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4 unusual facts about Happy Traum


Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II

After submitting a set of excerpts from the The Basement Tapes that Davis found unsatisfactory, Dylan returned to the studio in September 1971 to recut several Basement songs, with Happy Traum providing backup.

Happy Traum

These tracks were re-released in August 2000 by Smithsonian Folkways as part of a boxed set, The Best of Broadside 1962 - 1988: Anthems from the American Underground.

Happy Traum (b. Harry Peter Traum, May 9, 1938, The Bronx, New York City) is an American folk musician who started playing music in the 1950s.

Traum first appeared on record at a historic session in late 1962 when a group of young folk musicians, including Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Peter LaFarge and The Freedom Singers, gathered in the studio at Folkways Records to record an album called Broadside Ballads, Vol. 1.


You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

On September 24, 1971, Dylan re-recorded three songs from the Basement Tapes sessions for inclusion on his Greatest Hits Vol. II album—"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "I Shall Be Released," and "Down in the Flood"—with Happy Traum playing bass, banjo and electric guitar, as well as providing vocal harmony.


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