John Cohen (August 2, 1932 – September 16, 2019)[1] was an American musician, photographer and film maker who performed and documented the traditional music of the rural South and played a major role in theAmerican folk music revival. In the 1950s and 60s, Cohen was a founding member of theNew Lost City Ramblers, a New York–based string band. Cohen made several expeditions toPeru to film and record the traditional culture of theQ'ero, an indigenous people. Cohen was also a professor of visual arts atSUNY Purchase College for 25 years.[1]
Cohen was born inQueens, New York, where his father, Israel, owned a shoe store.[2] John spent most of his childhood in eastern Long Island, where he learned to play the guitar and banjo. He later attended Yale University where he studied painting. He later on met one of his good friends Tom Paley. They began organizing small concerts for people on their universities campus. Later on, he and Tom both moved to New York City and formed the New Lost City Ramblers. This newly formed band introduced several generations of musicians and audiences to the music styles of rural string bands from the 1920s and '30s.
When living in New York, John was in the heart of a diverse world of art and music forms. He began taking photos of many painters and artists around the area, leading to his love for photography.
In 1958, Cohen formed theNew Lost City Ramblers withMike Seeger andTom Paley. In 1962, Paley was replaced byTracy Schwarz. The Ramblers introduced young urban folk music fans to the work of rural performers such asDock Boggs,Elizabeth Cotten andBlind Alfred Reed. The influence of the Ramblers has been compared toHarry Smith'sAnthology of American Folk Music.[1] It has been suggested thatThe Grateful Dead song "Uncle John's Band", released on the albumWorkingman's Dead, was about Cohen and his band.[1] Cohen called this "a true rumor."[3]
Cohen described the outlook of the Ramblers: “We made it possible for urban-based musicians to step out of the demands of the music business and look out into America to get in touch with the genuine energy, drive and craziness out there.”[4] Rather than pursuing commercial success through a polished sound, Cohen and the Ramblers undertook numerous research field trips to the South.[4]
John Cohen had taken photos and pursued photography for many years. Cohen also enjoyed filmmaking. He created a film calledThe High Lonesome Sound[5]. This documentary shows the many emotions of life among the poor in those times. It illustrates how music and religion helped people in the Appalachian region maintain hope and traditions during hard times.
In 1962, Cohen returned to Kentucky, where he spent six weeks filming the documentaryThe High Lonesome Sound which centred on Roscoe Holcomb. (The title of the film became synonymous with the Appalachian music he captured.)[3] Cohen subsequently recordedDillard Chandler and made the documentaryThe End of an Old Song about Chandler and his world.[2] WithRalph Rinzler andIzzy Young, Cohen created the organization Friends of Old Time Music. They produced a string of concerts featuring traditional musicians in New York in the 1960s[1]
In 1959 he worked as an assistant photographer to Robert Frank and participated in the production of his filmPull My Daisy, theBeat Generation film directed by Frank andAlfred Leslie, written byJack Kerouac and featuringAllen Ginsberg,Peter Orlovsky,David Amram, andGregory Corso. In New York, John was at the center of wildly diverse worlds of art and music. He photographed poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso; painters Franz Kline and Red Grooms; and a young Bob Dylan, who had just arrived in the city. Influenced by Frank, Cohen photographed theAbstract Expressionist painters and Beat writers who congregated in artists' studios and at theCedar Tavern. Once out there in the world, John got in contact with Life Magazine, and Life paid him for early publication rights of his "beat generation" photos.[6][7]
Cohen learnt about weaving customs of Peru through an archaeology course at Yale. He travelled to the Peruvian Andes in 1956 to write his master's thesis on their weaving techniques.[6] Cohen visited Peru eight times between 1956 and 2005. His work in Peru included audio recordings of Andean music and documentary films as well as books about weaving, music, festivals, and dance.[8] Cohen's recording of a Peruvian wedding song was included on theVoyager Golden Record which was attached to theVoyager spacecraft in 1977.[2]
Cohen ceased to perform with the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1970s, though they would re-unite for a 20th anniversary concert at New York'sCarnegie Hall in 1978 and for a 35th anniversary tour in 1993.[4] From 1972 to 1997, Cohen was a Professor of Visual Arts at SUNYPurchase College where he taught photography and drawing.[1]
John made 15 films, includingThe High Lonesome Sound (1963),Sara and Maybelle: The Carter Family (1981), andMountain Music of Peru (1984). He himself was the subject of the Smithsonian Channel's 2009 filmPlay On, John: A Life in Music
In spring 1959, Cohen went toHazard, Kentucky in search of traditional musicians. A series of chance encounters led him toRoscoe Holcomb who played "Across the Rocky Mountain". "My hair stood up on end," Cohen recalled. "It was the most moving, touching, dynamic, powerful song. Not the song itself, but the way he sang it was just astounding." Cohen's recording trip resulted in the album,Mountain Music of Kentucky, released on theFolkways label.[3][9]
In 1998, Cohen released his first solo album,Stories the Crow Told Me. Steve Leggett wrote inAllMusic that the record is "not so much a redefinition of Appalachian music as it is an attempt to enter it fully and completely. Cohen does this so well that the album sounds exactly like some great, lost Alan Lomax field tape, and although by definition what Cohen has done here is a facsimile, it sounds so much like the real deal that it hardly matters."[10]
Cohen was associate music producer on the movieCold Mountain (2003), working withT Bone Burnett.[4] Cohen appeared in theMartin Scorsese documentary about Bob Dylan,No Direction Home (2005), describing Dylan's development in the context of the 1960s folk music revival.[1] From 2008 onwards Cohen performed withThe Down Hill Strugglers, an old-time string band featuring younger performers. In 2009, theSmithsonian Channel released a documentary about Cohen,Play On, John: A Life in Music.[1]
In 2011, theLibrary of Congress acquired the John Cohen archive of manuscripts, films, photographs and audio recordings.[11] Cohen's archive includes interviews with Harry Smith,Roger McGuinn,Pete Seeger,Bob Dylan,Gary Davis and Roscoe Holcomb. The photographs include these artists andWillie Dixon,Woody Guthrie,Alan Lomax,Bill Monroe,The Stanley Brothers,Merle Travis,Muddy Waters and many others.[8]
Cohen resided inPutnam Valley, New York.[3]
Through the 1960s, John continued to make albums for Folkways. The artists included ballad singer Dillard Chandler, “Singing Miner” George Davis, and Roscoe Holcomb. Most of John's recordings of Roscoe can be heard on two Smithsonian Folkways CDs,The High Lonesome Sound andAn Untamed Sense of Control. John's 1953 recordings of Reverend Gary Davis were released by Smithsonian Folkways on the 2003 CDIf I had My Way. In 1998, Cohen released his first solo album,Stories the Crow Told Me. Cohen was associate music producer on the movieCold Mountain (2003), working with T Bone Burnett.
In 1965 Cohen married Penny Seeger, a member of the musicalSeeger family.[1] They had a daughter, Sonya Cohen Cramer, a singer who died in 2015, and a son, Rufus. Penny accompanied her husband to Peru and collaborated on recording music. She died in 1993.[2]
