To say that Joe Hickerson left his mark on folk music history would be an understatement.
In fact, Hickerson is the reason that so much of what is known about folk music exists at all. When he died on August 17 at the age of 89, the legacy he left behind was so much greater than himself, and the world is richer for it.
A singer and a songwriter, Hickerson was a performer who played the guitar and sang, getting his start in a grounp called the Folksmiths, with whom he recorded the first-ever LP recording of the folk classic, "Kumbayah," in 1958.
In 1960, Hickerson made his most prominent contribution to the folk music canon by adding two verses to the original version of Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
"Pete Seeger wrote the first three verses of 'Where Have All the Flowers Gone' having read the novel by Mikhail Sholokov called And Quiet Flows the Dawn," Hickerson said in a 2014 interview with the American Folklife Center.
"I extended it in May 1960 because for two reasons. We were singing it at Indiana University at parties and people would get in, do harmony and what not and it would be over. So we would repeat the verses," he continued.
"Then also, I was preparing for my second year as a folk music counselor at Camp Woodland. I knew the kids would like it, but it was so short. And it occurred to me, universal symbolism. I didn't make it up— Soldiers into graves and graveyards covered with flowers, and put the verse at the end."
The final product was a circular version of the song that has since become a folk music standard.
In 1963, Hickerson, who was a graduate of Indiana University's folklore studies program, began his 25 year-long career at the Library of Congress's Archive of Folksong. He stepped in the role at a moment in music history when folk was having a resurgence, and the Library was an in-demand resource for artists and historians alike.
"He quickly became their guide through the ages, making sense of the thicket of oral histories and competing genealogies that populated the archive," wrote Clay Risen of Hickerson for The New York Times. "If someone wanted to know the real story behind the evolution of a centuries-old Irish dirge, he was the one to call on."
In 1998, Hickerson retired from the Library of Congress, but he continued to perform and lecture for nearly two decades. His dedication to folk music never wavered, not once.
"I've been fortunate in that I've been able to do it from both ends," Hickerson told the Seattle Times of his dual role as a musician and historian. "One scholar said to be able to do that you must have a split personality. I think they're both fun."
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