIP
The absence of comments here does not mean Bill’s splendid appreciation has gone unnoticed. People tend not to post very often to sites like ours but will respond with enthusiasm when references to our articles appear on social media.
From the. Salut! Live Facebook group, for example, an alert to this item has been seen by 2.8k people over a number of relevant groups.
Me? I’m proud to have provided a forum for. Bill’s expertly crafted piece.
Posted by: Colin Randall | July 23, 2024 at 01:56 PM