Happy Traum's skillful musicianship and avid interest in traditional and contemporary music has brought him worldwide recognition. He has performed extensively throughout the U.S. Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan, and has appeared on recordings as a featured artist and as a member of various ensembles. He has recorded and/or performed with many top artists, including Bob Dylan, Chris Smither, Maria Muldaur, Eric Andersen, Rory Block, Jerry Jeff Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and numerous others.
In 1967 Happy, with his wife and partner, Jane Traum, founded Homespun Tapes, and over the years they have built it into one of the world’s leading producers of audio and video music instruction. An expert guitar and banjo player, Happy produces all of the lessons for Homespun and brings to it his many years of experience as a performer, writer, editor, folklorist, teacher and recording artist.
Happy is the author of more than a dozen best-selling guitar instruction books, has written numerous magazine columns and articles, and for three years was editor of Sing Out! The Folksong Magazine.
Aside from a distinguished solo career, Happy and his late brother, Artie Traum, played regularly as a duo for more than 40 years. Their first two Capitol albums, "Happy And Artie Traum" and "Double Back," are widely considered to be classics. Long-time residents of Woodstock, NY, Happy and Artie co-produced several important records for Rounder featuring some of the area's finest folk and rock musicians. These included "Mud Acres, Music Among Friends" and "Woodstock Mountains." Happy and Artie's album "Hard Times In The Country" featured liner notes by Allen Ginsberg. In 2007, Slice of Life Records in Japan released a CD, “Happy and Artie Traum - Live Recordings 1970s – 1980s ”
Happy's solo albums include "Relax Your Mind," "American Stranger," "Bright Morning Stars" "Friends And Neighbors," "Buckets Of Songs" and his latest release, "I Walk the Road Again."