♪ This is America ♪ Don't catch you slipping now ♪ Don't catch you slipping now - [Narrator] Historically, many songs have been introduced to civil rights movements.

The songs took on so many meanings.

They could be jubilant, or they could be a lament because someone had gotten killed.

You couldn't tell who was a singer and who was an organizer because the organizers sang, and the singers organized.

- You know, one of the things that I've been so happy about lately is seeing all these young people out making this world a better place.

It's almost like we finally, we of the '60s, finally got some reinforcements.

(light music) ♪ And we shall overcome ♪ We shall overcome ♪ We shall overcome ♪ Someday - We've gotta send a message to the White House.

(crowd cheering) - Social protest in folk music has always been a part of folk music.

It goes back to the time of the Protestant Reformation.

- The folk music revival, even though, as a movement, it ended in the 1960s, mid-1960s, it is still incredibly relevant to today, not just because the interest in folk music continues today, but also because of the social and political projects that revivalists were involved in.

♪ And it's deep ♪ Within my heart - [Narrator] This is the story of a man who played a little-recognized, but vital role in America's modern folk music movement and how that experience convinced him that the life of a celebrated folk singer would be better spent teaching as many people as he could how to sing and play music together.

(light music) - When I was a young boy, I dreamed of going to sea, working out as a merchant mariner, or traveling on the railroad tracks, on the railroad train like my biological father who was a philosophical hobo.

And he got around the country by jumping on freight cars.

My dream was like so many young people today who come from rather stormy home lives.

So folk music was a form of running away from home.

- I love Frank Hamilton.

He has been involved in the folk music revival in profound and many, many ways.

He first came on the scene as the second replacement for Pete Seeger in the Weavers.

But he went on to record and play with people like Seeger and Odetta and the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

He went around the country with Guy Carawan and Jack Elliott collecting songs.

One of his most enduring legacies is, he helped found Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, which is not only a place I've played dozens of times but has introduced thousands of people to the joy of making their own music.

He was really kind of the Zelig of the folk music revival.

He was everywhere in an almost unperceived way.

- Frank was instrumental in creating the version of "We Shall Overcome" that became so ubiquitous.

This song is inspirational.

It says that, even if you're cast down, you can rise up and be accepted.

I think that's the whole idea behind it.

- [Narrator] Today's singer-songwriters closely or loosely echo traditional folk music in their styles.

They're all following conventions molded by the American folk revival that started in the 1940s.

♪ I am a lonesome traveler ♪ A great historical bum ♪ Highly educated, from history I have come ♪ ♪ Built the rock of ages that was in the year one ♪ ♪ That's about the biggest thing that man has ever done ♪ - The folk music revival then has seeped into everything from rock and roll...

I mean, look at Bruce Springsteen.

He is absolutely influenced by the folk music revival.

You have people like Mumford and Sons.

You have a whole genre of music called Americana that is, at its root, folk music.

- We're from the South, and we were of course influenced by Southern gospel music and the civil rights movement and the songs that were left behind here.

And we were activists before we were performers.

And we were part of the Highlander Center gatherings.

We were part of Alternate Roots.

And a lot of those were the older generation.

- But the revivalists didn't just look at the music as, you know, a cultural artifact.

You know, they weren't interested in the music in and of itself, but were interested in its social implications.

American folk music to them, to people like Charles Seeger and Alan Lomax, reflected American conditions.

And to them, it was imbued with a sense of American heritage.

And so they wanted to get this music out to show Americans that this was their cultural heritage.

- Folk music and social commentary are inextricably linked.

When it's the music of ordinary people talking about the things that are affecting their lives, often, that can be things like racism or economic injustice or anything else that affects the way people are able to live.

- [Crowd] Enough is enough, don't shoot!

Enough is enough, don't shoot!

♪ This is America - We cannot forget the African American experience in this country, which is the catalyst for a lot of wonderful folk music.

And today, the folk music of the African American community is hip-hop.

♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ Tell somebody ♪ You go tell somebody ♪ Grandma told me, get your money ♪ ♪ Get your money, get your money ♪ ♪ Get your money, get your money ♪ ♪ Get your money, get your money ♪ - But the idea of social protest through chanting and singing and rhythm is an African American tradition.

- So to me, the political part of folk music was on the side.

It wasn't something I was involved in.

But I was aware that Pete Seeger was coming from there.

And he was out to change the world for the better.

And Bob Dylan too in his early years 'cause he was influenced by Woody, and they all had that, "This machine kills fascists," on their guitars.

So I could see that the activism part of Pete's life was attractive to Frank and that it was a part of his life as well.

- [Narrator] Frank Hamilton was born in New York City in 1934 and raised in LA in the City Terrace community.

Frank's earliest exposure to folk music and its links to politics came from his family.

