Eric Von Schmidt RIP

[jjm]

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I've just read of his death.

www.vonsworks.com/


and...


February 3, 2007
Eric von Schmidt, 75, a Performer and Inspiration to Folk Singers, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Eric von Schmidt, a performer and composer of folk music who as a boy instantly fell in love with the blues when he heard Leadbelly on the radio, and who went on to be a mentor to and to inspire singers like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, died yesterday in Fairfield, Conn. He was 75.

His daughter Caitlin von Schmidt said that the cause had not been determined, but that he suffered a stroke last year. He lived in Westport, Conn.

Mr. von Schmidt was a frisky, bearded figure, who combined a successful career as a painter of big pictures of historical subjects with an exuberant musical style he liked to apply to American folk classics. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, the legendary cowboy singer, lauded his spirited approach to the songs of Leadbelly, the legendary blues artist, and the folk songs of Woody Guthrie.

“Eric’s got that wild spirit, and he doesn’t water the music down for polite society,” Mr. Elliott told The Boston Globe in 1996.

Mr. von Schmidt settled in Cambridge, Mass., in 1957 and began to hang around with students and others who were developing an interest in folk music. Soon, people who would become folk stars, like Mr. Dylan and Ms. Baez, became part of the scene.

Mr. von Schmidt shared the large repertory of traditional music he had collected for years, and worked with performers developing a more modern version of folk music. He influenced Tom Rush, with whom he revived and arranged the most widely performed version of the traditional song “Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm?,” about the 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Tex.

Both Mr. von Schmidt and Mr. Dylan appeared at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, at which Mr. Dylan shocked traditionalists with electric guitars.

In the early 1960s, Mr. Dylan had shown up at Mr. von Schmidt’s doorstep in Harvard Square in Cambridge. The two traded harmonica licks, drank red wine and played croquet. Before crashing on the couch, Mr. Dylan eagerly absorbed some of his host’s voluminous knowledge of music, including folk, country and the blues.

“I sang him a bunch of songs, and, with that spongelike mind of his, he remembered almost all of them when he got back to New York,” Mr. von Schmidt said in The Boston Globe.

A few months later, Mr. Dylan’s first album came out. Over the guitar introduction to “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” he told of meeting Mr. von Schmidt “in the green pastures of Harvard University.”

Mr. von Schmidt had taught the song to Mr. Dylan, and it became one of his standards after being included on his first album (“Bob Dylan,” 1962). Mr. von Schmidt did not write it; he had learned it from Geno Foreman, who in turn learned it from an old 78 record by Blind Boy Fuller.

On the blurred cover of Mr. Dylan’s fifth album, “Bringing It All Back Home” (1965), is a picture of a von Schmidt album. Mr. Dylan wrote liner notes for one, saying his friend “could sing the bird off the wire and the rubber off the tire.”

Eric von Schmidt was born in Westport on May 28, 1931. His father, Harold, specialized in rustic portraits of the American West that appeared on magazine covers. By the time Eric was a teenager, he was selling his own illustrations.

His interest in music was kindled by listening to the Grande Ole Opry on the radio. When he heard Leadbelly sing “Good Night, Irene” on WQXR in 1948, he immediately learned the song, since his girlfriend was named Irene.

He skipped college, studied art in Florence, spent two years in the Army, then moved to Cambridge.

Perhaps his most famous song is “Joshua Gone Barbados,” which many others have sung. In 1979 he was co-author, with Jim Rooney, of a book about the Cambridge scene, “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down.”

In addition to Caitlin, who lives in Westport, Mr. von Schmidt, who was twice married and divorced, is survived by another daughter, Megan Richardson of Greenfield, Mass., and three grandsons.

In 2000, Mr. von Schmidt developed throat cancer and became unable to sing. Years later Lyme disease made it hard for him to play the guitar. He kept up with music until six months before his death by working on a series of paintings called “Giants of the Blues.”



Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[Diane Merkel]

Thank you for posting this.

I heard about his death on NPR but, since they only mentioned the Dylan connection, I didn't realize it was the painter.

We've lost another great talent.

