Happy Traum is a legendary folk musician whose career spans from the 1950s, the Greenwich Village music scene of the 1960s, the Woodstock music scene of the 1970s and 1980s and on to today where his national reputation as a performer, writer, editor, folklorist, teacher and recording artist. He has performed extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan, and has appeared on recordings as a featured artist, as a member of various ensembles, an accompanist and recorded with the likes of Bob Dylan, Chris Smither, Maria Muldaur, Eric Andersen, Rory Block, Jerry Jeff Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and innumerable others.
For several years, he studied blues guitar with Brownie McGhee, who was a big influence on his guitar style. Happy is most famously known as one half of Happy and Artie Traum, a duo he began with his brother that entertained audiences for decades.
Happy is the author of more than a dozen best-selling guitar instruction books, and for three years was editor of Sing Out! The Folksong Magazine. He and his wife, Jane, founded Homespun Tapes in 1967, and they have produced a catalog of more than 500 instructional DVDs, CDs and videos, taught by top professional performing musicians. Happy produces all of the lessons, and brings to Homespun his many years of experience as a popular and productive member of the music community.