His mother was a piano teacher, and his father was a philosopher hobo who died before he was born but bequeathed him an original 1920s edition of Carl Sandburg's "American Songbag".

His stepfather, a former merchant marine, brought home recordings by Josh White, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, and Burl Ives, and a Gibson acoustic guitar.

Frank read Guthrie's book "Bound for Glory" and fantasized about rambling around the country hopping freight trains like his father.

- [Frank] Yeah, well I've always been fascinated by trains.

Trains, well of course, they're the fundamental mode of transportation to influence American folk music.

- [Narrator] As a teenager, Frank and a friend did hop a freight car.

♪ Outside the window, inside my sleeper car ♪ - [Narrator] Frank was interested in how freight trains affected America's music.

- Hopping a freight train was an experience for me that I wanted to do so I could analyze the rhythms that affected American folk music.

So we would get on the train and just go for a little bit and ride.

And I would hear different sounds from different parts of the train.

Inside of a box car, you would hear a sound that sounds like this in 4/4 time.

(guitar playing) In the southwest, they call that fast western.

Later on, it began to be known as boogie woogie.

The pianists in the roadhouses would play this music.

Then, if you're on the top of a boxcar, it's not in 4/4 time.

It's in 6/8 time.

And you hear it like this.

(guitar playing) And as you'd go by the little dinger, the bells, you'd hear something that sounds like this... (guitar playing) The Doppler effect.

Put them all together, and you have 12/8 time.

And 12/8 time is the actual time signature for most African music.

(drums playing) - [Narrator] In the early 1950s when Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger swung through Los Angeles, their tight circle of musician friends included Frank Hamilton, then in his early 20s.

They often visited leftist actor Will Geer's Topanga Canyon ranch.

Geer had free time to socialize with them for a reason not of his choosing.

Like many actors, writers, and folk musicians, he was blacklisted during the anti-communist red scare.

- There was a period of time in our glorious country, and it was the Un-American Activities Committee.

And it was in the '50s.

I was a kid.

And then the crash came, and we all went to Washington D.C. And Papa's work, his life, his love of presenting theater and being a humanitarian for unions and everything, it all failed.

Pop was always a magnet.

There was something about him that drew people to him.

And I think we all came as a family to heal.

That's where all the folk singers came.

You know, you had Pete Seeger.

You had Woody Guthrie.

You had Frank Hamilton, who was just a young lad then.

And we made music.

And we created joy for people.

Frank was startling because I don't know if he was taught by Pete Seeger, but I was.

- Woody Guthrie was a pickin' buddy.

We used to sit around and pick.

We'd go to parties.

I'd meet him at parties.

He'd come in, and he wouldn't talk to anybody.

One of the things Woody never liked to do is talk politics.

He said he didn't have time for that.

He wanted to play music.

So if he saw me over in the corner playing the guitar or Derroll Adams playing the banjo, he would come over and sit down, play with us.

He'd pull out his harmonica and play.

And we'd spend the rest of the time at the party playing music.

That's what he liked to do the best.

I wanted to be like my mentor, Pete Seeger.

His stage image was incredible.

And Woody, he was an itinerant troubadour, walking along the railroad tracks, hopping freight cars, and romping around the country in a free spirit.

Woody was a cool cat, an icon of the working class, and lived beyond the mundane, petty aspects of love and nurturance, kind of a John Wayne of the left.

He was an extraordinary songwriter with an ability to condense ideas into simple and direct language.

He was a folk genius, speaking in the language of the migrant worker, the sharecropper, the poor blues musician.

I wanted that image of Woody, free from societal constraints, picking up and going wherever it suited me.

I too wanted to be the noble vagabond in a quixotic quest for the idealized image of the working class, unaware that it might deter me a more rewarding and realistic path.

(light music) - And everybody knows the tunes now.

And I'm seeing 'em out there singing those songs, and it's giving 'em strength.

And they're making the good changes like we made the good changes.

And especially when you think about people like Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, Pete Seeger, and Zilphia Horton, who brought the song "We Shall Overcome" to the movement.

- [Narrator] In the mid-20th century, Odetta and Josh White and other African American folk singers lent musical inspiration to the exploding civil rights movement.

The Highlander Folk School in east Tennessee provided a home base for them.

Miles Horton had started Highlander in Monteagle, Tennessee in 1932 to train union organizers.

By the 1950s, the school had moved to Knoxville and was training civil rights workers as well.

- From 1945 to early 1946, there was a strike at the Charleston Cigar Factory.

And it was primarily led by Black women.

And on the strike, they of course sang songs to keep up morale.

But one of the songs they sang was a song that was common among striking Black workers in the South during the early 20th century.

And the song was "I Will Overcome".

To suit the collective action of the strike, women changed the lyrics to, "We will overcome."

After the strike ended, they went to Highlander Folk School because the striking workers were part of the Food, Tobacco, and Allied Workers of America that worked closely with Highlander Folk School advancing the labor movement.

