On December 1, 1957,Chicago’s now legendary Old Town School of Folk Music opened its doors.  “George Armstrong piped us in with full Scottish regalia… That night Big Bill Broonzy gave us a demo of his powerful guitar playing,  Big Bill, black and handsome, could stir a roomful of uptight humans into a bow of instant throbbing rhythmic jelly,” recalls Frank Hamilton, the school’s founder, in Biography of a Hunch: The History of Chicago’s Legendary Old Town School of Folk Music by Lisa Grayson.

“The audience sang and melted the cracked plaster away, the cobwebs vanished and the roaches scrambled, the folk genie popped the cork on the bottle and great music ran over the room,” Hamilton continued.

Although the Old Town School of Folk Music has long since vacated its original space on West Ninth Avenue, it has maintained its philosophy that music is for everyone, where, as Frank Hamilton envisioned, “teacher and students would be partners in learning.” 

The school’s first five year’s corresponded with the so-called folk boom.  More than 150 students attended weekly guitar and banjo classes.  Family sing-alongs and folk dances were held, and Broonzy, Mahalia Jackson, Pete Seeger and Josh White, among others performed at the school.   During the 1960s the school’s students included such folk luminaries as Bob Gibson, the late Steve Goodman, Roger McGuinn and John Prine. 

After hitting peak enrollment in 1975, with more than 650 students attending classes weekly, the school suffered a decline in enrollment and concert attendance in the late 1970s  (the disco era) but rebounded in the mid-80s after its programming was expanded to include the teaching and presentation of ethnic and traditional music from the world over.  By the late 1990s the school was holding programs at facilities in both Lincoln Square, one of Chi-town’s most culturally diverse neighborhoods, and Lincoln Park. 

Today, the Old Town School of Folk Music enrolls nearly 6,000 students a week in its tuition program of classes and workshops — some 2,700 of them children  — from various cultures and traditions , who come together to create music and learn from each other.  Internationally known touring artists, local artists and the school’s own staff and students stage live performances almost every weekend, while some 85,000 Chicagoans and others attend free concerts most Wednesday nights through the school’s AfroFolk and La Pena community programs, as well as an annual Chicago Folk & Roots Festival.

This December 1, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, a benefit concert to help fund the school’s education, scholarship, performance and youth outreach programs, will be held at Chicago’s historic Auditorium Theatre.  Frank Hamilton is among the many people from the school’s long and storied history expected to be on hand that night at 7 p.m., while performing artists will include alums Roger McGuinn and Bonnie Koloc, as well as Jeff Tweedy, Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, David Bromberg, Lonnie Brooks, Corky Siegel and others.  For more information, visit www.oldtownschool.org.