Hedy West

{{Short description|American folk singer, song adapter and banjoist (1938–2005)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2020}}

{{Infobox musical artist  | birth_name = Hedwig Grace West | birth_date = {{birth date|1938|4|6|mf=y}} | birth_place = [[Cartersville, Georgia]], U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2005|7|3|1938|4|6}} | death_place = [[Philadelphia]], Pennsylvania, U.S. | origin = Cartersville, Georgia<ref name=g-ds091105>{{cite news|last=Schofield|first=Derek|title=Hedy West|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/sep/12/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1|access-date=October 22, 2011|newspaper=The Guardian|date=September 11, 2005}}</ref> | instrument = Vocals, [[banjo]] | genre = [[Folk music]]

| occupation = Singer, songwriter | years_active = 1961–2005 | background=solo_singer |name=Hedy West |image=Hedy_West_performing_at_the_Newport_Folk_Festival,_1964.jpg |caption=West performing at [[Newport Folk Festival]], 1964 }}

'''Hedwig Grace "Hedy" West''' (April 6, 1938 – July 3, 2005) was an American [[Folk music|folksinger]], songwriter and song catcher. She belonged to the same generation of [[American folk music revival|folk revivalists]] as [[Joan Baez]], [[Judy Collins]] and [[Carolyn Hester]]. Her most famous song "[[500 Miles]]" is one of America's most popular folk songs. English folk musician [[A. L. Lloyd]] declared West to be "far and away the best of [the] American girl singers in the [folk] revival."<ref name="g-ds091105"/><ref>Similarly, Lloyd's liner notes for West's 1967 "Old Times" album on [[Folk-Legacy Records|Folk-Legacy]] ({{cite web |last1=West |first1=Hedy |title=Old Times & Hard Times |url=https://folkways.si.edu/hedy-west/old-times-and-hard-times |website=Smithsonian Folkways Recordings |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |access-date=17 January 2021}}), called her "by far the best" of the "women singers of the American folksong revival."</ref>

Hedy West played the guitar and the [[banjo]]. On banjo, she played both [[clawhammer]] style and a unique type of three-finger picking that showed influences beyond old-time and bluegrass such as blues and jazz. She is a 2022 inductee to the [[Georgia Women of Achievement]].<ref name=GaWomenHWest>{{cite web|title=Hedwig "Hedy" Grace West|url=https://www.georgiawomen.org/west-hedwig-grace|publisher=Georgia Women of Achievement|access-date=February 13, 2022 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213220029/https://www.georgiawomen.org/west-hedwig-grace|archive-date=February 13, 2022}}</ref>

==Early life and family influences== West was born in [[Cartersville, Georgia|Cartersville]] in the mountains of northern [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] in 1938.<ref name=g-ds091105/> Her father, [[Don West (educator)|Don West]], was a [[Southern United States|Southern]] poet and coal mine labor organizer in the 1930s; his bitter experiences included a friend killed.<ref>In this interview, Don West states he was the preacher at Barney Graham's funeral: Oral History Interview with Don West, January 22, 1975. Interview E-0016. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. {{cite web|title=Oral Histories of the American South|url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/E-0016/excerpts/excerpt_7866.html}}</ref> He co-founded the [[Highlander Research and Education Center|Highlander Folk School]] in [[New Market, Tennessee]], and later ran the [[Appalachian Mountains|Appalachian]] South Folklife Center in Pipestem, [[West Virginia]].

West's great-uncle Augustus Mulkey played the fiddle. Her paternal grandmother [[Lillie Mulkey West]] played the banjo. By her teens, West was singing at folk festivals, both locally and in neighboring states. In the mid-50s, she won a prize for ballad-singing in [[Nashville, TN]].<ref name=amrdl>{{cite web|last=Lankford, Jr.|first=Ronnie D.|title=Hedy West|url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/hedy-west-p137221/biography|publisher=AllMusic|access-date=October 22, 2011}}</ref> Many of her songs, including the raw materials for "500 Miles", came from Lillie West, who passed on the songs ''she'' had learned as a child.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hunt |first1=Ken |title=Obituary: Hedy West, Nitty-gritty singer of the folk revival |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hedy-west-303245.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220509/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hedy-west-303245.html |archive-date=May 9, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=15 November 2020 |work=The Independent |date=3 August 2005}}</ref> She used her father's poetry in several songs, such as "Anger in the Land".<ref name=g-ds091105/>

