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Sunday, November 29, 2009
Bess Lomax Hawes 1921- 2009
Bess Hawes, the youngest child of legendary University of Texas folklorist John A. Lomax, passed away Friday in Portland, Ore. She was 88.
A former member of the Almanac Singers, with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and her husband Butch Hawes, Bess Lomax Hawes was born in Austin on Jan. 21, 1921 and spent her childhood at the family home on West 26th Street. She often accompanied her father and brother Alan on folk song-collecting trips in the south.
Throughout her life, she carried on her father’s work, tirelessly teaching traditional folk music at festivals, schools, and universities. In the ’70s and ’80s, she directed the Folk and Traditional Arts Program for the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 1993, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton.
Hawes attended the University of Texas for two years, but graduated from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
She is survived by her three children, Corey Denos of Bellingham, Wash,, Naomi Bishop and Nicholas Hawes of Portland, Ore., and by six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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Daren Hess not clowning around on solo debut
For the past 11 years, Daren Hess has played drums for James McMurtry, but it was former Faces bassist Ronnie Lane, living in Austin in the ’80s, who helped establish Hess as one of the more musical drummers in town. Lane tapped a relatively green Hess to play in his band in 1987. Dan Stuart of Green On Red heard Hess play with Lane at the Continental one night and recruited him for a European tour and Hess, nicknamed “Clownie” by his former Loose Diamonds bandmates, has been steadily working ever since.
It’s fitting that Clownie, Hess’ singing alterego, ends his first solo album with Lane’s “April Fool.” His voice is unsteady at times, but Hess taps into the essence of the song’s nostalgic gauze. There’s a daydreamy quality to most of the layered songs on “What’s Left To Do?”, as Hess comes off as the disenfranchised son of a Beach Boy.
Though Clownie is on a mission of expression, this is not the usual self-indulgent sideman solo project, but more of a band record, with Jon Dee Graham’s screaming guitar leading the way. A former member of Poi Dog Pondering and the Silos, Hess pulls from past associations to collaborate with Bruce Hughes, Scrappy Jud Newcomb, JD Foster, Carey Bowman and more to make a record that sounds like it cost more than it probably did.
If you want to sample a couple songs, start with the title track in the third slot and let it go from there.
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Sunday reading: Mark Rubin interview
Self-proclaimed “opinionated loudmouth” Mark Rubin is one of the most creative standup bass players anywhere. In this very interesting article by the Steam Powered Preservation Society electronic archives, Rubin talks about the Bad Livers’ legacy, his recent shoulder injury suffered while lifting his bass over a subway turnstile and his unique (to Oklahoma) Jewish upbringing.
