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Hedwig Grace "Hedy" West (April 6, 1938 – July 3, 2005) was an American folksinger and songwriter. She belonged to the same generation of folk revivalists as
Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...
and Judy Collins. Her most famous song "
500 Miles "500 Miles" (also known as "500 Miles Away from Home" or "Railroaders' Lament") is a song made popular in the United States and Europe during the 1960s folk revival. The simple repetitive lyrics offer a lament by a traveler who is far from home ...
" is one of America's most popular folk songs. She was described by the English folk musician A. L. Lloyd as "far and away the best of American girl singers in the olkrevival." Hedy West played the guitar and the banjo. On banjo, she played both
clawhammer Clawhammer, sometimes called down-picking, overhand, or frailing, is a distinctive banjo playing style and a common component of American old-time music. The principal difference between clawhammer style and other styles is the picking direct ...
style and a unique type of three-finger picking that exhibited influences outside of bluegrass and old-time, such as blues and jazz. She is a 2022 inductee to the
Georgia Women of Achievement The Georgia Women of Achievement (GWA) recognizes women natives or residents of the U.S. state of Georgia for their significant achievements or statewide contributions. The concept was first proposed by Rosalynn Carter in 1988. The first induction ...
.


Early life and family influences

West was born in
Cartersville Cartersville is a city in Bartow County, Georgia, Bartow County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States; it is located within the northwest edge of the Atlanta metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the city ha ...
in the mountains of northern
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
in 1938. Her father, Don West, was a Southern poet and coal mine labor organizer in the 1930s; his bitter experiences included a friend killed. He co-founded the
Highlander Folk School The Highlander Research and Education Center, formerly known as the Highlander Folk School, is a social justice leadership training school and cultural center in New Market, Tennessee. Founded in 1932 by activist Myles Horton, educator Don West, ...
in
New Market, Tennessee New Market is a town in Jefferson County, Tennessee, United States. It is part of the Morristown metropolitan area. The population was 1,334 at the 2010 census and 1,349 at the 2020 census. History On September 24, 1904, two passenger trains co ...
, and later ran the Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem,
West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...
. West's great-uncle Augustus Mulkey played the fiddle; her paternal grandmother Lillie Mulkey West played the banjo. By her teens West was singing at folk festivals, both locally and in neighboring states. In the mid-50s she won a prize for ballad-singing in
Nashville, TN Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
. Many of her songs, including the raw materials for "500 Miles", came from Lillie West, who passed on the songs she had learned as a child. She used her father's poetry in several songs, such as "Anger in the Land". Her family's politics were also a lifelong influence. West's liner notes for 1967's ''Old Times and Hard Times'', written from self-imposed exile in London, are a personal statement on the corrosive effect of the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
, claiming, "We'll be controlled by manipulated fear". (See
Folk-Legacy Records Folk-Legacy Records was an independent record label specializing in traditional and contemporary folk music of the English-speaking world. It was founded in 1961 by Sandy and Caroline Paton and Lee Baker Haggerty. The label recorded Frank Prof ...
.) While living in Stony Brook, New York, in the late 1970s, she donated her time and talents to numerous benefit concerts for unfashionable causes — as did her fellow Appalachian-on-Long-Island,
Jean Ritchie Jean Ruth Ritchie (December 8, 1922 – June 1, 2015) was an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player, called by some the "Mother of Folk". In her youth she learned hundreds of folk songs in the traditional way (orally ...
. West's songs were rarely overt, topical protests. Her working-class mountain roots were in her voice, however, and ran through everything she sang, highlighting the lives of marginalized blue-collar workers including factory girls, servants, struggling farmers, coal miners, and single mothers.


