Obit: RIP Paul Schoenwetter

Subject: OBIT: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Bert
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 12:34 AM

I've just heard the news that Paul Schoenwetter has passed away. link

Goodbye my friend.

Subject: RE: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 09:45 AM

Bert, I can't be sure, but I think he (and the man sitting behind him with the guitar in the picture) came to the session in Dover DE once. I wonder if they were the "new guys" I referred to in this post. One song was about a fire, maybe in Chicago. (They also did the Irish song to the same tune.) I enjoyed playing with them.

Whether or not I met him, my condolences go out to his family and friends.

Subject: RE: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: BanjoRay
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 11:38 AM

Paul used to be a regular on Banjo-L, and was very willing to give his knowledge and long experience to anyone who asked. We all miss him.

Ray

Subject: RE: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 09:25 PM

I grew up with a Paul Schoenwetter -- Chicago--1940s and 1950s---Nettelhorst grade school----Lake View High. 1959 graduate I think

Bert, Could this be your old friend? If so, I too am terribly saddened. Either way, my condolences to all his friends and family. I was doing a concert in the East somewhere --New England--maybe 20 years ago and Paul came to see me I think-------unless my memory is worse than I've thought. Or was it in Kansas... or a festival...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 10:11 PM

It can be very strange how people can so discretely weave through your life. Paul Schoenwetter used to volunteer at Fox Hollow Folk Festival - so did I. He was active in the Pickin' and Singin' Gatherin' around the Albany/Schenectady/Troy NY area - so was I. I know this because I found several e-mails from him in my archives.

I knew him as "PAULSBANJO."

Subject: RE: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Bert
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 11:42 PM

Actually Art, I hadn't known him all that long. When I first met him, he asked if he could play my guitar, then he looked at it and saw that the pickguard wasn't scratched, so he asked if it was OK to use a pick.

I was kinda flattered because it was a fairly cheap guitar.

What a kind, considerate guy he was.

I was hoping to see a lot more of him, and I'm really glad that he played my guitar.

Our own Bert C, played a wonderful goodbye song for him at the Buck County Folk Song Society Meeting on Sunday.

Bert.

Subject: RE: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 05:10 PM

If anyone sees an obituary, please let me know what early details they print about Paul. I'd sure appreciate it.

Art

Subject: RE: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Jeri
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 05:34 PM

Art, in one of the e-mails I have from him, he said:

Hi Jeri
I've been trying to figger out "what is folk misic" most of my life. I went to a private school that was very much into "folk music", and in 1946 started hanging around with the crew that gathered at Washington Square Park in NYC on sunday afternoons to sing and play. (I learned banjo and giutar - and have been a singer most of my life) I'm more into "solo" (Ballads etc.) but also into chanty's etc.

Subject: RE: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Art Thieme
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 10:45 PM

I do doubt we are talking about the same person. I'm saddened for your P.S. and hopeful that the fellow I knew is still doing well. (Now I'm thinking that there was no "c" in his last name.)

Art

Subject: RE: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 02:38 PM

Sad to hear. Paul Schoenwetter spent some time in Seattle in the late Fifties -- several months anyway, maybe as much as a year. I'm sure it's the same Paul Schoenwetter. Looked like the photo, but a lot younger, of course (weren't we all!). Same general build, more hair (dark brown, as I recall) and no beard.

At the time, most people around here played guitar. Not that many played the 5-string banjo, but a couple people were working with Pete Seeger's instruction record. Paul helped them a bit and got them well started. He didn't give lessons as such, he just showed them things. I never really got into the banjo that much, but Paul showed me enough basic stuff that I could learn a lot of the rest on my own, and as a result, I can still do a passable job of faking it. He was working on some Peggy Seeger/Ewan MacColl songs: Springhill Mine Disaster, Bentley and Craig, Go Down, You Murderers and others. He as also combing through Cecil Sharp's One Hundred English Folksongs. I taught him a couple of songs. He taught me about a half-dozen.

He said that Seattle wasn't anywhere near as rainy as he had been told. Friends back east (having never been here) had warned him that the Pacific Northwest, like Atlantis, was underwater, and his banjo head would get soggy and go all slack -- probably get moldy too. Didn't happen. Well, the closest was when a bunch of us were sitting in the large back booth in Seattle's famous (or infamous) Blue Moon Tavern. Paul was noodling on his banjo and managed to spill a schooner of beer in his lap, some of which slopped onto the banjo head. Wiped it off real quick and ordered another beer. No damage.

His banjo was sort of like a growth. Whenever you saw Paul, there it was: arms, legs, head, fingers, banjo. I can't say that I really knew him all that well -- he wasn't here that long -- but I remember him fondly. Dedication and enthusiasm.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: GUEST,John Schneider
Date: 25 Oct 10 - 08:58 PM

To Art Thieme...........

Do you remember me? If this obit is the Paul Schoenwetter that we knew at Lakeview, we three knew each other. If it is the same Paul Schoenwetter (it must be, because that's not a very common name!, then I am stunned. We both would just be turning 70 soon. If you get this, contact me please at [e-mail] or 818-813-5008.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Paul Schoenwetter
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Oct 10 - 05:00 PM

John,
I'm sorry, but I don't remember you. After these years of not knowing if this thread was about the Paul that we knew in Chicago or another P.S., I can now say the thread is about another Paul Schoenwetter.

The Paul we knew is a friend of mine on Facebook!!!

I'll be in touch, but thought I'd update this thread first.

And yes, I'll be 70 next July.

Art Thieme
(P.S.---The mother of P.S. in Chicago, as I recall it, was Fran."