Happy and Adam Traum to perform in Sonoma

Once upon a time, Bob Dylan was neither a legend, the “voice of his generation” nor a Nobel Laureate – but a struggling folk singer in a vibrant Greenwich Village scene of strummers and pickers. It was an eclectic, and pre-electric, group with soon-to-be-famous members including Phil Ochs, John Sebastian, old-timer Pete Seeger and a merry guitarist and banjo player named Happy Traum.

Though his name sounds like a sly joke - “traum” means dream in German - his commitment and skill in folk music was not. He had honed his chops with Brownie McGhee, another legendary blues artist (who popularized the genre with a never-ending tour with harmonica player Sonny Terry), and in 1965 Traum wrote the definitive how-to on playing guitar, “Fingerpicking Styles for Guitar.”

Traum’s folk combo the New World Singers was the first to cover Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” - Peter, Paul & Mary picked it up a few months later - but that wasn’t the last time Traum and Dylan’s paths crossed.

In 1971 - after Dylan had been sidelined by a motorcycle accident and retreated to Woodstock, New York, where Happy and his brother Artie Traum lived - Dylan picked Happy to play on some new songs to enhance his “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, vol. 2.” The three tunes close out the LP’s side 4 with charming lyricism - “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “I Shall Be Released,” and the new song “Down in the Flood.”

But nobody wants to be known only in the shadow of Dylan, though it’s a hard fate to escape. Happy wrote several other classic guitar tutorials, and edited the folkie magazine “Sing Out!” for three years. The two Traum brothers had a lengthy career both separately and together, recording and playing across the musical and geographical spectrum until Artie died in 2008.

Nowadays Happy continues to perform and tour, often with his son Adam Traum - like his dad, a traditional-style folk guitarist with personal wit and style, and a frequent presence on Sonoma stages in recent years.

The two will appear together on the Hopmonk Listening Room stage on Sunday, Feb. 25, starting at 7 p.m. It’ll be like an old-school hootenanny at Washington Square, with IPA.