Her family's politics were also a lifelong influence. West's liner notes for 1967's ''Old Times and Hard Times'', written from self-imposed exile in London, are a personal statement on the corrosive effect of the [[Vietnam War]], claiming, "We'll be controlled by manipulated fear". (See [[Folk-Legacy Records]].) While living in [[Stony Brook, New York]], in the late 1970s, she donated her time and talents to numerous benefit concerts for unfashionable causes{{which|date=July 2017}} — as did her fellow Appalachian-on-Long-Island, [[Jean Ritchie]].{{citation needed|date=July 2014}}

West's songs were rarely overt, topical protests. Her working-class mountain roots were in her voice, however, and ran through everything she sang, highlighting the lives of marginalized blue-collar workers including factory girls, servants, struggling farmers, coal miners, and single mothers.<ref name=odnb13nov2020>{{Cite web|last=Hunt|first=Ken|title=West, Grace Hedwig (Hedy, earlier Hedie) (1938–2005), banjoist, singer, and composer|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-90000369169|access-date=2020-11-14|website=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|year=2020 |language=en|doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.90000369169|isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }}</ref>

==Education, career and later life== Hedy West graduated from [[Murphy High School (North Carolina)|Murphy High School]] in 1955 and attended [[Western Carolina University|Western Carolina College]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Bayless |first=Louise |url=https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn95072291/1963-10-03/ed-1/seq-9/#words=Hedy+West+West%27s |title=Album recorded by Murphy Lass |work=Cherokee Scout |location=Murphy, NC |date=1963-10-03 |page=9 }}</ref><ref>Carden, Gary, "Hedy West in Cullowhee, NC circa 1957," ''Holler Notes'' (June 15, 2009) {{cite web|title=Holler Notes|date=June 15, 2009 |url=https://hollernotes.blogspot.com/2009/06/hedy-west-in-cullowhee-n-c-circa-1957.html}}</ref> In 1959, she moved to New York City to study music at [[Mannes College The New School for Music|Mannes College]] and drama at [[Columbia University]]. When she arrived and saw the folk revival taking place, she realized that the music the Northerners were playing was in fact music she had heard every day growing up. She embraced her folk side and started performing it around New York City. She later attributed some of her ability to get 'inside' her songs to her early training as an actress. She was embraced by the [[Greenwich Village]] folk scene (most likely in no small part due to the fact that she actually came from the tradition they were reviving), and was invited by [[Pete Seeger]] to sing alongside him at a [[Carnegie Hall]] concert. [[Maynard Solomon|Manny Solomon]] signed her to [[Vanguard Records]] after an appearance at the May 6, 1961, Indian Neck Folk Festival.<ref name=amrdl/><ref>{{cite web|title=Hedy West|url=http://www.lazyka.com/linernotes/personel/WestHedy.htm|access-date=October 22, 2011|date=December 13, 2006|archive-date=April 6, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120406171220/http://www.lazyka.com/linernotes/personel/WestHedy.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> After being included on the 1961 compilation album ''New Folks'' for Vanguard, she soon made two eponymous solo records for the company, enjoying critical praise.<ref>{{cite news |last=Bayless |first=Louise |url=https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn95072291/1963-10-03/ed-1/seq-9/#words=Hedy+West+West%27s |title=Album recorded by Murphy Lass |work=Cherokee Scout |location=Murphy, NC |date=1963-10-03 |page=9 }}</ref>

