Seattle's first "Song Circle" started in summer of 1977. The whole idea was that a whole bunch of people would get together and, size of room allowing, would sit in a circle or some approximation thereof.

Someone would start off. They would sing a song or ballad. Or they would lead a chorus song, such as a sea chantey and others would chime in at the appropriate times. Or they could request that someone else in the circle sing something. Then, the "IT" position would move to the next person in the circle, moving either clockwise or counterclockwise, and they would have the same options: sing solo, lead a song, or request something from someone else, or they could pass. And so around the circle.

This was a most enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday evening, which is when the Seattle Song Circle met. Sally Ashford, with peoples' permission, taped the sessions (as did several of us; I have about thirty cassette tapes of these evenings, containing some really great stuff!!) and self-published a song book containing words and music (Sally knows music and has a good ear) complete with annotations as to who sang what.

We got so good a singing chanteys that the whole group was invited to sing on the deck of an old schooner (the Wawona) during the Moss Bay Sail and Chantey Festival where she was moored in Moss Bay on Lake Washington, along with several other historical ships. We sang a bunch of chanteys in their natural habitat while a crew of Coast Guardsmen raised and lowered the sails (periodic check of the tackle to make sure everything still worked properly), and I got a chance to sing some fo'c'sle chanteys in a genuine fo'c'sle!

Then something came up and Barbara and I were unable to attend Song Circle for a couple of years. When we returned, we found the whole character of the group had changed. Drastically!

Many of the "old guard" were no longer there. And the new people came laden with song books and crib sheets. As we sat there listening and waiting for our turn to come up, we were treated to people who stumbled their way through some song they didn't know and were reading it out of one of their stack of books. And traditional songs were not a main item on the menu. We heard a lot of songs by Jacques Brel.

Our attendance was pretty sporadic from then on.

Then we heard that "The Blue Book" (Rise Up Singing) was the official "hymnal" of the Seattle Song Circle, and people sat around singing out of it.

For some strange reason, we lost interest. As, apparently the original Song Circle members did also.

Don Firth