Yes, the situation I described at the Northwest Folklife Festival was indeed a performance. I was not discussing song circles in that post, I was talking about the sometimes justifiable use of song sheets.

And comparing song circles with Sacred Harp singing is like comparing apples to oranges. Normally, Sacred Harp singers do sing out of books. Nevertheless, I did hear and see a group of Sacred Harp singers at one of the NW Folklife festivals, and they sang without books.

The idea that these songs would not have survived unless people had sung them out of books just doesn't reflect the real world.

The Lomaxes note that many American cowboys were far more literate than one would imagine from watching John Wayne movies. Cattle drives and herding cattle in general was dull, dusty, tedious, and boring work, and whenever possible, around a campfire at night, they would entertain each other with songs, recitations, and often lengthy quotes from works such as Shakespeare's plays. Frequently when alone, to cut the tedium, they would sing or recite to themselves. They had to pack so much other stuff around that carrying books in their saddlebags was out. So they carried all this material in their heads.

Also, books were sufficiently rare and expensive until recently that I have a hard time envisioning people in centuries past sitting around of an evening and singing out of song books. Most of these songs and ballads survived through the collections of people such as Bishop Percy (Reliques of Ancient English Poetry) and Sir Walter Scott's collection of border ballads. Books weren't cheap, and for most people, if they owned any books at all, it was usually a copy of the Bible.

Also, I can't envision singers like Margaret Barry at her usual post sitting in a pub with a pint in front of her singing out of a song book.

Barry, your reference to the singing parties you attended in San Francisco:   

In the very early 1950s, I attended such parties in Seattle. Singers there were Walt Robertson, who had been at it for a few years and had a television show and from whom we all learned; Sandy Paton, who was just starting out, but he was way ahead of me; Claire Hess, who taught me to finger a G, C, and D7 on my $9.95 plywood guitar; and about a half-dozen other singers, plus a few dozen people who came just to listen—but who were welcome to haul off and sing if they felt so moved. There was no exclusivity here.

We started out with the example of Walt, the one "pro" among us, along with singers we heard on records. Each one of us did his or her best to learn new songs and bring them to the next party—and to sing them as well as we possibly could, which meant learning them and singing them from memory. More than one person "caught fire" at these parties. Often someone who had been just a listener before would surprise everyone by lifting their voice in song, sometimes even appearing with a guitar or other instrument they had been practicing on in secret. It was a warm plunge for a newby, and I certainly benefited by the example of better singers, as did a number of others.

There was a lot of solo singing. But there was group singing also. I recall one such party where we got going on "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?" When we ran out of the regular verses, people started them up (easy enough to do, since each verse was one line sung three times followed by "Ear-lye in the morning!"). The verses got raunchier and raunchier, and we kept that sucker going for better than a half-hour.

This sort of thing doesn't happen if you're all singing out of Rise Up Singing.

The Seattle Song Circle, started in the late 1970s, was a bit more structured than these singing parties (we called them "hoots") in that we sat around in a literal circle and moved around the circle either clockwise or counter-clockwise and, as mentioned above, when your turn came up, you could sing a solo, lead the group in a song, teach a song, request a song from someone else, or just pass. As far as group songs (intended by tradition to be group songs) were concerned, we developed into one heck of a bunch of chantey singers. And we would join in on choruses a lot. And like the earlier "hoots," new solo singers soon began to emerge from those who had formerly requested or passed.

But—there are songs that just don't cut it as group songs. Ballads for example. The idea of a bunch of people sitting around and singing

"And what will you leave your third cousin on you father's side, Randal, my son?"

I somehow find less than thrilling.

We get together from time to time at Bob (Deckman) Nelson's or at Alice's, and there are the monthly sessions at Stewart's, and the singing is great. Solo mostly, not necessarily taking turns, but nobody trying to monopolize. And group songs also. When the song is an appropriate group song. Barbara and I would love to have such in our apartment, but our living room is a bit small to accommodate a sizable gathering.

And speaking of size, as far as being "small," or a "clique" is concerned, the first "hoot" I ever attended, drew about 75 people, at the hoots at Elmar Lanczos' or Carol Lee Waite's houses, people were hanging from the picture molding, and whenever Bob hosts one, it often has to spill out into the back yard and into his workshop.

And those who attend are not just Old-Timers either.

I find it just a bit—I don't know quite what to call it; pathetic, maybe?—that if someone here says that they prefer the old song parties or "hoots," or the way song circles used to be before people started dragging books to them and that they don't particularly enjoy sitting around hymn-singing out of Rise Up Singing, there is a chorus of folks here who howl like goosed mooses, then point an accusing finger and start using words like "egotistical" or "pedantic" or "snobbish" or, "a clique."

But if you enjoy that kind of singing, fine! Feel free! I'm not trying to stop you.

Don Firth