West moved to Los Angeles in 1960, where she continued singing and married her first husband, aerospace engineer Karl Ludloff. The marriage did not last. While living in California she appeared at the 1962 Stanford Folk Festival.<ref>[[Ken Hunt (music journalist)|Ken Hunt]], liner notes for ''Untitled'' (Fledg'ling Records 2018), p.4</ref> West performed at the [[Newport Folk Festival]] in 1964.<ref>{{cite news|title=Hedy West at Newport FF|url=http://newportfolkfest.tumblr.com/post/39574478107/hedy-west-newport-folk-festival-1964|newspaper=Tumblr|publisher=newportfolkfest|access-date=July 27, 2014}}</ref> In 1966, she appeared on Pete Seeger's [[Public Television]] series ''[[Rainbow Quest]]'', in an episode headlined by [[Mississippi John Hurt]]. By this time, she was making regular visits to England. She then lived in London for several years, making tours of the country's folk clubs, and appearing at the Cambridge festival and the first Keele folk festival as well as regular visits to Europe, especially Germany.<ref>[[Ken Hunt (music journalist)|Ken Hunt]], liner notes for ''Untitled'' (Fledg'ling Records 2018), p.5</ref> She recorded three albums for [[Bill Leader]] and [[A.L. Lloyd]] at [[Topic Records]] – ''Old Times and Hard Times'' (1965), ''Pretty Saro'' (1966) and ''Ballads'' (1967) – together with another for [[Fontana Records|Fontana]], entitled ''Serves 'em Fine'' (1967).

For a few months in 1962 she had been engaged to [[Roger Zelazny]], who became a well-known science fiction writer.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Kovacs|first1=Christopher S.|title="...And Call Me Roger": The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 1|date=2009|publisher=NESFA Press|location=In: ''The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 1: Threshold''}}</ref> In 1968, in London, she married broadcaster [[Pete Myers (radio broadcaster)|Pete Myers]], one of the founding presenters of [[BBC Radio 1]]'s ''Late Night Extra''. It was a [[marriage of convenience]], as Myers was gay, while the marriage allowed West to spend as much time as she liked on either side of the Atlantic. West and Myers later divorced.<ref name=odnb13nov2020/>

West developed a close working relationship at the time with the painter [[Gertrude Degenhardt]], who illustrated a German-published collection of West's songs.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Songbook|date=December 24, 1968|oclc=690468329 }}</ref> In the autumn of 1970, West moved from Great Britain to West Germany, where she learned German and made two further recordings. The first, ''Getting Folk Out of the Country'' (1974), was recorded in London with fellow American [[Bill Clifton]] and released by FV Schallplatten.<ref>{{cite web|title=Hedy West / Bill Clifton CD is ready [West discography]|author=Stern, Thomas| date= June 7, 2010 |url=https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=129984 |access-date=February 4, 2017}}</ref> The second, ''Love, Hell and Biscuits'' (also entitled ''Whores, Hell and Biscuits''), was released by [[Bear Family Records]] in 1976.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Volume 4 No. 3-4 {{!}} Appalachian Journal {{!}} Appalachian State University|url=https://appjournal.appstate.edu/issues/volume-4-no-3-4|access-date=2021-04-07|website=appjournal.appstate.edu}}</ref> In Germany, she met philosophy and psychology professor Joseph Katz (1920–88)<ref>{{cite web |title=Guide to the Joseph Katz Papers |url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt858038r6/entire_text/ |website=Online Archive of California |publisher=California Digital Library |access-date=27 November 2020}}</ref> who became her third husband in 1980 when they moved to Stony Brook, New York.<ref>[[Ken Hunt (music journalist)|Ken Hunt]], liner notes for ''Untitled'' (Fledg'ling Records 2018), p.8</ref> West picked her elderly grandparents' brains for scraps of musical memory. She studied composition with [[David Lewin]] at [[Stony Brook University]], living nearby with her husband, with whom she had a daughter, Talitha (b. 1980).<ref>{{cite news|last=Rockwell|first=John|title=Hedy West Renewing Folk Traditions|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/15/arts/hedy-west-renewing-folk-traditions.html|access-date=April 7, 2013|newspaper=The New York Times| date=May 15, 1981}}</ref> She was an adjunct professor at Stony Brook, teaching two courses in folk music. One of her students, singer-songwriter Robin Greenstein, worked with West cataloging her record and tape collection. From Long Island, she moved with her husband and daughter to [[Princeton, NJ]]. Then in the early 1990s, following Katz's 1988 death, she moved to [[Lower Merion Township]] in the [[Philadelphia]], Pennsylvania, suburbs, where she spent most of her final years. One of her last performances was at the Eisteddfod Festival, sponsored by the [[Folk Music Society of New York]] at [[Polytechnic Institute of New York University|Polytechnic University]] in 2004.<ref>''Eisteddfod-NY'' {{cite web|title=Eisteddfod-NY|date=April 16, 2024 |url=https://www.folkmusicny.org/eisteddfod/index_2004.html}}</ref>

