Peter La Farge
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| Peter LaFarge | |
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 Peter LaFarge
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Peter LaFarge |
| Born | April 30, 1931 |
| Origin | United States  |
| Died | October 27, 1965 (aged 34) |
| Genre(s) | Folk music |
| Years active | 1962-1965 |
| Label(s) | Folkways Records, MGM Records |
| Notable instrument(s) | |
| Guitar | |
Peter La Farge (April 30, 1931 - October 27, 1965) was a New York-based folksinger and songwriter of the 1950s and 1960s. He is known best for his affiliations with Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.
According to anecdotal sources, he was descended from the nearly extinct Narragansett Indian tribe and was raised on a ranch in Fountain, CO by his mother Wanden LaFarge Kane. He was the biological son of the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Oliver La Farge. Oliver and Peter shared a love and respect for the traditions and history of Native Americans. As a teenager he competed as a rodeo rider and worked as a singer. As a young musician he worked with Big Bill Broonzy, Josh White, and Cisco Houston; Houston became La Farge's mentor, in songwriting and in life. La Farge served in the United States Navy during the Korean War. After the war, he took up again with the rodeo, where an accident nearly cost him a leg.
Following his recuperation, he studied acting at the Goodman Theater School of Drama in Chicago. He then moved to New York City, where he began to focus increasingly on music. As a singer-songwriter, he became a central figure in the folk music movement in Greenwich Village, along with Bob Dylan, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Dave Van Ronk, and veteran Pete Seeger. He was briefly signed to Columbia Records. His performances in Greenwich Village convinced Folkways Records' founder Moses Asch to sign La Farge to his label. La Farge's five Folkways albums (1962-1965) were dedicated to Native American themes as well as blues, cowboy and love songs. His most famous song, "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," is the story of a Pima Indian who became a hero as one of five United States Marines who raised the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima, but who then experienced prejudice and alcoholism after his return to civilian life. This song was covered successfully by Johnny Cash in his 1964 album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, and reached number 3 on the Billboard country music chart.
In 1965, La Farge was becoming known as an artist and painter. He lived with the Danish singer Inger Nielsen, and the pair had a daughter. Largely as a result of Johnny Cash's success, he was signed to MGM Records and was in the planning stages for a new album. However, he also had serious (and largely undisclosed) medical problems. On October 27, 1965, Peter La Farge was found in his apartment, dead from a probable stroke. However, Howard Sounes revealed in 2001 that Liam Clancy had informed him that La Farge had committed suicide by slitting his wrists in the shower stall of his apartment, which was next door to where Clancy was living. Clancy's account conflicts with the police report and the reports in the New York City newspapers, which note that Inger Nielsen found La Farge in their apartment dead from a stroke or overdose. He is buried in Fountain, CO and survived by his sister, half brother, daughter and a granddaughter.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
The Ballad of Peter LaFarge - 2007 documentary by Sandra Hale Schulman
- Howard Sounes. Down the Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan. Doubleday 2001 ISBN 0-552-99929-6
