Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)

Subject: Who's in this picture?
From: johnross
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 03:05 PM

Please take a look at this picture: cadwell.jpg

The picture was taken by Julie Snow, probably at one of the Fox Hollow festivals. The gentleman on the left playing banjo is Paul Cadwell. Can anybody identify the guitar player?

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 10:35 PM

What a beautiful picture!

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: georgeward
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 12:21 AM

I can't reconcile the apparent shelf of bottles over Paul's shoulder with any memory of Fox Hollow spaces.Might be somewhere else ? But I'm with Kat. It's a great picture.

George

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: johnross
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 12:36 AM

The only thing I can think of that would explain the bottles would be some kind of medicine show routine. Obviously, that wasn't part of Paul Cadwell's act, but I could imagine somebody preceding him, or maybe some kind of medicine show workshop that included Paul's banjo playing.

Julie and her camera were at most of the late 60s and early 70s eastern folk festivals, so it could have been a workshop at Newport or Philly or some other festival. It certainly looks to me like an outdoor stage.

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: GUEST,Don Meixner
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 12:59 AM

Hi George,

Great fun last weekend. Thanks for playing my banjo, not often I get to hear it.

Could that be Norman Cazden? At Camp Woodland? I have only one picture of Cazden available and from the angle this could be him. I don't know.

What kind of guitar is that?

Don

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: DonMeixner
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 01:03 AM

Paul Caldwell was a classical banjo player. He used fishing line for strings rather than undependable gut strings. (That is according to Pete Seeger's Playing The 5 String Banjo) He was on Rainbow Quest with Mississippi John Hurt and Hedy West as I recall. Great stuff.

I have these on convenient BETA II video tape so I haven't seen them in a while.

Don

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 11:01 AM

And he was a gracious gentleman and a blast to play music with!

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: Fidjit
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 11:18 AM

Bert Weedon

Chas

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: Big Mick
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 11:46 AM

Any idea on the year of the picture? The guitar body looks like the ones Glen Reid makes from time to time, but I think this is much earlier than when Glen started crafting guitars.

Mick

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 12:37 PM

Fidjit you're as daft as me, that was my first thought, but I resisted posting it. ;)
G.

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: johnross
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 01:39 PM

I believe the picture was taken around 1965-1970, give or take a few years. Paul died in 1983, so it has to be some time before that. There's no information on the back of the print, which came from the gallery that was selling off Julie's photos.

I don't think it's Bert Weedon. For one thing, the guitar player in the picture has an American flag in his lapel, which would be odd for an Englishman. And looking at the pictures in the Official Bert Weedon Website, he looked somewhat younger in 1970 than the man in the picture.

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 06:28 PM

I believe Roger Sprung or someone of his associates might be able to give an answer.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 05:07 PM

Come on guys and girls, where are all you New York Folkies when we need you. If Pete Seeger knew Paul is it possible he might know the guitar picker?

Hoot

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: GUEST,joe locker
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 06:37 AM

The person to Paul's left is Al Bluhm (pronounced "Bloom") of Bloomfield Avenue, Bloomfield NJ. He was a friend of Paul's from the old days, who played and sang old vaudeville-style songs, and at Paul's (or other's) house parties used to act as "MC", announcing the other players as if in a show. In his younger days he rode horses in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and was also a 6-day bike rider in those events. You can see a picture of him as a bike rider in the book Harpo Speaks - where Harpo Marx is pictured with some of the riders. In my article on Banjo Bill's Last Tune which is mostly about Paul Cadwell, you can read about Paul and his friends. It is available on the web at http://people.bath.ac.uk/ensjfvv/BB This lists all the BB issues, and if you click on April 2007 you get to that issue.

Joe Locker

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 10:11 AM

Thanks Joe.

Al Bluhm sounds like a person deserving of a book all his own and rediscovery by the world at large.

Don

Subject: RE: Who's in this picture? (with Paul Cadwell)
From: johnross
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 03:09 PM

Thanks, Joe. That seems like the solution to the mystery.

Is Al Bluhm still alive? A quick Google search tells me that he (or somebody of the same name) did a demonstration of fancy shooting in 2005.