Happy Traum

[Brooks Montgomery]

Another great one gone:
“Happy Traum, a stalwart of the Greenwich Village and Woodstock folk scenes and longtime friend and collaborator of Bob Dylan, died on Wednesday at age 86. The Hudson Valley magazine Chronogram first reported the musician’s death, and his close friend and fellow musician John Sebastian confirmed to RS that the cause was cancer.” from Rolling Stone.
Happy died July 17.

I recently purchased his new songbook “The Homespun Song Book”, which is a great ‘campfire’ songbook of so many great traditional and modern songs. I highly recommend it.

[Bill McCloskey]

Can't begin to count the number of Home spun tapes I've owned over the years but I can remember the FIRST one:

I was working in Silicon Valley for a huge computer company: Silicon Graphics. I had given up playing any instrument 10 years before, after (at one time) thinking music was going to be my life.

My wife bought me a Home Spun Video VHS on the guitar style of Chris Smither. Chris Smither is who I learned how to finger pick from (by watching him perform live and dissecting his LP's and tape recording I had of him), when I was a kid. It reconnected me to a time in my life where music was everything and I was living in Austin hanging with people like Mickey White and Townes and Lucinda and Pat Mears.

It got me interested in music again. A few months later, I bought my first dobro. A few years after that I joined the SGF.

Rest in Peace Happy. Like George Bailey, you changed more lives than you could even imagine.

[Larry Dering]

Another great one gone. Happy has touched many lives with his teaching and videos. He's left a legacy of work to be treasured by aspiring musicians world wide. RIP Happy Traum.