HOMESPUN
Ten Easy Songs of Spirit and Faith
Taught By Happy Traum.
Level 2
One CD, Includes Music and Tab
Here are ten carefully chosen traditional spirituals, hymns and bluegrass gospel
songs that any beginner or early-intermediate player will enjoy learning. These
beautiful songs have been specifically arranged to help you expand your repertoire
of folk/gospel material while developing knowledge, technique and skill on your
guitar.
The songs have been designed so that you’ll gain experience with basic bluegrass flatpicking, folk strumming and blues fingerpicking styles. Some of the pieces start at a very easy level, while others will be a bit more challenging. Once they’re mastered, though, you’ll be playing them in many different settings – family, camp and community gatherings, group sings as well as in solo performance.
"Sowin' On the Mountain," "Let Us Break Bread Together," "Angel
Band," "Farther Along," "All Night Long," "Kumbaya," "My
Lord What A Morning," "Walking In Jerusalem Just Like John," "Just
A Closer Walk With Thee," "One For Paul, One For Silas."
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.