Frank Hamilton

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Frank Hamilton

Chicago, 1956. Al Grossman, owner of the Gate of Horn - the first folk nightclub in the country - had just hired two young musicians as his house performers. Frank Hamilton and Bob Gibson got off the bus.

A native of New York City, Hamilton was drawn to the music of the American south as a youngster. He spent much of the late '40s and early '50s traveling the region, performing on street corners and local bars and soaking up as much music as he could. Relocating to Los Angeles by 1953, he hooked up with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Guy Carawan, calling themselves the Dusty Road Boys.

"In Santa Monica, California, Bess Lomax Hawes was holding classes in guitar, five-string banjo, autoharp, and lap dulcimer in private homes of her students. She did this to teach people what American folk music was all about. Bess is a human reference library on American folk music. Her father was John Lomax, a leading folklorist who started the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Song. And if Bess is the Margaret Mead of folk music, her brother Alan is the Charles Darwin. He has given us field recordings from Appalachian porches to Texas chain gangs; he discovered the legendary Leadbelly.

"Bess taught me to teach music classes. She galvanized the fledgling folk scene in Los Angeles. In my opinion, without Bess, there might not have been an Old Town School, because as far as I know she was the first person to gather classes together to teach folk singing and accompaniment on folk instruments...
"Win Stracke has a vision of a school of folk music, a giant meetinghouse for musicians, storytellers, folk dancers, folklorists, and professional folk entertainers who would gather to share their knowledge with the public. Teacher and student would be partners in learning. Kids from the poorer sections of the city could afford music lessons there. Chicago was the right place at the right time. The guitar, banjo, and stringed instrument classes could be the vehicle for making it happen."

And, as Steve Romanoski adds, Frank's first group lessons at the Greenings' house established another Old Town School tradition: the "second half" gathering:

"Dawn devised a schedule that included a refreshment break and group singalong after the sessions. In New York she had been at the house of a friend who had passed out printed lyrics of simple folk songs. She'd had such a wonderful time that she wanted to share that feeling with the students and friends at her homw. And so this format became the backbone of the Old Town School's unique method of teaching. Frank would go from room to room teaching the same tune at different levels of difficulty, then it would all get put together and everybody would end the evening with a singalong."

"I picture Frank as the ultimate caring teacher, often not on time but the students not objecting because when Frank entered the classroom he would take total chaos and turn it into order."
-Dawn Greening

Frank Hamilton served as the unofficial dean of teachers at the Old Town School until he left to join the Weavers in 1962. "During the first days of the School, I ran around from one room to the next, juggling classes like some kind of nutty professor," he recalls. "This wore a little thin and we developed a teaching team to bail me out."

"Frank Hamilton is one of the most talented musicians I know. In addition to doing some very traditional things, he'll suddenly come up with something you've never heard before."
- Pete Seeger

"The gangly, wide-eyed Frank Hamilton is quite possibly the most expert and versatile of folk instrumentalists. Name the instrument, he'll master it. There's quick-silver in the work of this tall, skinny leprechaun."
- Studs Terkel

"The folksinger's folksinger..master of the art"
-Odetta

After his stint with the Weavers, Hamilton moved back to Los Angeles and it was on the corner of Sunset and Vine that he had an office where Karla took guitar lessons from him.

Presently, he lives in Decatur, GA. and continues to record and perform with his wife, Mary and with "The Meridian Trio" for Young Audiences of Atlanta.

Links:	Frank Hamilton
	Old Town School - Chicago
	The Weavers