West's most famous song was ''[[500 Miles]],'' put together from fragments of a melody she had heard her uncle sing to her back in Georgia. She copyrighted the resulting song. ''500 Miles'' has been recorded by [[Bobby Bare]] (a Billboard Top 10 hit in 1963), [[The Highwaymen (folk band)|The Highwaymen]], [[The Kingston Trio]], [[Peter, Paul and Mary]], [[Peter & Gordon]], [[Rosanne Cash]], and many others. Another well-known song that she wrote and copyrighted (but which borrows heavily from existing traditional folk material) is "Cotton Mill Girl".{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

Cancer ruined her voice in her last years. A fine musical legacy is in unreleased recordings, such as a live concert from the 1978 [[University of Chicago Folk Festival]], broadcast in her memory by ''[[The Midnight Special (radio)|The Midnight Special]]'' program of local radio station [[WFMT]].<ref>{{cite web|title=FOLKSTAGE AUGUST 6, 2005| date=August 6, 2005 |url=http://www.midnightspecial.org/folkstage/f20050806.html |access-date=February 4, 2017}}</ref>

Hedy West died of cancer on July 3, 2005, at a hospital in Philadelphia.<ref name=odnb13nov2020/>

==Discography== *''New Folks'', Vanguard VRS 9096 (1961) [Hedy has 5 tracks on this LP, 3 of which were reissued on ''The Original New Folks'' Vanguard CD, VCD-143/144 (1993)] *''Hedy West accompanying herself on the 5-string banjo'', Vanguard VRS-9124 (1963) *''Hedy West, Volume 2'', Vanguard VRS-9162 /VSD 79162 (1964) [Note: The two eponymous recordings on Vanguard were combined into a single CD (with 2 bonus tracks) and reissued by Ace Records as Vanguard Masters VCD 79124 (2012).] *''Old Times & Hard Times: Ballads and Songs from the Appalachians'', Topic 12T117 (London, 1965); Folk-Legacy FSA-32 (1967), reissued Folk-Legacy CD-32 (2004) *''Pretty Saro and other Appalachian Ballads'', Topic 12T146 (1966) *''Ballads'', Topic 12T163 (1967) *''Serves 'em Fine'', Fontana U.K. STL 5432 (London, 1967) (accompanied by [[Martin Carthy]]) *with Bill Clifton, ''Getting Folk Out of the Country'', Folk Variety FV12008 / Bear Family BF15008 (1974), reissued on CD – Bear Family BCD 16754 (2010) *''Love, Hell and Biscuits'', Bear Family BF15003 (1976) (accompanied by [[Tracy Schwarz]]), also released under the title ''Whores, Hell and Biscuits'' * ''[[Three Score and Ten]]'', [[Topic Records]] 70-year anniversary boxed set included ''[[Little Sadie]]'' from ''Ballads'' as track twenty on the seventh CD. (2009) *''Ballads And Songs From The Appalachians'', [[Fellside Recordings|Fellside]] FECD 241 (2011) – double CD, a reissue comprising the three Topic albums *''From Granmaw And Me'', Fledg’ling Records FLED 3106 (April 2018) (disk labeled "With Granmaw and Me") *''Untitled'', Fledg'ling Records FLED 3110 (April 2019) (previously unreleased material recorded in Germany in 1979 with Eloise and [[Tracy Schwarz]] (misspelled on CD package as "Tracey" "Schwartz")

==References== {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Hedy}} [[Category:1938 births]] [[Category:2005 deaths]] [[Category:People from Cartersville, Georgia]] [[Category:Vanguard Records artists]] [[Category:Singers from Georgia (U.S. state)]] [[Category:Musicians from Appalachia]] [[Category:American folk singers]] [[Category:20th-century American singers]] [[Category:20th-century American women singers]] [[Category:Topic Records artists]] [[Category:21st-century American women]]