Memphis, Tenn. — The North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance (The Folk Alliance) announces activist and songwriter, Phil Ochs, American folk performers, Guy and Candie Carawan, and the Old Town School of Folk Music, as recipients of the 2009 Elaine Weissman Lifetime Achievement Awards (LAAwards). The presentation will be made during the Folk Awards Show on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at the Memphis Marriott Downtown. For information call (901) 522-1170 or go to www.folk.org.

Named for one of the Folk Alliance’s co-founders, the late Elaine Weissman of the California Traditional Music Society, the LAAwards awards are given to those who have inspired us, achieved definitive leadership in their field, and have contributed to the advancement of folk music and/or dance. Each year the awards honor two performers, one living and one legacy, and a person or institution involved in the business or academic side of the folk world, who have devoted their life’s work and talent to the advancement of the performing folk arts.

Business/Industry Lifetime Achievement Award: Old Town School of Folk Music
Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music was founded in 1957 as a center for guitar and banjo lessons by friends Frank Hamilton and Win Stracke. Operating under the ideal that music is for everyone, Hamilton and Stracke taught these stringed instruments to children and adults alike, eventually expanding their school into what’s become the largest educational facility for folk music in the United States. Their tuition programs average 6,000 students per week, 2,700 of whom are children, and the school offers hundreds of extra workshops every year in nearby Lincoln Square.

In addition, Old Town puts on performances by some of Chicago’s finest local artists and often brings in national and international talent for showcases, highlighted by the annual hosting of the Chicago Roots & Folk Festival in Welles Park. (www.oldtownschool.org)

Legacy Artist Lifetime Achievement Award: Phil Ochs
An artist in the same vein as more familiar musicians like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs was born in 1940 and grew up in El Paso, Tex. But his introduction to the art of songwriting didn’t come until he left Texas and enrolled as a journalism student at Ohio State University. It was there he met Jim Glover, an activist and songwriter who encouraged Ochs to begin playing the guitar. His affinity for songwriting caught on quickly, and Ochs moved to New York’s Greenwich Village shortly after graduating to be part of the bustling folk music scene. His first album, 1964s All The News That’s Fit To Sing, introduced the singing journalism ideal and put Ochs on the map as a respected and thought-invoking songwriter.

He went on to record four more studio albums before, in 1973, he was traveling in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and got mugged and strangled by a group of locals. His lost material possessions mattered little, as Ochs suffered a great deal of vocal chord damage. Depressed and beat up over his lack of commercial success, Ochs took his own life in 1976 in Far Rockaway, NY. His songs, precise lyricism, and general legacy live on. (folkmusic.about.com/od/artistskr/p/PhilOchs.htm)

Living Artist Lifetime Achievement Award: Guy and Candie Carawan
Guy and Candie Carawan’s influence on the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s is one rarely acknowledged but always important. Born in Los Angeles in 1927, Guy first visited Tennessee’s Highlander Folk School in 1953 with Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Frank Hamilton. After short stints writing and performing music in Greenwich Village and across Europe, he returned to America in 1959 and returned to Highlander. What started out as volunteer work quickly evolved into the position of Music Director and Song Leader.

While Guy was getting comfortable with the position he’d hold to this day, Candie was just starting to work at the school in the spring of 1960. That same year, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee visited Highlander. It was then that Guy and Candie introduced the committee to “We Shall Overcome,” the song that would become a national anthem for the entire Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. The Carawans have never since strayed far from the Highlander Folk School, where they still perform together, Candie singing alongside Guy’s renowned guitar, banjo, and hammered Dulcimer work. (http://digitalstudio.ucr.edu/studio_projects/carawan)