Traum, Happy
Live In Holland 2017
Happy Traum (Woodstock, NY) first appeared on record at a historic session in late 1962 when a group of young folk musicians, including Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Peter LaFarge, and The Freedom Singers, gathered in the studio at Folkways Records to record an album called Broadside Ballads, Vol. 1. For several years, Happy studied blues guitar with Brownie McGhee, who was a big influence on his guitar style. He was known as one half of Happy and Artie Traum, a duo he began with his brother. They released several albums, including Happy and Artie Traum on Capitol records, and "Hard Times In The Country" on Rounder Records. He continued as a solo artist and as founder of Homespun Music Instruction. In 1971 Happy once again joined Dylan in the studio, playing guitar, banjo, bass, and singing harmony on four songs, which appeared on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II, and The Bootleg Series Vol. 10, and Another Self Portrait. Dylan also invited Happy to participate in a famous session with poet Allen Ginsberg, which resulted in the box set Holy Soul Jelly Roll. From Jane Traum's linernotes: "There is nothing like a live concert. It is spontaneous and the performer and the audience share the experience. There are no retakes or remakes. It is LIVE! The applause is real, the sound is real and the joy of performing is real. Happy loved to play music. He loved to teach music and he loved to communicate through his playing. The theater felt electric that night in 2017. I will treasure the memory of that evening always."