Education, career and later life

Hedy West attended Western Carolina College. In 1959, she moved to New York City to study music at
Mannes College Mannes School of Music is a music conservatory in The New School, a private research university in New York City. In the fall of 2015, Mannes moved from its previous location on Manhattan's Upper West Side to join the rest of the New School ca ...
and drama at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. When she arrived and saw the "Folk Revival" taking place, she realized that the music the Northerners were playing was in fact music she had heard every day growing up. She embraced her "folk" side and started performing it around New York. She later attributed some of her ability to get 'inside' her songs to her early training as an actress. She was embraced by the
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
folk scene (most likely in no small part due to the fact that she actually came from the tradition they were reviving), and was invited by
Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
to sing alongside him at a Carnegie Hall concert. She was signed to
Vanguard Records Vanguard Recording Society is an American record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York City. It was a primarily classical label at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, but also has a catalogue of recordings by a n ...
by Manny Solomon after an appearance at the May 6, 1961 Indian Neck Folk Festival. After being included on the 1961 compilation album ''New Folks'' for Vanguard, she soon made two eponymous solo records for the company. West moved to Los Angeles in 1960, where she continued singing and married her first husband, aerospace engineer Karl Ludloff. The marriage did not last. While living in California she appeared at the 1962 Stanford Folk Festival. West performed at the
Newport Folk Festival Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America, and remains a foca ...
in 1964. In 1966, she appeared on Pete Seeger's
Public Television Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...
series ''
Rainbow Quest ''Rainbow Quest'' (1965–66) was a U.S. television series devoted to folk music and hosted by Pete Seeger. It was videotaped in black-and-white and featured musicians playing in traditional American music genres such as traditional folk music, ...
'', in an episode headlined by
Mississippi John Hurt John Smith Hurt (March 8, 1893 – November 2, 1966), better known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer and guitarist. Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine. He w ...
. By this time, she was making regular visits to England. She then lived in London for several years, making tours of the country's folk clubs, and appearing at the Cambridge festival and the first Keele folk festival as well as regular visits to Europe, especially Germany. She recorded three albums for
Bill Leader Bill Leader (born 26 December 1929) is an English recording engineer and record producer. He is particularly associated with the British folk music revival of the 1960s and 1970s, producing records by Paddy Tunney, Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, John ...
and
A.L. Lloyd Albert Lancaster Lloyd (29 February 1908 – 29 September 1982),Eder, Bruce. (29 September 1982A. L. Lloyd - Music Biography, Credits and Discography AllMusic. Retrieved on 2013-02-24. usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English fo ...
at
Topic Records Topic Records is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second British folk revival. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world.M. Brocken, ...
– ''Old Times and Hard Times'' (1965), ''Pretty Saro'' (1966) and ''Ballads'' (1967) – together with another for Fontana, entitled ''Serves 'em Fine'' (1967). For a few months in 1962 she had been engaged to
Roger Zelazny Roger Joseph Zelazny (May 13, 1937 – June 14, 1995) was an American poet and writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for ''The Chronicles of Amber''. He won the Nebula Award three times (out of 14 nomin ...
, who became a well-known science fiction writer. In 1968, in London, she married broadcaster
Pete Myers Peter Eddie Myers (born September 15, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player and a former assistant coach for the NBA team Chicago Bulls. Early life and college career Born in Mobile, Alabama, Myers graduated from William ...
, one of the founding presenters of
BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
's ''Late Night Extra''. It was a
marriage of convenience A marriage of convenience is a marriage contracted for reasons other than that of love and commitment. Instead, such a marriage is entered into for personal gain, or some other sort of strategic purpose, such as a political marriage. There are ...
, as Myers was gay, while the marriage allowed West to spend as much time as she liked on either side of the Atlantic. West and Myers later divorced. West developed a close working relationship at the time with the painter Gertrude Degenhardt, who illustrated a German-published collection of West's songs. In the autumn of 1970, West moved from Great Britain to West Germany, where she learned German and made two further recordings. The first, ''Getting Folk Out of the Country'' (1974), was recorded in London with fellow American Bill Clifton and released by FV Schallplatten. The second, ''Love, Hell and Biscuits'' (also entitled ''Whores, Hell and Biscuits''), was released by
Bear Family Records Bear Family Records is a Germany-based independent record label, that specializes in reissues of archival material, ranging from country music to 1950s rock and roll to old German movie soundtracks. History The label has been in existence since ...
in 1976. In Germany, she met philosophy and psychology professor Joseph Katz (1920–88) who became her third husband in 1980 when they moved to Stony Brook, New York. West picked her elderly grandparents' brains for scraps of musical memory. She studied composition with
David Lewin David Benjamin Lewin (July 2, 1933 – May 5, 2003) was an American music theorist, music critic and composer. Called "the most original and far-ranging theorist of his generation", he did his most influential theoretical work on the development ...
at Stony Brook University, living nearby with her husband, with whom she had a daughter, Talitha (b. 1980). She was an adjunct professor at Stony Brook, teaching two courses in folk music. One of her students, singer-songwriter Robin Greenstein, worked with West cataloging her record and tape collection. From Long Island, she moved with her husband and daughter to Princeton, NJ. Then in the early 1990s, following Katz's 1988 death, she moved to
Lower Merion Township Lower Merion Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Philadelphia Main Line. The township's name originates with the county of Merioneth in north Wales. Merioneth is an English-language transcription of the ...
in the
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, Pennsylvania, suburbs, where she spent most of her final years. One of her last performances was at the Eisteddfod Festival, sponsored by the Folk Music Society of New York at Polytechnic University in 2004. West's most famous song was "
500 Miles "500 Miles" (also known as "500 Miles Away from Home" or "Railroaders' Lament") is a song made popular in the United States and Europe during the 1960s folk revival. The simple repetitive lyrics offer a lament by a traveler who is far from home ...
," put together from fragments of a melody she had heard her uncle sing to her back in Georgia. She copyrighted the resulting patched song. "500 Miles" has been recorded by Bobby Bare (a Billboard Top 10 hit in 1963), The Highwaymen,
The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, ...
,
Peter, Paul and Mary Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Travers. The group's reper ...
,
Peter & Gordon Peter and Gordon were a British pop duo, composed of Peter Asher (b. 1944) and Gordon Waller (1945–2009), who achieved international fame in 1964 with their first single, the million-selling single "A World Without Love". The duo had several ...
,
Rosanne Cash Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country musician Johnny Cash and Vivian Liberto Cash Distin, Johnny Cash's first wife. Although she is often classified as a country art ...
, and many others. Another well-known song that she wrote and copyrighted (but which borrows heavily from existing traditional folk material) is "Cotton Mill Girl". Cancer ruined her voice in her last years. A fine musical legacy is in unreleased recordings, such as a live concert from the 1978
University of Chicago Folk Festival A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
, broadcast in her memory by '' The Midnight Special'' program of local radio station
WFMT WFMT is an FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a format of fine arts, classical music programming, and shows exploring such genres as folk. The station is managed by Window to the World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, Chicago ...
. Hedy West died of cancer on July 3, 2005 at a hospital in Philadelphia.