And while there, women taught Zilphia Horton, the music director at Highlander, the song that they had sung on the strike, "We Will Overcome".

And this became a favorite of Horton's that she would sing in subsequent workshops on labor activism and early civil rights activism.

- She printed it up on mimeographed pages so she could pass it out, so it really became very important at Highlander.

And then Zilphia taught it to Pete Seeger.

(laughs) And Pete also recognized what a powerful song it was, and he carried it back north and began to sing it a lot in concerts and around wherever he was doing music.

In terms of Frank and Guy, Guy learned the song from Frank.

- [Narrator] In the early 1950s, Woody Guthrie and a group from Highlander were staying at Will Geer's ranch.

There, Frank Hamilton, fresh out of high school, heard the visitors from Highlander sing "We Will Overcome".

- At that time, I sang it, "We will overcome."

Pete Seeger, later on, becoming the New England grammarian that he was, decided that, "We will," was not correct, so he sang it as, "We shall."

Also, he said it sang better.

So I began to sing it as... ♪ We will overcome Putting a 12/8 gospel beat in back of it.

Well, Guy Carawan, my partner, singing partner in Los Angeles, called me up, and he said, "Hey, you've been singing that song around.

"I wanna learn it from you."

I said, "I'd be glad to teach it to you."

- Frank Hamilton had been attending a Black church, learning gospel songs by being a member of the Black church.

And he and Frank started singing that rhythm.

And three years later, I sang it in Carnegie Hall and gave it a strong pulse with the bass: Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba.

♪ We shall overcome And pretty soon, the audience was singing it.

- When Martin Luther King came to Highlander in 1957, it was the 25th anniversary at Highlander Folk School, and Dr. King was invited as a speaker, maybe the keynote speaker.

Pete was there and sang "We Shall Overcome" as part of the weekend.

And Ann Braden took Dr. King on up to Louisville when they left Highlander, and she said that Dr. King kept humming that melody.

And he said, "That song "really kind of sticks with you, doesn't it?"

- Next thing I know, Guy calls me and says, "We copyrighted the song, and you're on the copyright."

The idea of the copyright was important to protect the song against commercial exploitation.

- I had contributed to it, so I was one of the people on the copyright.

The other people was Pete Seeger and Zilphia Horton and Guy Carawan.

- They decided that they would copyright it, but to use the money as a way to further the movement.

And the We Shall Overcome Fund was created.

- [Narrator] Joan Baez led a crowd of 300,000 singing it at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 march on Washington on the same stage that Dr. King delivered his immortal "I Have A Dream" speech.

- [Dr. King] We shall overcome because the arc of moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

- [Narrator] President Lyndon Johnson used the phrase, "We shall overcome," in a speech delivered to Congress on March 15, 1965 after the violent Bloody Sunday attacks on civil rights demonstrators during the marches from Selma to Montgomery.

- But it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

And we shall overcome.

- [Dr. King] And so as our leader this evening, I say, walk together, children.

Don't you get weary.

- [Narrator] Dr. King recited the words from "We Shall Overcome" in his final sermon in Memphis on Sunday, March 31st, just before his assassination.

A few days later, more than 50,000 people sang it at his funeral.

♪ We shall overcome someday - [Narrator] In 2018, "We Shall Overcome" went into public domain with the blessing of its one living copyright holder, Frank Hamilton.

In 1953, Frank and fellow folk troubadour Guy Carawan decided to discover America together.

They wanted to seek out traditional folk singers and songs in the Southern United States.

The next year, Frank hitchhiked from LA to New York, meeting up with Carawan at Pete Seeger's home in Beacon.

From there, it was on to New York City for a day, and that was Frank's introduction to the Greenwich Village folk scene.

- In the 1950s, there was, at Washington Square in New York City under the little Arch, every Sunday afternoon was a folk music jam session.

Various people, a lot of kids interested in folk music.

And there would be groups of people gathered around their favorite folk singers.

Woody was there.

Bob Gibson was there, people who became famous like Mary Travers.

And there were a whole bunch of people like Glenn Yarbrough and people who became famous in the folk music field at the little Washington Square enclave every Sunday afternoon.

- [Narrator] As Frank and Guy jammed with the group during their Sunday afternoon in the village, Ramblin' Jack Elliott breezed into the circle with his guitar slung over his back.

- Jack Elliott, before this program's over, pick some more on that guitar.

And how 'bout, since Malvina's from out in the region of San Francisco Bay, making it that song?

- That's one of my favorite places, Malvina.

(guitar playing) - [Narrator] Elliott was a devotee and perfect mimic of Woody Guthrie, a colorful storyteller, and a freewheeling guitar picker said to be a major influence on Bob Dylan.

When Frank and Guy told Jack of their planned odyssey of the American South, he begged to go with them.