[jjm]

Obituary
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric von Schmidt
Singer and writer who inspired Bob Dylan

Michael Carlson
Monday February 5, 2007

Guardian

Eric von Schmidt, who has died aged 75, was a captivating performer and songwriter, but his legacy remains firmly tied to Bob Dylan. A major figure in the Cambridge (Massachusetts) folk scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was a man of huge generosity to his fellow musicians.
When Dylan travelled to Cambridge, where he met Joan Baez, he crashed with von Schmidt, learned songs from him, and played his first game of croquet stoned. Dylan repaid the hospitality on his first album by crediting "Rick von Schmidt" in the spoken introduction to Baby Let Me Follow You Down, although, in fact, von Schmidt's own version was adapted from Blind Boy Fuller's original. Three years later, Dylan posed for the cover of Bringing It All Back Home next to a pile of records. On top was The Folk Blues of Eric von Schmidt.

Even that plug did not propel von Schmidt to stardom, but stardom was something he never sought. He had a parallel career as a painter, including album covers for Baez, Cisco Houston, John Renborn, Rev Gary Davis, Geoff and Maria Muldaur and even for James Baldwin's readings. His masterpiece was the gatefold Sweet Moments with the Blue Velvet Band, a short-lived bluegrass supergroup featuring Jim Rooney, Bill Keith, Eric Weissberg, and Richard Greene, which included a board game over both inside panels.

His artistic talent came from his father, Harold, a Western painter who did illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post. Born in Wesport, Connecticut, von Schmidt was selling his artwork while still a teenager. He had been captivated by country music after hearing the Grand Ole Opry on the radio, and at 17 he was listening to Leadbelly.

While in the army, he read Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, and discovered he could order peyote legally by post, which made his army experience more rewarding. After a spell in Florida, he won a Fulbright scholarship to study art in Florence. He moved to Cambridge in 1957, where he painted and became the centre of the coffeehouse scene. He recorded his first album, featuring the song Grizzly Bear in 1961 with folk historian Rolf Cahn. In 1963 he and Richard Farina recorded in London's Dobell's Jazz Record store, with one Blind Boy Grunt (Dylan) on harmonica. That was followed by Folk Blues, with Geoff Muldaur and Fritz Richmond from the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. His fourth, Eric Sings von Schmidt, again with Muldaur, included Joshua's Gone Barbados, one of the most covered of all folk songs, including the Basement Tapes epic version by Dylan and The Band.

He was at his peak, but despite a rapturous reception at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Farina and his wife Mimi Baez, Joan's sister, famously danced to his singing, Dylan's going electric overshadowed him. His next album did not appear until 1969. Who Knocked the Brains Out of the Sky is surprising psychedelic folk, with Dylan writing the liner notes. Von Schmidt then ventured to Woodstock to make two records. The first, 2nd Right 3rd Row, was released in 1972 on Poppy Records. Poppy folded before releasing its follow-up, Livin' on the Trail, also featuring the Band's Garth Hudson and Geoff and Maria Muldaur, with Rooney producing. The tapes were rediscovered and finally released in 2002. In the ensuing 30 years, von Schmidt made only two records.

His art career flourished and, with Rooney, he wrote a brilliant history of the Cambridge folk years called Baby Let Me Follow You Down (1979).

In 2000 he developed throat cancer. That year he received a lifetime achievement award from the society of music publishers, ASCAP, and was serenaded with his and Tom Rush's What a Mighty Storm. It was a tribute to a singer whom Dylan said "could sing the bird off the wire and rubber off the tire ...separate the men from the boys and the note from the noise".

Twice divorced, he is survived by two daughters.

· Eric von Schmidt, musician, born May 28 1931; died February 2 2007

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

[hans54]

Sad news, indeed!
I will always have Bob Dylan's acknowledgment to Ric von Schmidt in my ears. Time to listen to this forceful first album again.
Besides the interesting Dylan relation, Eric von Schmidt did one of the most impressive paintings of the LBH battle, perhaps the best of them all.
Hans Karkheck

[markland]

hans54 said:

Sad news, indeed!
I will always have Bob Dylan's acknowledgment to Ric von Schmidt in my ears. Time to listen to this forceful first album again.
Besides the interesting Dylan relation, Eric von Schmidt did one of the most impressive paintings of the LBH battle, perhaps the best of them all.
Hans Karkheck

Hans, that makes two of us. I listened to it Sunday morning after reading JJM's post. It is, indeed, a forceful album which has withstood the ravages of changing musical tastes quite well.

