Derroll Adams

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Derroll Adams , actually Derrol Lewis Thompson , (born  November 27, 1925 in Portland , Oregon , †  February 6, 2000 in Antwerp ), was an American folk singer who spent most of his life in Europe and numerous, especially European Inspired folk musicians.

Life

Derroll Adams was the son of Ernest Raymond Thompson, a juggler who later worked as a tombstone polisher, and Elizabeth Gertrude Kerr. The father's alcoholism led to the separation of the parents. The mother's second marriage failed, among other things because the stepfather abused little Derroll. In 1930 the mother met George Irwin Adams, who took the place of Derroll's father and whose name he later accepted out of gratitude. As a result of the global economic crisis , the family had to move frequently. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, 16-year-old Derroll faked his age to be accepted as a volunteer in the US Army . After five months the fraud was discovered and he was released. He then trained as a combat diver with the US Coast Guard in San Francisco , but could not bear the rigors of the training and was dismissed because of anxiety. In 1943 he married Adeline, a high school friend who gave birth to son Scott in 1945.

From 1945 to 1950 Adams studied art at Reed College in Portland. On his 20th birthday, his mother gave him a five-string banjo as a present, the instrument he later referred to as "his fate". In 1946 he married his second wife, Lorene, with whom he had children, Mark and Deborah. He learned to play the banjo as an autodidact (allegedly Pete Seeger is said to have shown him how to tune the instrument), began to occupy himself with yoga and zen and became politically active for the Progressive Party and its presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace . Because of his left-wing and pacifist attitudes, Adams suffered badly from the anti-communist witch-hunt atmosphere of the McCarthy era .

After completing his studies, Adams got by doing odd jobs as a taxi and truck driver, window dresser and radio announcer, separated from his second wife and moved to California with the painter Elizabeth . There he met folk greats like Woody Guthrie and Odetta and met the guitarist and singer Ramblin 'Jack Elliott , with whom he formed a duo. In 1955, Adams left Elizabeth and their two children, Gregorio and Tamara. In 1956 Jack Elliott went to London. He invited Adams to follow him and paid his utterly destitute friend to board the ship. Adams arrived in London in February 1957 and lived with Elliott and his wife June. Together with Elliott he first appeared under the name “The Ramblin 'Boys” and then as “The Cowboys” as a street musician and in clubs, first in London, then in France and Italy, and made his first recordings (for Topic in London and for Joker in Italy). In Paris, Adams met his fourth wife, Isabelle, whom he married in Brussels in 1958 and with whom he had children Vincent and Catherine. They worked together as freelance window dressers. During the Brussels World's Fair in 1958 "The Cowboys" played in the American pavilion.

In 1959 Elliott returned to the US, while Adams stayed in Europe and played at folk festivals, clubs and as a street musician. His charismatic personality made him one of the key figures for the European folk revival of the 60s. In addition to his own songs, his repertoire included many classics of American folk music, for example by Woody Guthrie , Pete Seeger and the Carter Family . Adams became the role model and mentor of numerous young musicians, including Arlo Guthrie , Ralph McTell and Donovan , whom he met in London in 1965 and took under his wing. In DA Pennebaker's documentary " Dont Look Back " about Bob Dylan's first tour of England, Adams can be seen introducing Donovan to Bob Dylan. Donovan attributes Adam's great influence on his playing technique. Adams became known in Germany through his appearance at the Essener Songtagen in 1968 . Adams only overcame his longstanding heavy alcohol dependence, which almost cost him his life and which he described in his song 24 Hours A Day , in the early 1970s with the help of his wife, Danny Adams-Levy, whom he married in 1970 and with whom he stayed together until his death. He settled with her in Antwerp , where their daughter Rebecca was born in 1973. In 1976 he accompanied Donovan on a US tour; it was his last visit to America. Since 1976 he has been a regular guest at the Tønder Folk Festival in Denmark. By the end of the 1980s, Adams made countless appearances in small clubs as well as at large concerts and festivals. In 1990, on the occasion of his 65th birthday, his friends organized a big concert for him in Kortrijk , in which Jack Elliott also took part. Together with him, Adams went on another tour through Holland and Belgium in the summer of 1991. His last appearance in Germany was in 1991 at the Tanz & FolkFest in Rudolstadt . After that, his declining health forced him to largely refrain from public appearances. In the last few years he mainly returned to painting. The last time he was on stage was in August 1999 at the Tønder Folk Festival. Adams died of esophageal cancer from which he had suffered for several years.

