UMass Amherst Libraries Host Annual Fall Reception

The Libraries were pleased to host their annual Fall Reception on Friday, November 7 in the Student Union Ballroom. The event featured an evening with Folk New England, including a tribute to legendary performer Eric von Schmidt. The program included performances by Tom Rush, Chris Smither, Geoff Muldaur, and Caitlin von Schmidt, celebrating both Eric’s legacy and the partnership between Folk New England’s musical preservation efforts and the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center.

Chris Smither 

Born in Miami, Fla., during World War II, Chris Smither grew up in New Orleans, where he first started playing music as a child. The son of a Tulane University professor, he was taught the rudiments of instrumentation by his uncle on his mother’s ukulele. “Uncle Howard,” Smither says, “showed me that if you knew three chords, you could play a lot of the songs you heard on the radio. And if you knew four chords, you could pretty much rule the world.” With that bit of knowledge under his belt, he was hooked. “I’d loved acoustic music— specifically the blues—ever since I first heard Lightnin’ Hopkins’s Blues in My Bottle album. I couldn’t believe the sound Hopkins got. At first I thought it was two guys playing guitar. My style, to a degree, came out of trying to imitate that sound I heard.”

Geoff Muldaur 

Geoff Muldaur is one of the great voices and musical forces to emerge from the folk, blues, and folk-rock scenes centered in Cambridge, Mass., and Woodstock, N.Y. During the 1960s and ’70s, Geoff made a series of highly influential recordings as a founding member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and the Paul Butterfield’s Better Days group, as well as collaborations with then-wife Maria Muldaur and other notables (Bonnie Raitt, Eric Von Schmidt, Jerry Garcia, and others). He left the stage and recording world in the mid-1980s for a working sabbatical but continued to hone his craft, albeit “flying beneath radar.” He composed scores for film and television, and produced offbeat albums for the likes of Lenny Pickett and the Borneo Horns and the Richard Greene String Quartet. Geoff’s definitive recording of “Brazil” (1968) provided the seed for—and was featured in—Terry Gilliam’s 1985 film of the same title.

Caitlin von Schmidt 

Caitlin von Schmidt, daughter of artist and musician Eric von Schmidt and Amherst College faculty member Helen von Schmidt, grew up in Cambridge, Mass., between Harvard and Central Squares during the 1960s and early 1970s. Through her father’s connection to the burgeoning Cambridge folk scene, and her mother’s work for Festival Productions at the Newport Folk and Jazz festival, she was drenched in music from the beginning.

In 1980, after high school and two years of college in Amherst, Mass., she journeyed westward to Tucson to study racetrack management at the University of Arizona. When she changed her major to painting, it was a disappointment to her father, who thought finally someone in the family was going to make some money.

During her eleven years in Arizona, she became a founding member of the bands River Roses, Ortho 28, and Caitlin & the Stickponies, in which she sang and played bass. After sojourns in New York City, New Bedford, Mass., and Providence, R.I.—where she met her future husband Justin Twaddell—Caitlin relocated to Greenfield in Western Mass, where she and Justin have lived ever since, raising their son, Thomas, now 18. She is now the outreach and communications manager at the Franklin Community Co-op.

Eric von Schmidt

Eric von Schmidt was a pivotal figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as an accomplished painter and illustrator. Von Schmidt grew up in an artistic household in Westport, Conn. His father, Harold von Schmidt, was a well-known artist and magazine illustrator. Eric inherited this creative spirit, blending music and visual art throughout his life.

After a brief stint in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, von Schmidt studied art in Florence, Italy, on a Fulbright scholarship, before settling in Cambridge, Mass. There, he became a central figure in the vibrant folk scene centered around Harvard Square and the Club 47. A self-taught guitarist inspired by hearing Leadbelly recordings, he began by specializing in performing blues, traditional folk ballads, and spirituals. He had a deep respect for the roots of American music and was known for adapting old songs into new arrangements that resonated with younger audiences.

Von Schmidt’s influence reached far beyond his own performances. He mentored and collaborated with numerous artists, including Bob Dylan, who mentions von Schmidt on his first album as the source for “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down.” Tom Rush learned “Wasn’t That A Mighty Storm” from von Schmidt. Jim Kweskin, Geoff Muldaur, Mark Spoelstra, Chris Smither, and Paul Geremia all benefited from spending time with him. Eric von Schmidt and Rolf Cahn set the stage in Cambridge for the subsequent folk revival by performing at the Club 47 Mt. Auburn, soon followed by Joan Baez.

He recorded six solo albums between 1961 and 2005; he also recorded albums with Rolf Cahn and Richard Fariña, in 1961 and 1963. Inspired by the recordings of the early country blues artists, von Schmidt tried his hand at writing songs, several of which have been recorded by others. After spending time on the island of St. Vincent, he wrote “Joshua Gone Barbados,” about the striking sugar cane workers there. The song has become a classic, recorded by many artists, notably Johnny Cash.

Von Schmidt also put his artistic talents to good use creating graphics for Manny Greenhill’s Folklore Productions, the Newport Folk Festival, and countless album covers for Vanguard, Elektra, and Pathways of Sounds Records. He did the illustrations for Joan Baez’s early songbooks, as well as Sid Fleischman’s children’s books. In 1978, von Schmidt and Jim Rooney collaborated on Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years (University of Massachusetts Press), recipient of ASCAP’s Deems Taylor Award. Von Schmidt also received an ASCAP Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

Von Schmidt was a prolific painter. His visual art often explored themes from American history, music, and folklore. His painting “Here Fell Custer” was the culmination of six years of research and was completed on the centennial of the Battle of Little Big Horn; the National Park Service adopted it as the official depiction of that battle. He went on to research and paint two more large historical works: “Osceola and the Treaty of Seminole Removal” and “The Storming of the Alamo.” Later in life, von Schmidt moved back to his childhood home in Westport, where he worked on his extensive “Giants of the Blues” series and occasionally still performed. He passed away in 2007 at age 75.

Eric von Schmidt’s legacy as both a musician and an artist reflects a deep and abiding love for American culture in all its complexity. His contributions to the American folk revival and his dedication to preserving traditional music and stories continue to be celebrated by musicians, artists, and historians alike.