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jor festivals on stage with James Taylor, Kris Kristoferson and Joni
Mitchell. Their 2nd album Double Back was also recorded in Nashville, and at
Bearsville Studios. Happy Traum moved to Woodstock in 1968 and soon Artie
followed him to this small country town. The duo played major festivals and
concerts around the world, with a strong fan base who enjoyed Happy & Artie
shows that featured musicians Arlen Roth, Debbie Andersen, Eric Kaz and other
top players.
During the 70's and 80's, Artie became an internationally known performer, appearing on stages in Europe, Japan and at the Newport Folk Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival and Carnegie Hall. He also performed and co-produced the Woodstock Mountains Revue, a unique folk group that featured Artie & Happy Traum, Pat Alger, Jim Rooney, Bill Keith, Larry Campbell, John Herald and John Sebastian. Guest artists like Maria Muldaur, Rory Block, Eric Andersen, Paul Butterfield and Paul Siebel joined the group for recordings. The Revue recorded 5 classic albums for Rounder Records, and although Rounder allowed over 50 of their tracks to go out-of-print, the band is widely considered one of the premier folk groups of the time. In the mid 1980's Artie joined forces with songwriter Pat Alger (Thunder Rolls, Unanswered Prayers, Once In A Very Blue Moon) and the duo recorded the album From The Heart. Pat Alger moved to Nashville to begin his career as a top country and folk songwriter. Rounder Records also allowed this album to go out of print, along with Artie's Life On Earth and Happy and Artie's Hard Times In The Country with notes by the poet Allen Ginzburg In 1988, Happy and Artie co-hosted "Bring It On Home," a live folk show out of NPR affiliate WAMC (Albany, NY) which featured guests Richard Thompson, Rick Danko & Garth Hudson, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason and dozens more. In 1994, Artie made a sea-change in his style. Drawn to the jazz of Weather Report, Pat Metheny and Earl Klugh, Traum started exploring new directions. "I've always loved jazz and decided try a jazz instrumental guitar project," says Traum. The results were stellar: Artie's 1994 release Letters From Joubee captured the #1 spot on the smooth jazz radio charts (Gavin AA chart). This success led to other CDs that allowed Traum to explore acoustic guitar work and instrumental music. In 1999 Traum released Meetings With Remarkable Friends, featuring collaborative tracks with Bela Fleck and Sam Bush, John Sebastian, Tony Levin, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, The Band, Adrian Belew and many others. Meetings was awarded Best Acoustic Instrumental Album of 1999 by the NAV Awards and has been described as a "classic." In 2001, Traum released The Last Romantic (Narada) which was placed "on this year's list of best releases... another absorbing, distinctive effort" by Hilarie Grey of Jazz Times. Traum's latest release South of Lafayette (2002-2003) is his first singer-songwriter effort in many years. South of Lafayette was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered in March 2003, when Artie was interviewed by host Linda Wertheimer. "I felt I needed to find my singing voice again and an amazing thing happened," says Traum. "Each of these songs is about a character dealing with events in a specific place and time. It reflects my love of diversity in the world, from the cliffs of Sicily to a cold winter in Maine. It has elements of folk music, jazz and pop music, all rolled into one." South of Lafayette has been called a "hip fusion of folk and jazz esthetics" by Sing Out Magazine. Jazz Times added: "Artie Traum's elegantly crafted acoustic folk-jazz is in evidence on his latest effort." Artie Traum's songs and instrumentals have been recorded by The Band, David Grisman and Tony Rice and he has composed film scores for PBS shows including Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys produced by the actress Glenn Close and directed by Academy Award winning director Jon Blair. He has co-hosted the syndicated NPR show Bring It On Home at affiliate WAMC in Albany, New York. He has also written dozens of instructional books and DVDs about music and guitar styles, published by Happy Traum's company Homespun Tapes. Artie's article for the New York Times Sunday Travel Section "The Aeolian Islands" won him the Italian Leonardo Award in International Journalism in 2000. Recently, Artie teamed up with folksingers Chris Shaw and Tom Akstens to release Big Trout Radio: Songs About Fishing, a highly-acclaimed acoustic album featured in Field and Stream Magazine and on NPR. Happy and Artie Traum released a CD of "live" recordings from the 1970's and '80s on Slice of Life Records in Japan in 2006. Artie also contributed to the PBS Special "Niagara". Artie toured for Taylor Guitars, performing very popular guitar "clinics" where he demonstrated the guitar styles he's studied and performed for over 35 years. He released Acoustic Guitar Jazz in early 2004 - a compilation of his hottest acoustic tracks. In 2007, Thief of Time was released. |
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