Happy Traum

Woodstock's own folk music legend
1938 - 2024

Happy Traum, Folk Scene Mainstay and Dylan Collaborator, Dies at 86

July 19, 2024
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From the New York Times.

Happy Traum, a celebrated folk singer, guitarist and banjo player who was a mainstay of the Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene of the early 1960s, recorded with Bob Dylan and had an influential career as a music instructor, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 86.

His wife, Jane Traum, said he died of pancreatic cancer in a physical rehabilitation facility after undergoing surgery for the disease. He lived in Woodstock, N.Y.

Known for his easy vocal approach and his prowess as a finger-style guitarist and five-string banjo player, the Bronx-bred Mr. Traum was an enduring presence in the folk world for more than six decades.

“Revered by most in the musical know, he is easily one of the most significant acoustic-roots musicians and guitar pickers of his — and many other — generations,” Blues magazine observed in the introduction to a 2016 interview with Mr. Traum.