Frank Hamilton (musician)

Frank Hamilton
Frank Hamilton teaching at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, IL. November 2007
Background information
Born	(1934-08-03) August 3, 1934 (age 82)
Origin	United States
Genres	Folk
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, music teacher
Instruments	Guitar, banjo
Labels	Folkways Records, Vanguard Records
Associated acts	Win Stracke, Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Big Bill Broonzy
Notable instruments
Guitar Banjo

Frank Hamilton (born August 3, 1934) is an American folk musician, collector of folk songs, and educator. He co-founded the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois. As a performer, he has recorded for several labels, including Folkways Records. He was a member of the folk group The Weavers in the early 1960s, and appeared at the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959. He was the house musician - playing guitar and other folk instruments - for Chicago's Gate of Horn, the nation's first folk music nightclub. After many years of teaching, playing and singing in California he married a second time, and with his wife relocated to Atlanta, where he performs on jazz guitar and co-founded the Frank Hamilton School in 2015.

Hamilton was an only child. His father, Frank Strawn Hamilton, died before his son's birth; he had been a California socialist philosopher, genius street-corner orator, and mentor to Jack London. His mother, Judith Bley Strawn Hamilton, then married Phil Street, who had been a good friend of Hamilton's father; he encouraged his step-son's song-writing. That marriage ended when Frank was 12, and he never saw Street again. Classical music was what Hamilton, aka Strawn-Hamilton, first heard: he listened as his mother taught classical piano in their Los Angeles home. His mother - who changed her name from Gladys Antoinette to Judith after seeing the actress Judith Anderson perform - supplemented her income as a dance accompanist. As a teenager Hamilton developed an interest in the labor movement, playing jazz trombone with Local 47 at Club 47, and also with the Los Angeles City College jazz band. He was especially influenced by Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker, and starting learning guitar, studying jazz guitar with Sam Surace. He began learning and collecting folk songs, with a special interest in the music of the American South; he spent much of the late '40s and early '50s traveling there, performing in bars and on street corners. He returned to Los Angeles in 1953, and with Jack Elliott and Guy Carawan formed The Dusty Road Boys, who toured the Midwest. At Will Geer's artist colony in Topanga, California. he played with Woody Guthrie; he also met Beth Lomax Hawes there, absorbing her teaching methods.