Happy and Artie Traum
June 15, 2007
The Minstral Coffeehouse (www.folkproject.org
)
Morristown, New Jersey

Two of my very favorite folkie performers and I hadn't seen them together in 30 years or so. I'll quote from the official leaflet:

"Back together again at last! During the 60's and 70's, Happy and Artie Traum were among the premier exponents of fingerstyle guitar playing. Since that heyday, they traveled their separate paths but never lost track of each other or their expertise on the instrument. Now back together for a rare duo appearance, they recapture the magic that made them legends. This is an event not to be missed."

My favorite mikes (core sound) are on the blink, so I picked up a Sony DS70P for emergency use and dusted off the trusty Sony D7 DAT for the show. It worked pretty well but there is some diginoise during the last few tracks, I don't know why. I also noticed, shortly after the second set started with some solo Artie songs, that the batteries were dying so I had to miss a song and head out to the car where I had some spare AA cells. Contrary to the advertising, RayOVac batteries do NOT last as long as Duracell, at least not when taping live music.

Also, while I've taped H&A off the board in the past, this place was a musicians collective of some kind and I didn't know how they would tolerate taping, so I kept the mike in a shirt pocket and there are some rumbling noises as it rubbed the shirt. All in all though, it came out pretty well.

The only editing is heavy stomping on the post song applause, which was clipping all over the place. Plus, I've tried to decrease the diginoise bursts in the last few songs using SoundForge.

They announce during the show that an album of old recordings was released in Japan, so they toured there recently in support. I checked out that CD and it is available online. You can (and should) buy it:

http://www.homespun.com/prodpg/prodpg.asp?prodID=1443&prodType=

It is very good stuff and arrived in about two days.

Part of the CD is recorded at a C.W.Post College show that I taped in 1975 and have posted here, so any reposts of that are going to have to delete a song or so when I figure out which they are.

That's pretty much it. Thanks to the Grape for the heads-up that they were playing.

Master DAT (aud) > Soundforge, tracks split by EAC > Flac level 8 > Dime.

Set 1

1) Intro
2) Weary Blues
3) Bettie and (?)
4) Hungry Dogs
5) Buckets Of Rain
6) Niagra
7) Danville Girl
8) Empty Pocket Blues
9) Good To Me (and The Band/Oreo story)
10) Goin' Down The Road To See Bessie

Set 2

1) Cuckoo Bird
2) Sugar Cane
3) Monday Morning Blues
4) Mississippi John
5) Trials of Jonathan
6) Golden Bird (and Pete Seeger story)
7) Penny's Farm
8) Rusty Iron Bridge
9) Friends and Neighbors (diginoise)
10) Jackhammer Blues (diginoise)
11) Deep River Blues


Recording by dgk