Butch Hawes
Musician · 1919–1971
Best known for
Songwriter
Baldwin “Butch” Hawes was a visual artist and folksinger who, with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Sis Cunningham, and his future wife Bess Lomax, made up the Almanac Singers — the World War II-era leftist folk collective that fed almost directly into the postwar Weavers and the urban folk revival.
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- Born in 1919.
- Worked as a painter and visual artist alongside his music career.
- Joined the Almanac Singers in the early 1940s, alongside Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Sis Cunningham, and Bess Lomax.
- Married fellow Almanac singer Bess Lomax in 1943; the couple later raised three children.
- Recorded as a member of the Almanac Singers on Keynote and General Records, including the 1942 Almanacs single “Diamond Joe.”
- Died in 1971 at age 52.