John Cohen (August 2, 1932 – September 16, 2019) was an American musician, photographer and film maker who performed and documented the traditional music of the rural South and played a major role in the American folk music revival. In the 1950s and 60s, Cohen was a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, a New York-based string band. Cohen made several expeditions to Peru to film and record the traditional culture of the Q'ero, an indigenous people. Cohen was also a professor of visual arts at SUNY Purchase College for 25 years. John spent most of his childhood in eastern Long Island, where he learned to play the guitar and banjo. He later attended Yale University where he studied painting. He later on met one of his good friends Tom Paley. They began organizing small concerts for people on their universities campus. Later on, he and Tom both moved to New York City and formed the New Lost City Ramblers. This newly formed band introduced several generations of musicians and audiences to the music styles of rural string bands from the 1920s and '30s.

When living in New York, John was in the heart of a diverse world of art and music forms. He began taking photos of many painters and artists around the area, leading to his love for photography.

College career

In 1958, Cohen formed the New Lost City Ramblers with Mike Seeger and Tom Paley. In 1962, Paley was replaced by Tracy Schwarz. The Ramblers introduced young urban folk music fans to the work of rural performers such as Dock Boggs, Elizabeth Cotten and Blind Alfred Reed. The influence of the Ramblers has been compared to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music.

Cohen described the outlook of the Ramblers: “We made it possible for urban-based musicians to step out of the demands of the music business and look out into America to get in touch with the genuine energy, drive and craziness out there.”

Photography/film career

thumb|right|alt=John Cohen 2009|Cohen at a film screening in White Plains, New York on February 27, 2009

Cohen had taken photos and pursued photography for many years. He also enjoyed filmmaking. In 1962, he returned to Kentucky, where he spent six weeks filming the documentary The High Lonesome Sound, which centred on Roscoe Holcomb. This documentary shows the many emotions of life among the poor in those times. It illustrates how music and religion helped people in the Appalachian region maintain hope and traditions during hard times. The title of the film became synonymous with the Appalachian music he captured)

Cohen learned about weaving customs of Peru through an archaeology course at Yale. He travelled to the Peruvian Andes in 1956 to write his master's thesis on their weaving techniques. Cohen visited Peru eight times between 1956 and 2005. His work in Peru included audio recordings of Andean music and documentary films as well as books about weaving, music, festivals, and dance.

In 1998, Cohen released his first solo album, Stories the Crow Told Me. Steve Leggett wrote in AllMusic that the record is "not so much a redefinition of Appalachian music as it is an attempt to enter it fully and completely. Cohen does this so well that the album sounds exactly like some great, lost Alan Lomax field tape, and although by definition what Cohen has done here is a facsimile, it sounds so much like the real deal that it hardly matters."

Cohen was associate music producer on the movie Cold Mountain (2003), working with T Bone Burnett. Cohen's archive includes interviews with Harry Smith, Roger McGuinn, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Gary Davis and Roscoe Holcomb. The photographs include these artists and Willie Dixon, Woody Guthrie, Alan Lomax, Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, Merle Travis, Muddy Waters and many others.

Cohen resided in Putnam Valley, New York.

Monographs

  • There Is No Eye: John Cohen Photographs, introduction by Greil Marcus. New York: powerHouse Books, 2001. ,
  • Young Bob: John Cohen’s Early Photographs of Bob Dylan, Brooklyn: powerHouse Books, 2003.
  • Past, Present, Peru, Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2010.
  • The High & Lonesome Sound: The Legacy of Roscoe Holcomb, Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2012.
  • Here and Gone: Bob Dylan & Woody Guthrie & the 1960s, Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2014.
  • Walking In the Light, Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2015.
  • Cheap Rents…and de Kooning Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2016.

Recent publications

  • Beat Generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris, Paris, France: Centre Pompidou, 2016.
  • Pull My Daisy, Paris, France: Editions Macula and Centre Pompidou, 2016. Text by Rollet, Patrice; Sargeant, Jack.
  • Petrus, Stephen and Cohen, Ronald. Folk City: New York and the American Folk Music Revival, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Foreword by Peter Yarrow.
  • Glimcher, Mildred L.Happenings: New York, 1958-1963, New York: The Monacelli Press LLC. 2012

Selected filmography

  • The High Lonesome Sound (1962). Streaming on Folkstreams
  • Fifty Miles from Times Square (1970)
  • The End of an Old Song (1972). A DVD version is in print as part of Dark Holler: Old Love Songs and Ballads (2005-09-27). Washington: Smithsonian Folkways. Streaming on Folkstreams. (2009) on Smithsonian Networks
  • Visions of Mary Frank (2014)

Selected discography (as producer)

  • High Atmosphere: Ballads and Banjo Tunes from Virginia and North Carolina (1975)
  • There Is No Eye: Music for Photographs, Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40091 (2001), companion to the book
  • Back Roads to Cold Mountain (2004)

References

  • John Cohen website
  • John Cohen represented by L. Parker Stephenson Photographs
  • Folkstreams: The High Lonesome Sound (1963); The End of an Old Song (1969); Musical Holdouts (1975); Gypsies Sing Long Ballads (1982)
  • Webcast of a Library of Congress presentation, "'The High Lonesome Sound Revisited': Documenting Traditional Culture in America" (2009)
  • The Down Hill Strugglers
  • Oldtone Roots Music Festival Tribute Video by Fred Robbins