I'm thinking of Lisa this week on the first anniversary of her passing. I sing her songs regularly at Zoom sing-gatherings. And I'm working on a history project inspired by her song about Lake Chemo, which describes a camping trip a dozen or so miles east of Bangor, Maine, in 1871, very close to the beginning of camping as a leisure activity. Lisa was an academic as well as singer and music organizer. She had a master's in folkore from the University of Pennsylvania and was going for a Ph.D. in history at Yale, but never finished her dissertation. She wanted to use folkloric evidence as historical document, and that's "Lake Chemo" is.

--Charlie Baum