Discography

*''New Folks'', Vanguard VRS 9096 (1961) edy has 5 tracks on this LP, 3 of which were reissued on ''The Original New Folks'' Vanguard CD, VCD-143/144 (1993)*''Hedy West accompanying herself on the 5-string banjo'', Vanguard VRS-9124 (1963) *''Hedy West, Volume 2'', Vanguard VRS-9162 /VSD 79162 (1964) ote: The two eponymous recordings on Vanguard were combined into a single CD (with 2 bonus tracks) and reissued by Ace Records as Vanguard Masters VCD 79124 (2012).*''Old Times & Hard Times: Ballads and Songs from the Appalachians'', Topic 12T117 (London, 1965); Folk-Legacy FSA-32 (1967), reissued Folk-Legacy CD-32 (2004) *''Pretty Saro and other Appalachian Ballads'', Topic 12T146 (1966) *''Ballads'', Topic 12T163 (1967) *''Serves 'em Fine'', Fontana U.K. STL 5432 (London, 1967) (accompanied by Martin Carthy) *with Bill Clifton, ''Getting Folk Out of the Country'', Folk Variety FV12008 / Bear Family BF15008 (1974), reissued on CD – Bear Family BCD 16754 (2010) *''Love, Hell and Biscuits'', Bear Family BF15003 (1976) (accompanied by
Tracy Schwarz Ginny Hawker and Tracy Schwarz are an American folk music duo known for performing traditional music from the early American canon of bluegrass, gospel, and old time music. The duo, however, on occasion does record original songs and music by co ...
), also released under the title ''Whores, Hell and Biscuits'' * ''
Three Score and Ten ''Three Score and Ten: A Voice to the People'' is a multi-CD box set album issued by Topic Records in 2009 to celebrate 70 years as an independent British record label. The album consists of a hardback book containing the seven CDs and a paper ...
'',
Topic Records Topic Records is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second British folk revival. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world.M. Brocken, ...
70-year anniversary boxed set included ''
Little Sadie "Little Sadie" is a 20th-century United States, American folk music, folk ballad written in Dorian mode. It is also known variously as "Bad Lee Brown", "Cocaine Blues", "Transfusion Blues", "East St. Louis Blues", "Late One Night", "Penitentiary B ...
'' from ''Ballads'' as track twenty on the seventh CD. (2009) *''Ballads And Songs From The Appalachians'', Fellside FECD 241 (2011) – double CD, a reissue comprising the three Topic albums *''From Granmaw And Me'', Fledg’ling Records FLED 3106 (April 2018) (disk labeled "With Granmaw and Me") *''Untitled'', Fledg'ling Records FLED 3110 (April 2019) (previously unreleased material recorded in Germany in 1979 with Eloise and
Tracy Schwarz Ginny Hawker and Tracy Schwarz are an American folk music duo known for performing traditional music from the early American canon of bluegrass, gospel, and old time music. The duo, however, on occasion does record original songs and music by co ...
(misspelled on CD package as "Tracey" "Schwartz")


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Hedy 1938 births 2005 deaths People from Cartersville, Georgia Vanguard Records artists Singers from Georgia (U.S. state) Musicians from Appalachia American folk singers 20th-century American singers 20th-century American women singers Topic Records artists 21st-century American women