Starting in high school and then flowering in college, Fred’s involvement with folk music was a major part of his life.
I can remember my father taking him to task because he worried that Fred would be “a half-assed banjo player and a half-assed scientist”. (There was concern that if his grades fell, the scholarship money would be lost.)
These are about the only bits of Fred’s early musical life that are still around, but music with friends was a big part of life right till the end.
Here are two segments of his musical life: a concert at Williams College and another at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles.
Music At Williams College
Abilene
Amelia Earhart
The Jug Band at the Ash Grove
This is from a tape that someone made of the jug band at the Ash Grove in LA in the early 60s. We don’t know the name of the group, nor the name of any of the musicians, other than Fred and Pamela Polland, the singer, who went on to have a full music career.
Fred had a copy and not long ago a Buffalo music buddy digitized the music.
The photo of the band was sent by Pamela Polland. Click the photo to see it larger.