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Eric Von Schmidt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since February 2007. |
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This article is about a recently deceased person. Some information, such as the circumstances of the person's death and surrounding events, may change rapidly as more facts become known. |
Eric Von Schmidt (May 28, 1931 - February 2, 2007) was an American singer-songwriter associated with the folk/blues revival of the 1960s and a key part of the East Coast folk music scene ([1]) that included Bob Dylan ([2]) and Joan Baez.
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Von Schmidt is probably best known for not being the author of the song Baby, Let Me Follow You Down, which was for years a staple of Dylan's musical catalogue. Dylan's label, Columbia Records, credited Von Schmidt as the composer of the piece. Although he penned a book of the same name, Von Schmidt denied ([3]) the assertion made by the record label.
Four years before his death, Eric von Schmidt painted his last epic masterpiece of American history. The canvas’ subject was of Lewis and Clark's Corp of Discovery honoring its bicentennial. After completing that subject he continued his “Giants of the Blues” series of paintings. Both may be viewed at his official website, vonsworks.com (see links below).
Eric Von Schmidt's father, Harold Von Schmidt, was a painter of western landscapes who worked for The Saturday Evening Post.
Von Schmidt's music has been recorded by Travis MacRae and Jeff Buckley. He is considered an important influence on Tom Rush.[4] He was honored in 2000 with the ASCAP Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award ([5]) at an event ([6]) which featured a reunion of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band including Fritz Richmond.
He is widely credited ([7]), along with Rush, for reviving and arranging the most-widely-performed version of the traditional song Wasn't That A Mighty Storm about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 that caused extensive property damage in Galveston, Texas.
Von Schmidt was also an author, painter and illustrator, who created cover art for several books, and album covers for several artists ([8]) including Baez.
In 1997, he won a Grammy Award for his work on a compilation album entitled Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 1-3. He painted up until his death, and recently completed an epic mural of the Battle of the Alamo.
He suffered a stroke in August 2006, and died seven months later, aged 75.
- Eric von Schmidt paints Lewis and Clark
- Giants of the Blues Gallery
- Interview with Eric about his painting Storming of the Alamo
- The Band website
- bobdylanroots.com
- Alan Lewis, New England Music Scrapbook
- The World's Hippest Geezers
- Illustrated Eric Von Schmidt discography
- Interview with Eric Von Schmidt
- Wasn't That A Mighty Storm lyrics
- Richard & Mimi Fariña's Home Page
- Official Site of Harold and Eric Von Schmidt
- Baby Let Me Follow You Down on Amazon.com
Categories: Cleanup from February 2007 | All pages needing cleanup | Current events | 1931 births | 2007 deaths | American blues singers | American country singers | American folk singers | American male singers | American guitarists | American songwriters | Blues guitarists | Blues singers | Deaths by stroke | German-Americans | People from Westport, Connecticut