Ky Hote 5/24/15

       I suffered a loss this month with the passing on of my friend Ed Badeaux (RIP 3/20/1926 - 5/10/2015) and it's a little hard to know how to speak about it because I haven't spoken with Ed in about ten years and I hadn't seen him in about twenty, so many of my current friends haven't met him or heard about him specifically. Yet he was a major influence on my life as a musician and a creative spirit in the universe. I met him when I was thirteen and in my early twenties, when I was traveling, he was someone I visited every year for a few months at a time.
       Musically he was right in my path when I met him in New York City in 1974. He was a folksinger songwriter guitar player who had worked as managing editor of Sing Out! magazine in the sixties, had a few records out on Folkways and was friends with Pete and Toshi Seeger. We met at the Hey Brother Coffeehouse, which was more of a concept than a coffeehouse. Meeting in an empty storefront, both Ed and I met many people who would be long term friends and musical compatriots.
       After Ed moved back to Houston and after I started my hobo traveling around the country, we renewed our friendship when I needed a place to stay in Houston. Ed was very accommodating despite his small apartment near the back of Memorial Park, which was down a railroad bridge over Buffalo Bayou. He had moved back to Houston to be close to his parents and his two sons. He got involved with the Houston Folklore Society, the Anderson Fair folk club and KPFT Pacifica Radio.
       He bought a state-of-the-art portable Nakamichi stereo cassette recorder to record concerts, other musicians and sound effects for his radio show. By the time, I and my two traveling partners got to his house, he was already set up for recording at his apartment using a TEAC 3340-S reel-to-reel tape recorder.
       Ed is one of the Unsung Heroes. Maybe 'hero' is not quite the right term. Hero sounds like someone who pulls a baby out of a burning building or someone who drafts legislation that insures the rights of all people to vote or be married. The word 'unsung,' however, refers to those people that are not famous. Those people, whose contributions were only noticed by a handful of others. In the world of the arts, there are many musicians, writers, dancers, painters, etc that have produced prolific bodies of work as beautiful and impressive as many of their contemporaries who are making a living at it and are famous. And in every discipline there are those that pioneer new methods of creating art, but aren't the ones that bring the innovation to the public's eye.
       Ed was an unsung artist - a musician, a writer, a photographer - as well as an unsung innovator. In 1978, Ed's apartment was the first place I'd ever seen a home studio multi-track recording, while today I see that part of a house in the majority of my musician friend's houses. His first available patch-in effect was an echo built from an old Ampeg tape player with a looped piece of tape around the reels, where the play-head engaged immediately after the record-head. If you're under 25, I apologize, I am talking analog-speak here.
       On his radio show, Nightsong, he did things like playing two songs at once or using 'environments' recordings to blend with songs or with his talking. These are common tools for the modern DJ, but not in 1978. The area that Ed was absolutely ahead of his time was in the use of his telephone answering machine as an outlet for artistic expression. But that comes later in this narrative. Ed was also the first folk musician I met who wanted to blend synthesizers with folk music.
       During that first visit I recorded my first album of original songs, most of which I'd written growing up in New York City. The next year I recorded a collaboration with the two musicians I was traveling with at the time and also an album of songs by a talented teenage songwriter Ed had introduced me to. I came back in the fall and recorded some of the songs I'd been writing while I was traveling. The next year I established Texas as my home-base for my travels and then I recorded an album of songs I'd written in Austin. I mention these albums because not only were they recordings of my music, they were records of my life and I can use them now to look back at where and who I was. Ed gave me a great gift by encouraging my imagination and giving me a place to freeze it in time like a photograph in stereo.
       In 1983, Ed invited my partner and me to come live there and formalize our studio as a collective called Music Ink Sounds. We recorded a compilation of Austin artists, I re-packaged my old and current recordings and we displayed our wares at the Kerrville Folk Festival in a crafts booth. We also held workshops in recording and songwriting.
       Ed taught me a lot about creativity and he extended this even to cooking his favorite meal, his Noodle Dish. Every time he made it, it had noodles, sesame oil and peanut butter. But each time, he's add different ingredients. Almonds, sugar snap peas, hamburger meat... every time he cooked, it reflected his mood, the season and whatever was on sale at the supermarket. He said cooking is like mixing a record. Learn from your experience, use your instincts and always respect your personal taste. From Ed, I learned about Quality with a capital "Q" and how all arts, disciplines and crafts need that essential element. There's all kinds of things made for a profit, but a house built with love, a song that says something real, a live TV show that broke all the rules, these were examples of Quality and that's what's missing in this world!
       He also taught me about the importance of ceremony and celebration the first time we came to stay with him. Every night after a hard day of playing and recording music, he'd take us out for a scoop of ice cream at Baskin Robbins. He always made it sound like a spontaneous idea each time and it was great way to unwind and talk about the accomplishments of the day.
       But the thing that Ed really taught me about was how important it was to express yourself in a creative manner no matter how unsung you are. In the time I was hanging around Ed, he was writing songs, playing guitar, hosting a radio show, recording music, writing newsletters, blogs and letters. When telephone answering machines first became popular, Ed realized it was the perfect medium to bypass the record companies and release singles. He hooked up an extra line at his house that was dedicated to broadcasting his 1-3 minute topical music messages, such as the 'Ronnie Reagan Mamboguine' ('One step forward, two steps back....'). Now that we're digital, artists release their own songs in YouTube and Soundcloud.
       Ed Badeaux was an unsung innovative musician hero in my life.

       Ky Hote

This John Lennon Poster was in the studio
Patty Peebles below, Ky Hote above

Music Inks Sounds "bio" of Ed 1984

       Ed Badeaux brings his music to us from a wide spectrum of influences. Born in Houston, Texas, his childhood love for radio led him to be a disc jockey in the 1940's. An early morning country music show called the Bar None Ranch brought the station hundreds of cards and letters a week and introduced him to the roots of American music. His afternoon pop music show was the top-rated local record show in Houston in 1948.
       He then took up th eguitar and banjo and in the 1950s he yo-yo'ed between Houston and New York City. In 1958 Ed recorded three albums on Moe Asch's Folkways record label, and of American folk songs, al album of children singing summer camp songs and an album with simply sounds of children playing at summer camp.
       From 1965 to 19647 Ed was the managing editor of the leading folk music magazine in the United States - Sing Out! Ed's contemporaries in the folk music scene include such atists as Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and Phil Ochs.
       In New York City Ed held various jobs (college English professor, weekend cab driver) before returning to Houston in 1975. After organizing and performing in concerts in 1976, he "retired" from public performaing and created a radio program called Nightsong. He became familiar with multi-track recording; through recording, h became entranced with electronic music. The limitless sound producing synthesizer keyboard became Ed's tool creating music that both reminds you of old familiar folk music as well as cultivates your imagination... bringing you to the land of dreams.
       Ed has a hitherto hidden side, his humorous surrealistic view of what most people call the "real" world. He displays his latest work regularly on his telephone answering machine. Call (713) 965-*9*9 for his latest message.

A Notice in the Houston Choronicle