Harry Peter "Happy" Traum (May 9, 1938 – July 17, 2024) was an American folk musician who started playing around Washington Square in the late 1950s. He became a stalwart of the Greenwich Village music scene of the 1960s and the Woodstock music community of the 1970s and 1980s.
Traum 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.[5] With his group, The New World Singers, Traum cut the first version of "Blowin' in the Wind" to be released (early 1963).[6] Traum also sang a duet with Dylan, who performed under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt, on his anti-war song "Let Me Die in My Footsteps". These tracks were re-released in August 2000 by Smithsonian Folkways as part of a boxed set, The Best of Broadside 1962 - 1988: Anthems from the American Underground.[citation needed] Later that year, The New World Singers, which featured Traum, Bob Cohen, and Gil Turner, recorded an album for Atlantic Records, with liner notes by Dylan. The album featured the first recording of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right".
For several years, Traum 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.[7] They released several albums, including Happy and Artie Traum (1969, Capitol records),[8]Double Back (1971, Capitol), and Hard Times In The Country (1975, Rounder). He continued as a solo artist and as founder of Homespun Music Instruction.
1980 Bright Morning Stars With John Sebastian, Roly Salley, Richard Manuel and Larry Campbell
1987 Buckets of Songs, Shanachie (CD)
2005 I Walk The Road Again, Roaring Stream Records (CD)[12]
2015 "Just For the Love Of It," Lark's Nest Music (CD)
With Artie Traum
1970 Happy and Artie Traum - Capitol Records (LP)
1971 Double Back - Capitol Records (LP)
1975 Hard Times in the Country - Rounder Records (reissued as CD in 2005)
1994 The Test of Time - Roaring Stream Records (CD)
2006 Happy and Artie Traum Live Recordings 1970s and 1980s - Slice of Life Records
With various groups
1963 Broadside, Vol. 1 (both solo and with The New World Singers) - Folkways Records (with Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, The Freedom Singers, and others).
1964 The New World Singers - Atlantic Records (liner notes by Bob Dylan)
1966 The Children of Paradise - Columbia Records (single) Happy and Artie Traum, Eric Kaz and Marc Silber.
1972 Mud Acres: Music Among Friends - Rounder Records (reissued on CD 2005) Happy and Artie produced and performed, along with Eric Kaz, Maria Muldaur, Jim Rooney, Bill Keith, John Herald, Lee Berg and Tony Brown.
1976 Woodstock Mountains: More Music from Mud Acres - Rounder (LP) with Happy and Artie, Pat Alger, Eric Andersen, Lee Berg, Rory Block, Paul Butterfield, John Herald, Bill Keith, Jim Rooney, Roly Salley, John Sebastian, Paul Siebel and others.
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