Tom Paxton Biography

Tom Paxton (born Thomas Richard Paxton) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He is noteworthy as a music educator as well as an advocate for folk singers to combine traditional songs with new compositions.

Tom Paxton Age

Thomas Richard Paxton was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 31, 1937. He is 81 years as of 2018.

Tom Paxton Family

Paxton was born on October 31, 1937, in Chicago, Illinois, to Burt and Esther Paxton. His father was a chemist, mostly self-educated, and as his health began to fail him, the family moved to Wickenburg, Arizona. While here, tom began riding horses at the numerous dude ranches in the area. It was also here that he was first introduced to folk music, discovering the music of Burl Ives and others.

In 1948, the family moved again to Bristow, Oklahoma and Soon after, his father died from a stroke. Paxton was about fifteen when he received his first stringed instrument, a ukulele. He was given a guitar by his aunt when he was sixteen, and he soon began to immerse himself in the music of Burl Ives and Harry Belafonte.

In 1955, Paxton enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, where he studied in the drama school. Here, he first found other enthusiasts of folk music and discovered the music of Woody Guthrie and The Weavers. In college, he was in a group known as the Travellers, and they sang in an off-campus coffeehouse.

Tom Paxton Wife

Paxton met his wife Margaret Ann Cummings (Midge) at the Gaslight one night in January 1963 after being introduced to her by David Blue. They got married in 1963 and together they have two daughters, Jennifer is a history professor who has published courses for The Teaching Company and Kate and three grandsons. Midge Paxton died in 2014 after a long illness.

Tom Paxton Career

In 1959, after graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Paxton acted in summer stock theatre and briefly tried graduate school before joining the Army. While attending the Clerk Typist School in Fort Dix, New Jersey, he began writing songs on his typewriter and spent almost every weekend visiting Greenwich Village in New York City during the emerging early 1960s folk revival.

Shortly after his honorable discharge from the Army, he auditioned for the Chad Mitchell Trio in 1960 through publisher Milt Okun. He initially received the part, but his voice did not blend well enough with those of the group members. However, after singing his song “The Marvelous Toy” for Okun, he became the first writer signed to Milt’s music publishing company, Cherry Lane Music Publishing.

Soon Paxton began performing at The Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, where he became a mainstay. In 1962, he recorded a privately produced live album at the Gaslight entitled, I’m the Man That Built the Bridges. During his stay in Greenwich Village, he published some of his songs in the folk magazines Broadside and Sing Out!. Also, he performed alongside such folksingers as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Eric Andersen, Dave Van Ronk, and Mississippi John Hurt.

In 1963, Pete Seeger picked up on a few of Tom Paxton’s songs, including Ramblin’ Boy (which Seeger performed at The Weavers reunion concert at Carnegie Hall) and What Did You Learn in School Today?. Paxton increased his profile as a performer, appearing at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, which was recorded by Vanguard Records.

A month after Newport in 1963, he married Midge. He began traveling the country on the coffeehouse and small-venue circuit before returning to New York. Paxton became involved with causes that promoted human rights, civil rights, and labor rights. In 1963, he and a group of other folk musicians performed and offered moral support to striking coal miners in Hazard, Kentucky.

After returning to New York, in 1964 Paxton signed with Elektra Records. A label which at that time featured a distinguished roster of folk musicians. He would go on to record seven albums for Elektra. In 1964, he took part in the Freedom Summer and visited the Deep South, with other folk musicians, to perform at voter registration drives and civil rights rallies.

In 1965, he made his first tour of the United Kingdom. The tour was the beginning of a still-thriving professional relationship that has included yearly performances there. He met Bruce Woodley, one of the founding members of the Australian folk group The Seekers. They collaborated on the song Angeline (Is Always Friday) which The Seekers recorded and featured in their concerts, TV shows, and a DVD. In 1967, the rock group Clear Light recorded a menacing and lengthy psychedelic version of Paxton’s song Mr. Blue on their only album Clear Light.

