All things considered, your title for this thread is WAY off the mark. --- There are thousands of songs from the northern latitudes!!

First, though, it's sad we've lost much of our feel for the regionalism that use to be a huge part of the reality of life in the USA.

The Northern areas produced songs about that area and the people that lived there---and how they made their livings. Great Lakes songs were and are a part of the big historical panorama. LEE MURDOCK does at least a couple hundred (maybe three or four hundred) of those maritime ballads and work songs. The LUMBERJACK ballads can still be heard at northen folk festivals. Farmers songs--Canal songs---river songs. All sorts of work related ballads.

BUT with a music business that sells the same basic product to the East coast and the West coast---the northern tier of states and the southern too----it is just easier to produce a packaged-for-sale uniform music everywhere. One size fits all. -- So that's what they do. Pretty soon nobody remembers the native home-grown songs.

We ALL know that the American west produced hundreds of songs---real western folk songs---and real western fake songs.

Yep, you have got a great treasure hunt for the northern songs ahead of you, if you'll take the challenge.

A good place to start is in the D.T. right here at Mudcat. Lurking there for the taking, between the lines of these songs, are real musical documents of people who lived, loved and worked at the local jobs and industries. Before they died, they took the time to put their observations into the lyrics of their vivid ballad tales.

I've always felt that folksingers had to get used to living with ghosts. It comes with the territory. We owe those long gone unknown song carriers and writers a huge debt of gratitude!! The songs they left here are, to my way of thinking, their immortality.

Art Thieme