- None of them are Southerners.

Guy's parents had been Southerners, but Guy and Frank were both grew up in California.

And Jack was up in New York City.

I mean, it was incredible.

And then they also lucked into some situations where people took them into their homes, gave them food.

- We had a good time.

And we did some singing and picking and busking on street corners in North Carolina.

And there'd be a bunch of farmers standing around.

And one of 'em would just take his hat off and go around to all his buddies and make 'em put 50 cents or a dollar in the hat, you know, and collect up some money for us.

So we got money for milk and crackers and gasoline.

- Here they came south, and they were wanting to meet as many musicians as they could.

They wanted to meet both Black and white musicians.

They were very naive about how difficult during the Jim Crow 1950s it was gonna be to accomplish both of those things.

- [Narrator] The three met Black musicians in their part of town surreptitiously because they could have been arrested just for being there.

They were nearly arrested while visiting a Black union organizing town in Virginia.

The union organizer hustled them out of town, telling them the Ku Klux Klan had burnt a warehouse down and were going to pin it on them.

They fled, barely escaping jail.

- One of the early people they visited was Bascom Lamar Lunsford.

And he had been instrumental in starting the Asheville Folk Festival.

In Guy's letters, he said he really admired Bascom musically.

He listened a lot to his recordings and was really looking forward to meeting him.

But when they got there, he was just shocked by what a conservative person he was and how patronizing.

And I know the first thing he asked the three of them is, "Well, are you communists?"

And he had a lot of bad things to say about Pete Seeger.

And it's funny though.

Guy said that, while they were in the area, Bascom received his most recent recording, and Pete had done the notes.

And they were very flattering and...

So Bascom said, "Oh, I guess he's not such a bad guy."

(laughs) Anyway, that was one thing.

They met A.P.

Carter, ended up going home with him, and the three of them sleeping in one bed in A.P.

's house.

But here they came.

And they just had a series of adventures that were incredible.

♪ Hang down your head, Tom Dooley ♪ ♪ Hang down your head and cry ♪ Hang down your head, Tom Dooley ♪ ♪ Poor boy, you're bound to die ♪ - [Narrator] In the late 1950s, the Kingston Trio broke into AM radio's top 40 with slick, commercialized versions of "Tom Dooley" and other traditional songs.

Other polished folk acts, such as the Limeliters, the New Christy Minstrels, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the Brothers Four followed them on to the popular music charts and the college folk circuits.

These performers paved the way for less commercial and more political folk singers, the likes of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, Gordon Lightfoot, and Arlo Guthrie, Woody's son.

They gained acclaim with repertoires blending traditional balladry with new songs written by themselves and their contemporaries.

Audiences flocking to see them at folk venues were exposed to more authentically traditional artists, such as Odetta, Doc Watson, and Mississippi John Hurt.

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem introduced Irish folk to the mix.

The American folk revival was becoming mainstream.

- One of the things about revivalists, people like Pete and Frank, was that they took themselves out of the spotlight.

They wanted the emphasis to be on the music itself rather than them as stars of the music.

So they had a reaction to the folk boom, the kind of short period where you have the rise of popularity in folk music, really epitomized by shows like "Hootenanny" that aired on ABC.

(audience clapping) ♪ There's a hootenanny coming ♪ Every week on ABC ♪ Everybody come around into the hootenanny ♪ - One of the problems about the folk boom was not just the commercialization of music, but again, it made people stars.

And it removed the musician from the audience.

So one of the other key aspects of the revival prior to the kind of rise of the folk boom and the over commercialization was the emphasis on building community and building community through music.

You have people like Pete Seeger and Frank who are there to teach people how to play the music themselves and then go out and do it themselves.

- [Narrator] In Greenwich Village, the nerve center of the movement during these heady days, Frank was partnering with folk singer Bob Gibson.

Gibson took Frank to Chicago to play at the Gate of Horn, the first folk music nightclub in the country.

One night, folk singer Odetta came with folk music fan and supporter Dawn Greening to see Frank perform solo there.

Dawn asked Frank to give her and her family guitar lessons at their home.

And that was the beginning of the Old Town School of Folk Music.

- It was about the second week that Win Stracke, who was sitting next to me, said, "You know what?

"I'm gonna start a school around this," which is what he ended up doing.

And little did we know then, maybe in that room in Dawn Greening's house, that we were kind of seeing the germ, the beginning, the inception of what became the Old Town School, which... (laughs) Look at it now.

So that was what led to the kind of legendary opening night of the school in December of 1957.

And Frank was there.

Frank had that special kind of genius.

It was kind of a spark that kind of set off all these influences.

- The Old Town School, when it started, was supported by the Chicago arts community, well known for that.

And we were teaching...

I was going back and forth from room to room, teaching people the same song at a different level.

I would teach bar chords in the intermediate class, some basic strums to the beginning class, and then the third room was the advanced class.

