My guest today, Ellen Harper, has been around the folk music scene her whole life.
Her mother, Dorothy Chase, performed and taught banjo and guitar at Hechthouse back in the fifties in Boston with Bess Lomax Hawes and her dad, Charles Chase, repaired pretty much any and all instruments that came his way.
Then Ellen learned to play and perform and teach guitar and other folk instruments at her mom's knee.
And eventually the family moved out west to Claremont, California, where they created the iconic folk music center that became this hub for all of the biggest names and folk, from Dylan to Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, as well as a huge community of lesser known yet equally important players.
And Ellen's kids grew up in that same place, surrounded by those same people.
And in fact, one son, Ben Harper, caught the music bug and has since become an acclaimed singer songwriter and multi instrumentalist in his own right.
Back in 2000, Ellen participated in Ben's documentary Pleasure and Pain, filmed by iconic rock photographer Danny Clinch, who has also been a guest on this podcast, and that led them to collaborate on an album, Childhood Home.
Ellen's latest project, Light, has a life of its own, is a collection of her original songs reflecting the unusual musical heritage that has really defined and shaped several generations of Chase harpers.
Ellen currently runs the Folk Music center, the Claremont Folk Festival, and teaches music classes.
And her new memoir, always a song, is this wonderful journey, not only through so many of the stories of her life, but also the history and the world of folk music.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
We have a kind of a fun point of intersection, so I think it was, what, 2020?
You guys connected with Danny Clinch to do that documentary, pleasure and pain, right?
Ben's first documentary.
Yeah.
And Danny's actually been on the show for all of his work for decades and decades, shooting music around the world.
Yeah, he's really something.
He is.
Yeah, I know.