Win Stracke was definitely a mentor of mine. Win, along with Dawn Greening---the mother of all us late 50s folkies in Chicago---and superb instrumentalist and teacher, Frank Hamilton (later a member of the Weavers after Eric Darling), FOUNDED the Old Town School Of Folk Music in Chicago. It was a low-key thoroughly friendly and rustic place at North Avenue and Sedgwick St.---upstairs in the old Immigrant State Bank Building. Downstairs was the Socialist Labor Party and a bar called the Blind Pig where Big Joe Williams played and where I first got the idea for a 9-string guitar from Joe. (That spot later became the Old Town Folklore Center--the retail outlet for the school--where I was asst. mgr. from '64 to '66.)

Win was a basso profundo voice that took hold of your heart and mind immediately. In my youth, he was the very first TV children's personality in Chicago. "Uncle Win" (and his ducks & animals) picked guitar & sang for us kids then. There was nobody doing that before Win because there was no television before that.

Win was also a man who took his political causes and labor connections very seriously. He would lend his voice to any good cause that was brought to his attention. He was a hard drinker from a family of preachers---who loved the comaraderie of Chicago saloon life--especially his old pal, Alderman Paddy Bauler's "saloon and office". He was a serious classical singer of Schubert lieder with great reviews from Chicago's toughest critic then---Claudia Cassidy. Win was a regular on Studs Terkel's TV show STUDS PLACE along with Big Bill Broonzy & pianist Chet Roble. For me---He was a friend and a teacher---a supporter of my music who went out of his way in writing to let me know that I was doing it the "right way". Here's an excerpt from a note he wrote me; I used to have it framed on my wall:

"...It's a matter of considerable gratification to me to see how you are coming along on the path I've been walking---that twisting trail which skirts education, history, and entertainment---but which always, I hope, is on the firm ground of TRADITION..."
Affectionately,
Win Stracke

I learned "STATE OF ILLINOIS" from Win-----a great song from pioneer days. It became a sort of Thieme song for me (pun intended). He'd learned it from Carl Sandburg who learned it from a settler on the Ohio River. We're all just links on the chain; Mark Dvorak is carrying on the traditions here now.

In the late 1980s I wrote this tale for a booklet on the history of the school:

It was 1964 (or '65 or '66)...the place looked normal when we opened the store that day. (the Old Town Folklore Center) But all the tape machines and a few instruments were gone. No sign of forced entry anywhere. We scoured the place for hours and then found a hole in the basement wall where the bricks had been kicked in. The damn guys had come in through a manhole on Sedgwick Street, crept under the hollow sidewalk, kicked in the wall and entered the store's basment. They'd hauled the hundred pound reel-to reel tape decks out of the building the same way they came in.
As usual the store was operating on a very tight profit margin so this was a crushing blow. We almost had to close the doors. Then WIN said that he'd talk to the alderman, Paddy Bauler. Anyhow the alderman (or someone) knew a fence who bought stuff from the street kids and adicts. We'd have to pay a price for our own stuff, but we could get it back. And we couldn't ask any questions. Well, we paid the price, got most of the stuff back, and no one ever said another word about it---until now! Yep, life was never dull around the Old Town School.

Or in Chicago--for that matter.

There's no way I could ever thank Win enough. And if I can extend those thanks to Win's old friend, mentor from afar for me and a true inspiration to so very many, STUDS TERKEL, who is as feisty and wonderful as ever, I'm gonna do that right here. I cannot tell Win Stracke's story (even if piecemeal) without huge notice to Mr. Terkel! (That's not Studs "Turtle"--as I've intimated in a tale I've told for many years about a trail drive of land terrapins up the trail from Texas---it took 40 years.)

What more can I say. There's tons more to tell you about Win Stracke, but you'll have to get that from Studs. Say, you can check out last weeks Chicago __READER__ ---Letters To The Editor section---for an insightful view of Studs' take on Pete & Win & why they aren't to be compared to Peter, Paul & Mary. The article which Studs is replying to so vehimently contains differences of opinion that, alas, seem to be more generational than anything else. Studs is trying to re-educate the author of the piece on the new and extremely successful OLD TOWN SCHOOL as to the historical realities from his point of view. I do think that many of our differences on what folk is can be laid to rest at the feet of the god of those generational ways of seeing things that so often do, truly, seem to divide us. As Bob Dylan once said, "You can be in my dream if I can be in yours!"

Those WERE good times.

Art Thieme