Artist Info
Biography
One-half of folk-pop duo, Bud and Travis, Bud Dashiell briefly fronted the Kinsmen in the early-60s. The trio, which also featured Bernie Armstrong and C. Carson Parks, released a self-titled studio album in 1961. After a tour of the United States, they released a live album, Live Concert Extraordinary, in 1965.A native of Paris, France, Dashiell was raised by an American correspondent father and a British mother who had appeared in the Folies Begere. Growing up on the east coast of the United States, at the site of the first Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, he taught himself to play guitar. Inspired by the music of Eric Darling of folk-singing group, the Weavers, who he met when both performed at the Inquisitor, a folk music coffeehouse in Vancouver, British Columbia, he began teaching himself to play country and bluegrass tunes.
Enlisting in the U.S. Army, Dashiell rose to the rank of First Lieutenant and Battery Commander in Field Artillery during the Korean War. His experiences, however, left him disillusioned and forced him to re-evaluate his political convictions.
A semi-regular performer on Skip Weshner's radio show on New York's WBAI-FM, Dashiell met Travis Edmondson, an anthropology student-turned-folksinger, at the radio station studios. Informally performing together, during one broadcast, the two folksingers sounded as though they had been collaborating forever. Some listeners called the station to inquire where they could buy an album by the duo.
Encouraged by the positive response they received, Dashiell and Edmondson agreed to continue performing together as Bud and Travis. The first act to be extended a month at New York nightspot, the Blue Angel, the duo went on to perform sold out shows throughout the United States. Although their heavily-arranged style of pop failed to attract fans of folk music, jazz or rock, they remained one of the most successful pop acts of the early-1960s.
Dashiell and Edmondson seemed perfect compliments to one another. They shared the same birthday, almost to the same hour. Their relationship, however, was extremely volatile. An argument in the dressing room of the Cape of Horn in Chicago ended with Edmondson's nose bleeding. They separated in 1965.
Despite their differences, Dashiell and Edmondson continued to be remarkably intertwined. Three weeks after Dashiell suffered a brain tumor, resulting in a twenty percent loss of his right hand, Edmondson experienced a similar ailment on his left side.
After disbanding the Kinsmen, Dashiell moved to Los Angeles, teaching guitar throughout the 1970s and early-1980s. He died in 1989. ~ Craig Harris, All Music Guide