Billy

[hans54]

Well, recalling recent messages in this group, I guess, Billy, we're in good company here - the two of us. Dylan himself, from that first album, has been constantly changing and re-inventing his art, up to his wonderful MODERN TIMES. Strange, how many of us do not just share this group's one big interest, but still more. Dr. Zimmerman has been mentioned here quite a lot recently. Must probably all be encompassed in that overall field called AMERICANA (writing this from Germany).
Hans Karkheck

[George Armstrong Custer]

Sad news, indeed. This forum has of course, in other threads, dicussed both Eric's superlative painting Here Fell Custer, and his father Harold's earlier, more heroic, take on the last stand. As I've mentioned before, the large framed print of Here Fell Custer has pride of place on my study wall. Numbered 257 out of a limited edition of 950, and signed by Eric von Schmidt in '86, this has become an even more precious object with his passing. Here's his obituary from yesterday's London 'Times', which again emphasises the Dylan connection (Von Schmidt also deservedly merits and entry in the recent Bob Dylan Encyclopedia:

Ciao,
GAC

February 06, 2007

Eric von Schmidt
Musician who was in the vanguard of the folk revival and a mentor to Bob Dylan
A key figure in the American folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Eric von Schmidt was an early mentor to Bob Dylan, who borrowed his song arrangements and paid generous tribute to his influence. A fine singer and guitarist with a series of notable recordings to his name, in later years he concentrated on painting.

Eric von Schmidt was born into an artistic family in Bridgeport, Connecticut. His father, Harold, an illustrator who depicted the old American West taught him how to paint, but his love of music came from his mother, Forest Gilmore. He bought his first guitar when he was 17 after hearing Leadbelly sing on the radio and he began researching the archival recordings of blues and folk singers made by collectors such as John and Alan Lomax on visits to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

In 1952 he was drafted into the US Army to serve in the Korean War and on his discharge returned to art school, receiving a Fulbright scholarship to study painting in Italy in 1956.

After returning to America, he taught art in Florida briefly but his bohemian instincts soon took him in a different direction. Inspired by reading Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, he had begun experimenting with the hallucinogenic properties of peyote and in 1957 he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he immersed himself in the burgeoning folk and beatnik scene, whose luminaries included Joan Baez and Tom Rush.

He made his first recordings with Rolf Cahn for the Folkways label in 1961, and by the time the 20-year-old Dylan visited Cambridge in the summer of that year, von Schmidt, ten years his senior, was considered an éminence grise of the folk revival. Dylan slept on his couch, listened to him play and copied several of his arrangements of traditional folk and blues songs.

Dylan credited his sources: when he recorded Baby Let Me Follow You Down on his debut album a few months later, he prefaced it with a spoken introduction in which he declared: “I first heard this from Ric von Schmidt. I met him one day in the green pastures of Harvard University.”

Two years later Dylan (billed as Blind Boy Grunt) contributed backing vocals and harmonica to an album recorded in London by von Schmidt and the folk singer Dick Farina. Later in 1963 he released his best-known album, The Folk Blues of Eric von Schmidt, which impressed Dylan enough to include the record among the LPs scattered around the room on the cover of Bringing It All Back Home (1965). A further nod to his influence came when the photo on the front of Dylan’s Nashville Skyline (1969) featured him in a pose that echoed the cover of von Schmidt’s 1963 album. A more direct tribute came when Dylan wrote the liner notes to von Schmidt’s 1969 album, Who Knocks the Brains Out of the Sky?

“He could sing the bird off the wire and the rubber off the tire,” Dylan wrote of his friend. “He can separate the men from the boys and the note from the noise. The bridle from the saddle and the cow from the cattle. He can play the tune of the moon. The why of the sky and the commotion of the ocean.”

Von Schmidt continued to make occasional albums but after returning to Connecticut to live in Westport, in the mid1980s he came to regard painting as his main purpose, particularly after illness restricted his ability to play the guitar, and throat cancer made it impossible for him to sing. Among his more notable works were a series of paintings called Giants of the Blues, depicting the likes of Big Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly and Muddy Waters.

He was also a writer and with Jim Rooney in 1979 wrote Baby Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years.

He was married and divorced twice and is survived by two daughters.

Eric von Schmidt, singer, songwriter and painter, was born on May 28, 1931. He died on February 2, 2007, aged 75