Tracy Schwarz, the last surviving member of The New Lost City Ramblers, stood in a respectful approach to the lost music of the countryside, in contrast to more commercial acts like Kingston Trio, Peter, Puter and Mary, who died in W.VA on March 29th. He was 86 years old.
His death at the hospice facility was announced by his wife, Virginia Hawker.
The new lost city of Rambler, formed in New York in 1958, rides the peak of the folk revival. They performed at the first Newport Folk Festival the following year, counting Bob Dylan as fans, jaming at the prestigious Greenwich Village Folk Club in the early 1960s.
“Everything about them appealed to me – their style, their songs, their sounds,” Dylan wrote in his 2004 memoir, “The Chronicle: Volume 1.” “Their songs ran in style, from mountain ballads to fiddle tunes and railroad blue,” he said, “I didn't know they were replicating everything they did from the old 78 records, but what was important anyway?”
Skilled in fiddle, accordion, guitar and banjo, Schwartz joined Mike Seger, half-brother of Folk Laminary Pete Seger, and Rambler guitarist John Cohen, after another former member Tom Paley, who left in 1962.
Schwartz, born in New York and the son of an investment banker, “There was something about Tracy that was a country on earth,” cited Mike Seger in his 2010 book, “New To the Countr: The New Lost City Ramblers and the Folk Music Revival.” “He was just feeling the music, and it was in his bones.”
The Rambler was modeled after the traditional string belt that flourished in the lush lush dimples and southern back roads of South Appalachia in the 1920s and 30s. They were equality between entertainers and folklorists, and taught audiences about musical history set in bluegrass and country fundamentals, as played by Dock Boggs, the Carter Family, Cousin Emmy, and the Frypan Rickers.
Rambler “conducted a mammoth rescue mission,” writes music critic Eric Winter, who “snatched from the jaws of the Jukebox Society and stolen from some of the finest music in American tradition.”
Daniel Tracy Schwartz was born in Manhattan on November 13th, 1938. Manhattan is Constance Schwartz, the third of investment banker Hamilton Schwartz's four children and classically trained pianist. Spending summers in rural Vermont he learned to appreciate the rhythm and culture of rural life. “It was almost Appalachian,” he was quoted as saying he had “goed to the country.”
As a child in New Jersey and Connecticut, he began playing guitar in search of rustic music on the radio.
After graduating from Portsmouth Abbey School in Rhode Island, he studied Russian in Georgetown, falling into Washington's thriving folk revival scene. It was there that he came to know his neighbor, Mr. Seger.
Schwartz dropped out of college to join the Army. Stationed in West Germany, he performed with an acoustic country band at his unfair time. When Mr. Seger reached, he was nearing the end of his army's stint.
Rambler continued to tour and record throughout the 1960s. Schwartz also joined Seger on the side project for the Strange Creek Singers, which released the album in 1972. In the 1970s and 1980s he recorded with the famous Cajun Fiddler Dewey Barfa.
From the late 1970s he played guitar and songs with his first wife, Eloise (King) Schwartz, and toured and recorded with his son Peter as a family band for his son Peter and Tracy.
Rambler disbanded in 1979, but sometimes they reunited. Their “20th Anniversary Concert” album from a 1978 performance featuring Elizabeth Cotten, Pete Seager and others was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Recording when it was released in 1986, despite being late.
In the late 1980s, Schwartz began a long collaboration with his second wife, the singer, known as Ginny Hawker. They released two albums, “Good Songs For Hard Times” (2000) and “Draw Closer” (2004).
Schwartz was also a songwriter while focusing primarily on others' music. In 2008, his song “Poor Old Dirt Farmer,” recorded by Levon Helm, was nominated for the Americana Music Association Award for Song of the Year.
In addition to his wife and son Peter, Mr. Schwartz was survived by another son, Robert. daughter, Sallyanne Schwartz Kornz; sister, Natalie Lowell; and three grandchildren.
Whatever the band was, or what year was, Schwartz's commitment to sound in the past never wavered. “The music was very beautiful,” he said in a 1986 interview with the Burlington Free Press in Vermont. “Our inspiration was to play exactly the same way.”
