Eric Schmidt Von - The Folk Blues Of Eric Von Schmidt

CD reissue. Eric "Rick" Von Schmidt was an American singer and guitarist, songwriter, painter and illustrator, and Grammy Award recipient. He was associated with the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s and a key part of the Cambridge folk music scene. As a singer and guitarist, he was the leading Cambridge specialist in country blues at the time, thus the Cambridge analogue of Greenwich Village's Dave Van Ronk. Bob Dylan namechecked him in an early version of Von Schmidt's 'baby let me follow you down'. Dylan jokingly mentioned that he first "heard" the song from "Rick von Schmidt" and told of meeting him "in the green pastures of Harvard University." In fact, von Schmidt had adapted the song from Blind Boy Fuller and credited Reverend Gary Davis as author of "three-quarters" of the song. In 1963, von Schmidt and Richard Fariña recorded in London's Dobell's Jazz Record store, with Dylan on harmonica. Two years later, The Folk Blues of Eric Von Schmidt appeared atop a pile of records on the cover of Dylan's album Bringing It All Back Home.