- And there were regular classes being held every evening.

And there, I found a class in Maybelle Carter-style guitar being taught by this young man named Frank Hamilton, her way of playing, where she played a melody on the bass lines of the guitar and then accompanied herself with a brush.

(guitar playing) And there was Frank Hamilton writing on a blackboard, explaining how Maybelle did it.

And I thought...

I felt like a treasure hunter who had just uncovered a chest filled with gold.

- Many people copied his style.

You know, they say, "This is a Frank Hamilton style pick."

And you know, he was really very, very good at that.

But he enjoyed singing too.

And he enjoyed having other people sing along with him.

- So I went over there with my guitar and a little bit of an attitude 'cause I taught myself how to play some Elvis Presley songs.

And I played for the kids in school and found out that girls liked me better.

So I came over to the Old Town School and said, "I don't know what you're gonna teach me here "'cause I already know how to play songs "and chords and everything."

And Frank sat me down with the guitar, and he said, "Do you know how to play the circle of fifths?"

And he went... (guitar playing) I said no.

I didn't know that.

He said, "Well, you know how to play the blues?"

(guitar playing) I said no.

I didn't know that either.

He said, "Well, what about finger picking?"

(guitar playing) I said, "Okay, I got a lot to learn."

- [Narrator] The Old Town School nurtured careers of such artists as John Prine, Steve Goodman, Bob Gibson, Bonnie Koloc, and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds.

Today, it has a weekly enrollment of 6,000 students, including 2,700 children.

- In the early days, the Old Town School quickly became a hub for folk musicians from around the country.

And musicians including Joan Baez and later John Prine and Odetta, Joni Mitchell and others, came and played at the school, hung out at the school, played guitar in the stairwells and on the couches, and really helped create a scene around the Old Town School.

Old Town School has become the largest community music school in the country.

We annually teach more than 13,500 students in a variety of programs around the city of Chicago.

We operate out of three large buildings, including one that we moved into in the '60s and still maintain on Armitage.

Old Town is the largest producer of world folk music in the city, producing more than 250 concerts a year.

I think the most important thing though is that Old Town is a really active community of people who love music and dance and want to share it with one another.

And that makes it a great place to play, a great place to learn, a great place just to hang out and talk to other people about music.

And that, Frank started with Win.

- September 11, 2001 was a very sad, tragic day in America.

And I called down to the school that afternoon.

I said, "Are we having class tonight?"

And the young woman behind the desk said... She goes, "Get down here.

"We have to have class tonight."

Well I had a bunch of my students from the spontaneous folk ensemble class.

We sat out in the hallway right by the concert hall door, and we started playing and singing.

No sheets, just these dusty old folk songs, right?

We sang "Down In The Valley", and we sang "I'll Fly Away".

We sang "If I Had a Hammer", "This Land Is Your Land".

And the one that really exploded was "I'm Gonna Lay Down My Sword and Shield".

- In 2007, the Old Town School celebrated its 50th anniversary.

And Frank got up on stage with me.

And I turned to him and said, "Did you ever think we'd be here 50 years later?"

(laughs) ♪ Biddy O'Brien began to cry ♪ Such a nice, clean corpse did you ever see ♪ ♪ Tim Mavourneen, why did you die ♪ ♪ Ah, hold your gob, says Paddy McGee ♪ ♪ Whack fol the dah ♪ Oh, dance to your partner - When you walk in to the Old Town School in Chicago with Frank Hamilton, the seas part.

I mean, people come out of the doors looking to talk to him and to see him.

(gasps) There he is.

I mean, it was amazing.

I mean, I never seen anything like that.

It was like...

I mean, he is held in such high regard and high esteem.

- [Narrator] During his years at the Old Town School, Frank's reputation for mastery as a folk musician continued to grow.

He earned the coveted distinction of performing in the very first Newport Folk Festival in 1959.

And he went on to record with Pete Seeger, Odetta, and the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

In 1962, Frank left the Old Town School to join the Weavers.

The group, Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman, Lee Hayes, and Pete Seeger, had become popular beginning in 1949 with hits including "On Top Of Old Smoky" and "Goodnight, Irene".

After their blacklisting in 1953, the quartet survived by working the concert circuit.

Pete left the group in 1958.

(banjo playing) - I was an early-on fan of the Weavers, but then I, through meeting with Mike Seeger and others, began to be interested in the traditional aspect of the music more than the commercial professional aspect.

And the Weavers borrowed a lot of ideas from earlier folk music, but then they made very special settings that was intended to capture a more wider or broader pop audience rather than just people that were interested in traditional music.

- Pete left the Weavers, went on a concert tour by himself.

Did wonderfully because he always does.

- I was friends with Eric Darling.

And I was 17.

So I go, and I start to get to know Eric, play guitar with him.

