A Conversation with Happy Traum (continued)

PM: Have many artists who've gone through the process become actually very close friends of yours?

HT: Oh, quite a few. I mean, some guys just became friends in the sense that I’ll continue to run into them at festivals and so forth. And we lose touch, because a lot of these guys are on the road all the time. But I do go to festivals. Guys like Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas, or Tim O'Brien, whenever we get a chance, we'll get together--when we're in the same place at the same time.

PM: Has Darrell Scott done one with you yet?

HT: Darrell has not. He'd be very interesting, actually.

PM: Yeah, because his guitar style, especially when he plays solo, it's unbelievable.

HT: Right.

PM: I don't know what he'd call his, but he'd think of something.

HT: Yeah. I mean, there are so many great musicians. It's pretty hard to keep up with the number of talented people there are in the world.

PM: Your work with Homespun must keep you very close to the cutting edge of the many styles you're interested in.

HT: Yeah. That's a point, it’s the styles I'm interested in, and we are trying to keep up. There are some fabulous young people. In fact, I'm going to be doing a DVD with Rushad Eggleston. Do you know who he is?

PM: I do not.

HT: Well, he's actually a cellist. He plays with a band called Crooked Still. They play kind of old-time--

PM: I've heard of them, but I don't know them. [Actually, thanks to this interview with Happy, we’re getting an interview with them lined up, and a CD is on the way.]

HT: They're fabulous. And Rushad is one of these kind of genius kids, amazing. He's a guy that's very exciting to me, because he's young, he's in his twenties, but he's incredibly talented and dynamic. So that's part of the approach, I don't always want to be working with people my age.

PM: Yeah, because after all, you want to address that younger generation, of course, and what better way than with their peers.

HT: Right.

PM: And don't you find that staying on the cutting edge, and getting interested, and staying interested in every new crop of artists coming up, that it goes a long way to keeping one young?

HT: Yep, absolutely.

PM: It's irreplaceable.

HT: Yeah.  continue

print (pdf)     listen to clips      puremusic home