Help: Music for a New National Park

Subject: RE: Help: Music for a New National Park
From: WyoWoman
Date: 22 Oct 00 - 10:36 AM

Hi, Sourdough, My mother was one who left rural Oklahoma during the war to work in the shipyards in Portland, Ore. while my dad was fighting in the European theater. I don't know that she'll be much of a source as she always turned up her nose at "that twangy, nasal country stuff." She used her time in Portland to study at the Portland Music Conservatory and could easily have had a career in music -- just a lovely, lovely voice. Then my dad came back from the war and all his family in Oklahoma wanted him back closer to home. My mother still has the letter they wrote him saying that he could make her come back because she was a "good wife and she'll follow you if you just get yourself back here..." So much for her dreams and aspirations.

I love the idea of honoring the Homefront workers. This is such an amazing time in U.S. history.

Anyway, I'll ask Mom if she remembers any of the music from back then, on the off chance that some got past her snob radar...

ww

Subject: RE: Help: Music for a New National Park
From: Hollowfox
Date: 21 Oct 00 - 12:54 PM

Judith Black, a storyteller (she was just at the National Storytelling Festival), has a casette out called "The Home Front" that you should hear. She calls it the flip side of Saving Private Ryan on her web page at storiesalive.com. There is big band music on the tape, but the stories are the focus, of course. She starts with Rosie the Riveter, and goes beyond. This might be more useful in the gift shop than on sound loops in a display, but I think you should hear it. If she makes a west coast tour, you should see it. Her e-mail address is [e-mail].
As for other sources of inspiration..surely Woody Guthrie wrote something. Do any of your local universities have history departments with oral history projects? Perhaps the Library of Congress has something in the Archive of American Folklife, or at the American Memory website. And its a long shot, but who knows; sending a note to local retirement centers, senior citizen centers, etc. to put on the community bulletin board might get a nibble (I'm thinking more somebody who remembers the music than somebody who plays it). I just checked my library's copy of Encyclopedia of Associations, and I didn't see any groups in there that were directly involved with the home Front, but I'll bet that the Gold Star Mothers and Gold Star Wives associations would have members that did more than raise Victory Gardens. (Sorry I can't provide websites, my edition's a bit too old). There might even be a Home Front Association on the 'web somewhere. Good luck, Mary

Subject: RE: Help: Music for a New National Park
From: Margaret V
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 10:33 AM

Sourdough, congratulations on the opening and on the streamlined process by which it was accomplished. As one who works in the museum field, I know EXACTLY what an unusual occurrence thta was! Glad you refreshed this, as I didn't see it when you brought it up last year; I'll keep your search in mind. Good luck. Margaret

Subject: RE: Help: Music for a New National Park
From: Sourdough
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 11:30 PM

Refresh

I spent the day (Saturday) at the Rosie the Riveter Memorial dedication at the site of the Henry Kaiser Richmond California Shipyards. It is the first part of what will become the World War II/Homefront National Historic Park operated by the US National Park Service, the same folks who have the Minute Man Park in Massachusetts as well as a number of other historic parks around the US. Tomorrow, the President is scheduled to sign the enabling legislation that was passed by Congress unanimously so the park will have an official identity. It has only taken two years to reach this condition, a record for speed and it says something about the width and depth of interest and support.

The park is to honor all of the Homefront workers of WW II, men, women, in all sorts of industries. As the planning for the Visitors Center becomes more concrete, I am increasingly interested in fnding examples of "peoples music" for the Center, not just the (very enjoyable) big band music of the era. I have found photographs of traditional musicians performing in the yards at Kaiser. THese were shipyard workers. I will bet that there were a lot of trasnplanted country musicians who found themselves working in war plants and I will also bet that they continued their own tradition of shaping old songs to fit new circumstances as well as creating new songs.

And thank you again to Kendall, Catspaw and lamarca for their thoughts. I am refreshing the thread in the hopes that perhaps there are some new people, too, who may have some ideas for this new memorial.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: Help: Music for a New National Park
From: Sourdough
Date: 05 Nov 99 - 12:35 AM

Refresh!

I'm still hoping for some ideas, leads on songs, sources, individuals to contact.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: Help: Music for a New National Park
From: Sourdough
Date: 31 Oct 99 - 12:30 AM

lamarca:

I'm interested in anything from the war plants around the US. The National Park is to foster appreciation for what weas accomplishments of the people in any of those plants.

Kendall:

I'm certainly familiar with the Jeremiah O'Brien. I've been aboard the O'Brien many times. As you undoubtably know, out of all the fleets of ships that carried troops and supplies to Normandy beacheads in 1944, only the O'Brien was able to make it back foir the 50th snniversary.

If you haven't seen them, there are pictures of the O'Brien off Caspe Elizabeth when she put in for a homecoming on her 12,000 mile trip to France for the 50th anniversary of D-Day.

As far as the Todd S. Portland yards go, they started making ships to carry war materiel to Europe two years before the Liberty Ship program when they built 30 shios for the Admiralty.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: Help: Music for a New National Park
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Oct 99 - 08:43 PM

Not exactly what you're looking for 'Dough, but I love a Si Kahn song called "Blue Ridge Mountain Refugee" that speaks to the point of how moving to the work also cost many a part of their heritage. I first heard it from John McCutcheon and I think it was on his first album...but I don't think its on CD yet. Si Kahn has it on one of his own albums of course, and the lyrics are HERE - I Hope.

Very similar to the experiences told of in "The Dollmaker." I've been doing this one for almost 20 years and I love it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Music for a New National Park
From: kendall
Date: 30 Oct 99 - 06:56 PM

we built a pile of liberty ships here in So. Portland, and, the only survivor, JERAMIAH O'BRIAN is still afloat.

Subject: RE: Help: Music for a New National Park
From: lamarca
Date: 30 Oct 99 - 06:41 PM

Well, the song Art sings is a good start - "Way Down the Road" is by Craig Johnston, the fiddle player for The Double Decker Stringband, who lives in W. Virginia now, but lived and worked in Michigan for many years.

Do you want songs specifically from the California plants, or from WWII production plants all over the country?

Subject: Music for a New National Park
From: Sourdough
Date: 30 Oct 99 - 06:33 PM

I was listening to Art Thiemes' CD "The Older I get, the Better I Was", specifically to the song about the fellow who heads up from Tennessee for a job at Willow Run during World War II, I think the title was "Way Down the Road". It got me thinking about one of my current projects. I am working on part of a new National Park being developed in Richmond, California to commemorate The Home Front activities during World War II. The site being considered is the old Kaiser shipyards where more ships were built and built faster than at any time in the history of the world. Next door is the old Ford plant (you saw it in "Tucker" as an automobile plant) that turned out tanks and half-tracks. However, the park will commemorate civilian war plants all over the country.

All this started me wondering if there are any specific songs about the experience of these workers. We are talking about huge numbers of people. Henry Kaiser alone had three hundred thousand people working for him. Like the guy in Art's song, many if not most of these people flooded in from rural America, where the effects of The Depression were still not only unemployment but general poverty and real hunger, to the jobs in the war plants. They would have brought with them their musical traditions so I am sure that there must have at least been traditional songs reworked for the new circumstances.

I would like to include this music. Anyone have any ideas?

Sourdough