He teaches me things.

- They had to have a substitute.

So Eric Darling, my friend, came in and substituted for Pete.

Of course there is no substitution for Pete.

So he recommended me, and Pete recommended me.

And so they sent me a tape, and I learned all the songs.

- Eric had just left the Weavers.

He had been there for four and a half years.

He revitalized that whole group.

Eric said to me, "Well, I said "that they should replace me with Frank Hamilton."

Now the reason he would have been a tremendous addition to the Weavers was that he was able to get color with the musical things that he did to the songs they sang.

He also had a terrific voice.

He had a wonderful vibrato.

And his pitch was excellent.

He was very good on stage.

But somehow, it didn't work out.

- This was fine for a while.

But I was a little uncomfortable.

They had a propensity for having internecine warfare.

They'd known each other for so long.

And I always think a group that stays together like that is like a marriage with no fringe benefits.

And they were at each other's throats practically, but not in a violent way, but in a sarcastic way.

And I didn't like the way they treated the people they came in contact with.

When we performed, I was the new kid on the block.

They were about ready to hang it up anyway after going through Pete and going through Eric.

So when I was on stage with them, Freddie would get very irritable with me.

I wasn't a good fit.

I wasn't a good fit for the group.

For some reason, we were, our chemistry was wrong, except that we used to get standing ovations, which was really strange.

- [Narrator] Frank was in the Weavers for nine months.

His tenure climaxed with their two nights of 15th anniversary concerts at Carnegie Hall.

Just before those performances, Frank had given his notice.

The group disbanded in 1964.

- So they had a reunion concert at Carnegie Hall, and they had all seven of these people: the original group, Seeger, Hayes, Hellerman, and Gilbert.

Then they had Eric, which was Pete's replacement.

They had Frank, which was Eric's replacement.

Then they had Bernie Krause, who was Frank's replacement, seven of them.

It was a watershed concert, one of the greatest things.

And I had an interview with a guy from Twisted Sister.

And I told him that this was a life changing event for me.

And he said, "I was there."

- So even if I wasn't a good fit personally with them, we did some good shows together.

The Weavers never quite sounded the same without Pete Seeger.

Pete Seeger was a very complex individual.

He was a great showman in commercial folk music or folk music in general.

But he would have hated that description.

Pete was a shy person whose humility was always being tested by the people that he had gathered around him.

He had an extraordinary ego, but it was kind of masked by a kind of humility and lofty words.

Pete was not part of the working class.

I was mesmerized by his spell, a romantic dream of realizing a utopia through a song, galvanizing people to challenge the inequities of a corrupt system, cultivating a personality of influence and political power by throwing his head back and playing in on a banjo.

I wanted that power to influence people for the good cause.

By the time I left the Weavers, that dream had faded.

(rock music) - [Narrator] The 1964 British Invasion and the emergence of folk rock nudged acoustic folk out of the mainstream.

Artists from the folk revival either became niche performers at smaller venues or, like Bob Dylan, picked up electric instruments and followed the audiences.

(guitar playing) ♪ Once upon a time you dressed so fine ♪ ♪ Threw the bums a dime in your prime ♪ ♪ Didn't you - I saw Frank in LA probably in the '60s.

And he was playing a club.

I was in the Byrds by that point, and I was doing rock and roll.

♪ Hey Mr. Tambourine Man ♪ Play a song for me - How did folk music change into folk rock?

How did the two things get combined?

Well I was inspired by the Beatles, and they were using folk music chords.

And I'd take an old folk song like... ♪ The water is wide ♪ I cannot cross over And I'd put a Beatle beat to it and rock it up.

- If you think about the early days of the '60s era of the revival, there was again this connection between folk music and politics.

Again, going back to the 1930s, how folk music would be used as a tool to advance social justice and economic justice.

But by the time you get to 1968, that's gone, that notion that America could be reformed.

And it's gone for a variety of ways.

Of course you have the Vietnam War.

And you also have massive disillusionment among civil rights activists in the face of unrelenting violence.

The emphasis there in all of these groups was on liberation rather than reform.

- I began to lose interest in being a performer.

When I was younger, oh, yeah, I wanted to be a star and that kind of thing.

You know how kids are.

But as I grew into folk music more, I felt it was about the music.

And I also felt that the whole concept of stardom was wrong for folk music.

It didn't fit.

Folk music was something you did in the living room or on the back porch or when you were working or when you were just sitting around with folks, having a good time.

- Frank Hamilton was already a really modest guy.

He just never went into fame.

He avoided it, just like he and Woody would sit in the corner at a party.

He was sitting in the corner of fame.

So I began to see, well, the performance life in folk music was not for me.

So I got into teaching.

And at first, I didn't wanna teach.

I resented it.

I thought, "Oh, hell, I'd rather be out there playing."

But then I got into teaching, and I realized that teaching folk music was as important as playing folk music.

