Happy Traum was smitten by American folk music and began playing guitar and 5-string banjo as a teenager. He was an active participant of the legendary Washington Square/Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1950s and ‘60s, and studied guitar with the famed blues master, Brownie McGhee.  Happy with his group, the New World Singers, cut the first recorded version of “Blowin’ In The Wind”, and Happy sang a duet with Dylan on his anti-war song “Let Me Die in My Footsteps.”