5 String Banjo
HOMESPUN

Taught By Happy Traum.
Level 1
Six CDs plus Tab Book

These CDs take beginners through the dominant styles of American folk and country music -- up-picking, two-finger mountain style, double-thumbing, hammering-on, pulling-off and a variety of strums, chord positions and tunings. You will learn both accompaniment and instrumental versions to 35 songs, including:

My Home's Across The Smoky Mountains, Willie Moore, Swannanoa Tunnel, The Cannonball, Little Birdie, Cumberland Gap, Black-Eyed Suzie, Down In A Willow Garden, Jesse James, Banks Of The Ohio, Cindy, I Never Will Marry, Cripple Creek, Fly Around;, Penney's Farm, Deep Blue Sea, Brown's Ferry Blues and more!More exciting songs and banjo styles including clawhammer and three-finger techniques. Traditional songs from the playing of Clarence Ashley, Uncle Dave Macon, Pete Steele and others include: Handsome Molly, Little Sadie, The Cuckoo, Pretty Polly, 900 Miles, Cripple Creek, Sally Ann, Sail Away Ladies, Cumberland Mt. Deer Chase, Old Joe Clark, Arkansas Traveler, Way Down The Old Plank Road, Old Molly Hare, Soldier's Joy, Coal Creek March, Marching Through Georgia and more.

About Happy Traum
During the past forty years, Happy Traum's avid interest in traditional and contemporary music has brought him recognition as a performer, writer, editor, folklorist, teacher and recording artist. He has performed extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan, and has appeared on recordings as a featured artist, as a member of various ensembles, and as an accompanist. He has played and recorded with Bob Dylan, Chris Smither, Maria Muldaur, Eric Andersen, Rory Block, Jerry Jeff Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and innumerable others.
Happy is the author of more than a dozen best-selling guitar instruction books, has written numerous magazine columns and articles, and for three years was editor of Sing Out! The Folksong Magazine. He and his brother, Artie Traum, have been playing as a duo since 1968. Their first two Capitol albums, "Happy And Artie Traum" and "Double Back," are widely considered to be classics.

Long-time residents of Woodstock, NY, Happy and Artie co-produced several important records for Rounder, featuring some of the area's finest folk and rock musicians. These included "Mud Acres, Music Among Friends" and "Woodstock Mountains." Happy and Artie's album "Hard Times In The Country" featured liner notes by Allen Ginsberg. In 1993, Happy and Artie released their latest duet album, "The Test Of Time," featuring traditional and contemporary songs backed up by some of Woodstock's finest musicians.

Happy's solo albums include "Relax Your Mind," "American Stranger," "Bright Morning Stars" and "Friends And Neighbors." A compilation CD, "Buckets Of Songs," has been released by Shanachie Records. In 2001, “Bright Morning Stars” was reissued in CD format in the U.S. (Lark’s Nest Music) and in Japan (Slice of Life Records).

Perhaps Happy Traum's most important and lasting musical contribution has been Homespun Tapes, which he and his wife Jane founded in 1967. This dynamic and growing mail order company has a catalog of approximately 400 different music instruction lessons on audio cassette, CD and video tape, taught by top professional performing musicians. Happy produces all of the lessons, and brings to Homespun his many years of experience as a popular and productive member of the music community.