Educating people, the value of the music, of folk music and folk music in general.

And I began to like it because I was sharing something I knew with others.

- [Narrator] Frank spent the next two decades in Los Angeles recording, writing songs, teaching music, and working as a Hollywood studio musician on everything from top 40 hits to film and television soundtracks.

- My impression of Frank was always that he was very talented, but the performing part of it made him uncomfortable somewhat.

- There was a couple who had a radio program on KPFK in Los Angeles called The Folk Scene, Roz and Howard Larman.

And they wanted me to come down and meet a folk singer, a singer songwriter, and be on the program with him.

- I was on their radio show, and I guess I did it a few times.

They said, "Well we're friends with Frank Hamilton."

I said, "Oh, really?

"I'd love to meet him."

So that's when that happened.

He came to the studio.

I don't remember the date.

And you can hear my enthusiasm.

But we played for about an hour, and I went through so many different things, things that I had written, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry stuff, Weavers things.

- So Don McLean was somebody who I really enjoyed meeting.

We hit it off, and he knew who I was.

And I knew that he was a pretty good songwriter.

So we got on this program, and out of the blue, he said, "This is one of the songs I just really recently wrote."

And I was sort of jamming along with him.

I didn't even hear the song before, but I started playing along with the song.

And it was "Starry Starry Night".

♪ Starry starry night ♪ Flaming flowers that brightly blaze ♪ ♪ Swirling clouds in violet haze ♪ ♪ Reflect in Vincent's eyes of China blue ♪ - And I thought, "Oh, my gosh, this guy is fantastic.

"What a song."

I was probably one of the few people who heard the song for the first time and had accompanied him.

And so I was at the right place at the right time.

- I remember my sister and I going up to Barnie Kessel's Music World up in the heart of Hollywood, right up from Capitol Records.

And it was this music store, and there were cubicles in the back for teachers.

And that's how we met Frank.

And I had a little duo with my sister, and we wrote songs together.

So we started taking our songs to him, and he would write them all out.

You know, my sister could read the music.

I couldn't.

But we'd make these arrangements, these incredible guitar part arrangements for us and write them out.

And I think he just really felt like he saw the potential in us and really encouraged us to be doing that.

We were really young.

I was 15, 16.

- I was lucky enough to be able to spend some very wonderful time with him when he lived in Tarzana, California in his house there.

And we made music together.

And we had several many gigs over the, I think, a couple years we played.

His remarkable playing, which was just mind-blowing to me.

I was mostly singing.

I did play the guitar, but I sure leaned on him 'cause he was such an expert.

- [Narrator] Frank would often return to Chicago for special teaching events at the Old Town School.

(guitar playing) ♪ Now if you go down to Deep Elem ♪ ♪ Just to have a little fun ♪ You better have your $15 ♪ When the policeman comes - Frank was giving a workshop for the faculty.

And I thought I was so excited to finally meet him in person.

And in the Armitage building, we had to come up the stairs.

And there was this long line of people down the stairs waiting to get into the workshop.

And I thought, "Holy cow, what's taking so long here?

"I've got business.

"I've gotta meet Frank Hamilton."

And I finally got up to the top of the stairs, and I could see what was taking so long.

Frank stood at the doorway, greeted every person walking through the door.

He shook their hand.

He looked them straight in the eye, asked them what they did for the school, and had a little conversation with everybody.

And I...

This is the god's truth.

I said, "I should just go home now.

"I've learned everything I need to know "about teaching."

You engage your students, and you show them you care.

- [Narrator] In 1985, Frank said goodbye to southern California.

He married Mary Susan Doyle Smith, a Delta Airlines employee, and they relocated to Atlanta.

She became an accomplished music partner, accompanying him on guitar, banjo, ukulele, and auto harp, as well as teaching guitar.

They occasionally visited the Old Town School in Chicago.

♪ And when these fingers ♪ Can strum no longer ♪ Well hand the old banjo ♪ To someone stronger ♪ And when these fingers ♪ Can strum no longer - Mary loved music.

She was very good.

She played the guitar and sang.

She had a nice voice.

And eventually, she and I became a duo.

And we did a lot of singing here in Atlanta.

We had a wonderful 30-year marriage.

Unfortunately, she passed away of a heart aneurism.

- When Mary died unexpectedly... And I'm talking about unexpectedly.

This was a woman that was really into her health and eating the right foods and kept Frank very healthy for all these years, just died unexpectedly.

So Frank, Frank was in real trouble.

I didn't think he was gonna live another week.

What do I do?

'Cause this is bad.

I'm watching this happen.

And he said the Old Town School...

I said, "Tell me, what's going on with the Old Town School?"

He said, "Well this is a school I started "in Chicago all these years ago.

"And somebody, I can't remember the name of the person, "they said they were thinking about starting a school here."

