Ed Renehan

 Happy Traum, Artie Traum (RIP, July 20th, 2008), and Ed Renehan performing at the WAMC/Linda Norris Auditorium in Albany, New York - March of 2008. Photograph by Jane Traum. Used by permission.

I studied guitar with the great Gary Davis when I was a teenager. Not long after (age 20), I recorded with Pete Seeger for Folkways Records, now Smithsonian Folkways. Working out of the musically-rich Woodstock, NY area when in my mid-twenties, I also performed with Happy and Artie Traum, the tempestuous Phil Ochs, and others.

My (long) past gigs include The Woodstock Playhouse, The Turning Point, Caffe Lena, Club Passim, and (more recently) WAMC Public Radio's Linda Norris Auditorium, (Albany, NY). Also many folk festivals across the Northeast. Folk festivals have included the Philadelphia Folk Fest, the good old Catskills Folk Festival, and Clearwater's Great Hudson River Revival.

Generally, I'm a roots-oriented player: unapologetically noncommercial and consciously rough around the edges. My primary influences are Gary Davis of course, as well as Dave van Ronk, Blind Willie McTell and the great Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. As he well knows, I also love and revere Levon Helm.

Along with Gary Davis, van Ronk and Terry were friends of mine, as are Seeger and Helm.

After a long hiatus (25 years), I returned to the concert stage for one magical night in March of 2008 with Happy Traum and Artie Traum, and had a blast.