The 1970s

Paxton and his family, lived in Holland Park, London, for about four years in the early 1970s. After a stay in England due to professional success and love of the country, he and Midge went on a tour of New Zealand and China. They even appeared on a Chinese talk show. In 1971, he released How Come the Sun.

The album gave him his highest chart ranking in the U.S. but it only reached number 120 and his next album, Peace Will Come (1972), barely even reached the charts. He soon returned to New York City and the Long Island town of East Hampton before moving to the Washington, D.C. area around 1977.

After recording three albums for Reprise Records and a few for an English label that didn’t pan out well, Paxton signed with Vanguard Records. He recorded a live album with Steve Goodman, New Songs From the Briarpatch (1977), which contained some of Paxton’s topical songs of the 1970s, including Talking Watergate and White Bones of Allende as well as Did You Hear John Hurt? a song dedicated to Mississippi John Hurt.

In 1978, Paxton released his album Heroes, which contained a song, “Phil”, about his friend Phil Ochs, who had taken his own life in 1976. The album also includes the song The Death of Stephen Biko, which details the brutal killing of anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko in South Africa. In 1979 he released the album, Up and Up. Paxton has also performed at the Clearwater Festival, an annual event, started by Pete Seeger, dedicated to environmentalism and cleaning up the Hudson River.

In July 1994, Paxton was invited to perform at a folk festival in Israel, Jacob’s Ladder.
He played there and a series of concerts around Israel accompanied by a folk guitarist and harmonica player Shay Tochner. He recorded a live album in 1996 with his good friend Jim Rooney, and it contained some new comical songs about current events. Eric Weissberg, John Gorka, Robin, and Linda Williams, among others, also performed; and the album was titled Live: For the Record.

Additionally, he wrote a number of topical protest songs that were critical of the Bush administration’s actions. In 2007, he rewrote a song of his from 1965 entitled “Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation”, about the escalation of the war in Vietnam, and transformed it into George W. Told The Nation, about the surge in the Iraq war. In 2007, Tom Paxton became one of the founding members of the Copyright Alliance, whose purpose is to promote the cultural and economic benefits of copyrights.

In 2008, he rewrote his song I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler, about the federal loan guarantee to Chrysler in 1979, as I Am Changing My Name to Fannie Mae, about the 700 billion dollar bailout of the U.S. financial system. He continues to perform yearly tours of the United States and the UK.

In March 2015, Paxton released the studio album Redemption Road. In January 2017, he released Boat In The Water, his sixty-third album. He is now in semi-retirement, though he still performs occasional shows and did a 10 venue UK tour in 2017.

Paxton toured the UK in 2018 and 2019, accompanied by The Don Juans. His shows featured his 2011 song What if, no matter.

Tom Paxton Net Worth

Paxton is an American folk singer and songwriter who has a net worth of $5 million.

Tom Paxton Awards

• February 2002: he was honored with the ASCAP Lifetime Achievement Award in Folk Music. He received three Wammies (Washington, DC, Area Music Awards); as Best Male Vocalist in the “traditional folk” and “children’s music” categories, and for Best Traditional Folk Recording of the Year for “Under American Skies” (2001).
• 2009: honored also with a 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy, and the formal announcement was made during the 51st Annual Grammy Awards telecast, which aired on February 8, 2009.
• 2004: the Martin Guitar Company introduced the HD-40LSH Tom Paxton Signature Edition acoustic guitar in his honor.
• 2005: he received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting at BBC Radio 2’s Folk Awards at London’s Brewery Arts Centre.
• 2006: he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance.
• 2007: he was honored with an official Parliamentary tribute at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom at the start of his 2007 UK tour.
• 2008: he was honored with a special lifetime tribute from the World Folk Music Association, and a concert was held at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center at Northern Virginia Community College, Alexandria Campus, in Alexandria, Virginia.