And I said, "Frank..." This is my exact words.

I said, "Frank, we're gonna start a school."

- Here at the school, we try to teach the way that Frank taught up at the Old Town School in Chicago.

Frank believes that everybody that walks through the door, regardless of age, is a musician.

It's something that we're born with.

There's actually science (laughs) that says that.

But we just take the natural ability that people have and bring it out.

We show them that it's not...

It's not scary to play a musical instrument.

It's just something that you should be able to do for fun.

- The philosophy of my teaching started when I was young and I was under the influence of Bess Hawes.

Bess was the first person to do group teaching of folk music in a class setting or in the house.

- [Narrator] In his mid-80s, Frank Hamilton is still teaching, performing, writing, and recording.

Some of his latest songs carry on the folk revival tradition of social protest and commentary.

♪ Fight for the first amendment ♪ ♪ And never let it fail ♪ We'll light the lamp of liberty ♪ ♪ Let Julian out of jail - I think that the protest song will always go on as long as we have the inequity in terms of people making money.

Some people make a lot of money.

Some people make very little.

And as long as there's that gap, there'll always be a protest song.

- The folk music revival has influenced modern music in the celebration of the singer songwriter, in the use of topical material to address the tension that exists between the power structure and the agitators for change.

And not the least of which, there's a whole genre now called Americana that has its very roots in the folk music revival.

♪ Come on you rounders if you want to hear ♪ ♪ Story told of a brave engineer ♪ ♪ Casey Jones was the rounder's name ♪ ♪ On a heavy 16-wheeler where he rolled to fame ♪ ♪ Well he drove (indistinct) - I've heard that there was an old sage that said, "Beware "of a movement that has music."

(banjo playing) ♪ I am resilient ♪ I trust the movement ♪ I negate the chaos ♪ Uplift the negative ♪ I'll show up at the table ♪ Again and again and again ♪ I'll close my mouth and learn to listen ♪ - There is a lineage of music behind me, be it my bloodline, be it the land that I live on and the place that I stood or the traditions that influence me.

And there is this deepening of understanding.

- When I think about the folk revival in the 1950s and '60s, I think one of the impacts was that it was the time when young people realized that they could be participants.

They could pick up a guitar and learn to play, or a fiddle or a banjo.

They didn't just have to listen to music.

They could actually be participants in music.

And I think that was... That made a big impact on people.

- It was Pete Seeger's interest in starting a singing labor movement that really got me to explore the folk music revival and its intersections with labor activism.

But it was through that that I discovered the much deeper, more kind of wide-ranging types of social activism and political activism the revivalists were involved in beyond just the labor movement.

And that's why Frank Hamilton is so important, because of his connection and association with Pete Seeger.

And he is one of these figures who carried Seeger's mission that he began in the late 1930s up through to today.

- It's like Voltaire's "Candide".

You know, Voltaire, Candide went roaming in the whole entire world looking for an adventure, from this adventure to that adventure.

But eventually he came back and tended to his own little garden.

And it's like that.

Frank's garden just keeps producing.

And it's just so bountiful.

- Frank taught me the Weavers' arrangement of "The Water is Wide" when I was 15 or 16.

And I played it forever.

And when I did my second album, I recorded it.

And I had James Taylor and Garth Hudson from the band on it.

And it became really a favorite.

And I still play it today, and people love it.

It's one of the best things in my repertoire.

So I'm really grateful to have that.

♪ My love and I - I like to tell idealistic young people that we are not called upon to do great things.

Rather, we are called upon to do small things greatly.

And Frank Hamilton has done both.

He has done great things, and he has done and continues to do small things greatly.

I'm proud to know him.

♪ When the sparrow ♪ Wings his way across the sky ♪ And the wind sings ♪ Through the valley ♪ With a sunrise ♪ The snow begins to fall ♪ On the lee side of the valley ♪ ♪ On the mountain ♪ The springtime waters flow ♪ Down the hillside ♪ To each the crops below ♪ It's the right time ♪ For a life to be reborn ♪ When the dawn breaks ♪ In the valley ♪ Oh, the valley ♪ That's the place I love the best ♪ ♪ Oh, the valley ♪ Someday I'll come to rest ♪ At the right time ♪ For a life to be reborn ♪ When the dawn breaks ♪ In the valley ♪ It's been a long time ♪ Since I've listened with my heart ♪ ♪ As it leads me ♪ To the valley ♪ And I long for ♪ That gentle mountain stream ♪ As it's winding ♪ Through the valley (upbeat folk music) (music continues) (music continues) (music continues) ♪ Oh, the valley ♪ That's the place I love the best ♪ ♪ Oh, the valley ♪ Someday I'll come to rest ♪ Where the sunrise ♪ Is the light within my life ♪ Bringing peace time ♪ To the valley ♪ Bringing peace time ♪ To the valley