After decades playing music, Frank Hamilton isn’t done yet Mark Woolsey In a career that spans more than seven decades, Frank Hamilton has had ample opportunity to burn out on music, especially his passion for folk music. Endless road gigs, session work and clashing egos would seemingly be a recipe for retiring to a front porch. But Hamilton glows with the enthusiasm of a fresh-faced youngster playing his first chords. “I relish learning,” the 87-yearold guitar, banjo and stringedinstrument virtuoso said. “I think is that it’s a choice and that you make the choice. I believe it was Clint Eastwood who said ‘I never let the old man in.’ That’s a great statement.” The Southern California
native who now lives in metro Atlanta and co-founded the Frank Hamilton (music) School in Decatur caught the music bug early, courtesy of a recordcollecting stepdad. He became enamored of folk and blues and applied himself to learning guitar. Although he took classes, the bulk of his learning was off-thecuff, as Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie mentored him at various times. “You don’t study folk music formally,” he said. “You trade licks and ideas and you’re influenced by them.” After he hitchhiked to New York, Hamilton joined musicologist/performer/partner Guy Carawan and folkie Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and embarked on a 1950s-era tour of the South, collecting and learning folk songs
and seeking out performers they’d heard on Library of Congress recordings. They eked out a living busking and performing live on tiny radio stations across the region. Those wanderings strengthened Hamilton’s bond with folk music’s emphasis on hard times and struggle: divorce, failed relationships, being thrown out of work, battling demons. “There are elements of folk in all kinds of music,” he said. “You have Americana, you have jazz and rock, all of those things contain
elements of folk.” Back in New York, he became a regular at Sunday afternoon folk sessions in Washington Square, holding forth with the likes of Mary Travers of Peter Paul and Mary and songwriter/performer Eric Darling. “Joanie” Baez and Bob Dylan would turn up now and then.
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