Subject: RE: Folk-Legacy's Lee Haggerty passes
From:
Sandy Paton
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 11:49 AM
Dick Greenhaus has suggested I post this for all of our Mudcat friends. I wrote it for SING OUT!, but you won't see it there for some time. So, here it is:
LEE BAKER HAGGERTY - February 24, 1930 - March 31, 2000
Lee B. Haggerty, co-founder of Folk-Legacy Records, Inc., passed away at the Sharon Hospital, in Sharon, Connecticut, early on the morning of March 31, 2000.
Lee was born in Westport, Connecticut, but his formative years were spent in a rural setting outside of Zachary, Louisiana, on the banks of the Mississippi River. His deep love of traditional music developed from listening to his mother reading aloud to him and to his siblings such ballads as "Sir Patrick Spens" and "Lord Randall." Recordings of Jules Allen singing songs of the west, ordered from Sears and Roebuck, introduced him to America's folk music. Lee was not a singer, insisting that he couldn't "carry a tune," but he knew and loved the words to hundreds of traditional songs and read ballad literature as one might read the romantic poets.
His avid interest in literature continued throughout his academic career at Western Reserve and at Knox College in Illinois. He served in the U. S. Army during the Korean War and was discharged a sergeant. He then worked for a time in New York City before moving to Chicago where he worked at Chicago First National Bank. Receiving a small inheritance enabled him to leave the bank and focus on doing some writing of his own, as well as to enjoy some extensive travel adventures with his old college roommate, Kent MacDougal.
In 1960, he learned from an announcement on WFMT in Chicago that Sandy Paton had added folk music to the spoken-word record department at Krock's and Brentano's bookstore. He soon became its most enthusiastic customer, and he and Sandy became good friends. After Sandy and Caroline Paton moved to Vermont, Lee went to visit them there and heard tapes Sandy had made on a field-collecting trip to North Carolina. It was at his suggestion that they formed Folk-Legacy Records in 1961 and their first recording, "Frank Proffitt, of Reese, North Carolina," was issued early in 1962. Over the thirty-nine years of their association, he and the Patons produced more than 120 recordings of folk and folk-related contemporary music, but it was the traditional field recordings they were able to release that gave him his proudest moments. In recent years, despite increasingly debilitating arthritis, he remained active with the company, continuing his work until his final illness. He was a thoughtful, gentle man who devoted his life to the music he loved. We are all indebted to him.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm gathering all of your words into a memorial collection to send to Lee's siblings. I want to tell you how grateful we are for every word that you write. It helps to know that Lee's unselfish contribution to the folkmusic world has been recognized and appreciated.
Sandy
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sj
