Diane Hamilton
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Diane Hamilton (b 1925) is an American heiress and founder of "Tradition Records".
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[edit] The first Irish folk album
Diane Guggenheim, aka Diane Langstaff, aka Diane Hamilton, aka Diane Hamilton Meek is a member of the prominent Guggenheim family and is the daughter of Harry Frank Guggenheim (1890-1971). In 1943 she married John Langstaff (1920 - 2005), a musician. Very little is known of her life, and only since the publication of the book "The Mountain of the Women: Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour" by Liam Clancy has it been possible to reconstruct her most notable years. In order to disguise her wealth, she adopted the alias 'Diane Hamilton'. In 1955 she travelled to Ireland in search of Irish folk singers. According to Liam Clancy's book, she became acquanted with Tom and Paddy Clancy in New York, and while in Ireland made the Clancy household one of the stops on her collecting trip. Young Liam was invited to continue on the trip with her, and one of the next stops was the home of Sarah Makem who had previously been recorded by Jean Ritchie on her album "Field Trip" (1954). This fateful meeting brought together Liam and Sarah's younger son, Tommy Makem, who was also recorded. These two, along with Liam's older brothers Paddy and Tom Clancy, would eventually form "The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem", one of the most successful groups in Irish music history. The anthology Diane recorded in 1955 as "The Lark in the Morning" is the earliest album-length collection of Irish folk songs sung by Irish singers to be recorded in Ireland. Also on the album are Paddy Tunney and Tommy Makem, son of Sarah Makem. This album was re-released in a restored format in the late 1990's on the Rykodisc label.
[edit] Attempted Suicide
According to Emmanuel Kehoe in his article "The Trouble With Defining Truth", in "The Sunday Business Post", Diane became infatuated with Liam Clancy. She took him to her father's house on Long Island. Liam Clancy had a strict religious upbringing, so when she tried to have sex with him, it was, in Clancy's own words, ‘‘an incredibly frightening episode". Shortly afterwords she made a suicide attempt. Clancy drove her to a hospital for treatment. From there she was then taken to an asylum, where Clancy tracked her down. She asked him to phone Harry Guggenheim so that she could get out of the institution. Harry Guggenheim may well have disapproved of this hopelessly romantic love affair, since he transferred her to another institution. Rather than chase her again, Clancy gave up, saying: "And I went down to New York and I was free."
[edit] Tradition Records
Another member of the Clancy family, Paddy Clancy, helped Diane run Tradition Records. "The Lark in the Morning" was the first album to be released on Tradition in 1955. Future releases included "The Rising of the Moon" by The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, and "The Countess Cathleen" by W.B. Yeats in 1956. Other notable releases include "Negro Prison songs", a compilation by Alan Lomax and "The Bonny Bunch of Roses" Seamus Ennis. Other artists include Ed McCurdy, Odetta, Paul Clayton, Lightin' Hopkins and Etta Baker. Once the Clancy Brothers were signed to Columbia Records in 1961, the catalogue was sold, possibly to Transatlantic. In 1959 the label released "John Langstaff sings American and English Ballads". This had her husband singing, and Nancy Woodbridge on piano. Nancy later became John Langstaff's second wife. The album was rereleased by Revels Records in 2002 as "The Water Is Wide: American and British Ballads and Folksongs".
[edit] Bibliography
- "The Mountain of the Woman: Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour" (2002) by Liam Clancy, Doubleday ISBN 0-385-50534-5
- "Tommy Makem's Secret Ireland" (1997) by Tommy Makem, St Martin's Press