plant

Derroll Adams has remained largely unknown to a wider audience as a musician and songwriter, perhaps also because his impressive personal impact and stage presence as a singer, banjo player and storyteller is only incompletely reflected in studio recordings. This made his reputation all the greater in the folk music scene and with fellow musicians, among whom he had many friends. A sign of the admiration that was shown to him are the songs that other musicians wrote about him, such as: B. Derroll in the Rain by Finbar Furey or Epistle to Derroll by Donovan. Adams was not characterized by dazzling technical virtuosity; his melodious banjo playing was artistic, but just as unpretentious as his calm, thoughtful vocal performance. Despite his humor (which flashed more in the stories between songs than in the songs themselves), even in comical songs like The Skunk, he never lost a certain deliberation. His sonorous, warm and slightly roughened deep baritone conveyed melancholy and nostalgic longing (for example in Memories or The Valley) as well as an almost meditative serenity and strength gained from the experiences of a long, eventful life (The Sky) , as it is e.g. B. is expressed in his song The Rock :

Well I wished I was a rock
Sitting on a hill
Doin 'nothin' all day long
But just sittin 'still

Because of this calm and concentration on the essentials in word and music, but also because of his preoccupation with Far Eastern philosophy, as it is e.g. For example, in The Mountain , Adams was sometimes compared to a Zen monk.

Of his own songs, the taciturn and haunting anti-war ballad Portland Town, written in memory of the Korean War in 1957 , achieved the greatest fame, including through Joan Baez at the time of the Vietnam War .

Discography (in excerpts)

Solo albums

  • Portland Town (1967; Decca - Ace of clubs ACL 1227)
  • Feelin 'Fine (1972; Village Thing VTS-17)
  • Movin 'on (1974; Intercord - Xenophen Int 161.014 - CP)
  • Along the Way (1977; Best Seller 4C062-23567)
  • Songs Of The Banjoman (1984; Folk Freak FF 404016; CD: 1997; Wundertüte Musik TÜT 72.175;, re-release 2009; Conträr Musik)
  • Derroll Adams LIVE! (LP:?; Sounds Superb 4M048-23599; CD: 1994; Ariola Express 74321 231052)

Community recordings

  • Folk Friends (1990; surprise bag music CD TÜT 72.160, re-release 2009; Conträr Musik)
  • Folk Friends 2 (1992; surprise bag music CD TÜT 72.150, re-release 2009; Conträr Musik)

Tribute albums

  • Derroll Adams 65th Birthday Concert (1991; Waste Productions WP 9101)
  • Banjoman - a tribute to Derroll Adams (2002; Blue Groove BG-1420)

literature

  • Gérard de Smaele, Patrick Ferryn, Tucker Zimmerman: Remembering Derroll Adams . In: The Old-Time Herald, Vol. 8, No. 8 (Summer 2003)
  • Stambler, Irwin / Landon, Grelun: Encyclopedia Of Folk, Country And Western Music . New York / London: St. Martin's Press, 1969, pp. 6f

Movie

  • I Was Born In Portland Town (documentary, 2005; director: Patrick Ferryn; 85 min; French title: L'homme au Banjo)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Interview ( Memento from February 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) in the Frets magazine, autumn 2005
  2. Bowing to the "Banjoman". Declaration of love to Derroll Adams: Hans Theessink, Arlo Guthrie and Donovan publish tribute album in: Folker 6/2002