Eric Von Schmidt

Schmidt was always the guiding light of the Boston / Cambridge folk scene

Eric Von Schmidt was always one of those guys who kind of fell beneath the radar.  In fact more people probably know of Eric Von Schmidt as the guy Bob first learned “Baby Let Me Follow You Down” from than for anything Von Schmidt ever did which is kind of a shame, but sometimes that’s the way it is and Eric probably wouldn’t have had it any other way either because he always played it kind of low key like, and any way he was an illustrator and a good one of some repute.

But Von Schmidt was always the guiding light of the Boston/Cambridge folk scene which took place more in Cambridge than it did in Boston, because he was a folk singer and blues singer practically before anyone knew what a folk singer was.  But he always made records, first for Folkways and later for an equally small label called Prestige that put out as many good records as any label did, but now you gotta search for ’em.  One of those records that came out in sometime smack dab in the middle of the ’60s probably right…