Beth Lomax Hawes, folklorist, member of the great Lomax family of musical anthropologists, member of the Almanac Singers with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, among others (that would be Beth in the photo below tucked into the upper right hand corner, above Pete, with Woody to her right), and most memorably, co-author of amusing song “M.T.A.”, died November 27 at the age of 88. In 1949, borrowing the tunes from two old folk songs, “The Ship That Never Returned” and “Wreck of the Old 97,”
Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner wrote the song to back the mayoral campaign of the Progressive Party candidate, Walter A. O’Brien Jr. A decade later, The Kingston Trio had a major hit with the merry song, although to avoid charges that they were “glorifying a communist” (that would be Walter), they fictionalized the name of the candidate to George O’Brien. An early example turning leftism into a viable commercial brand. A couple of years ago, Boston named its commuter transit card The Charlie Card. Hawes received the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton in 1993. My sister was a big fan of The Kingston Trio and other folk singers when she was in collegge, and although I was in grade school, I absorbed a lot of the sensibility through Rose’s interest, and “M.T.A.” was one of catchiest, funniest songs. Thanks, Beth, for your droll, amusing contribution to pop culture.
