Help! Canadian field recordings??

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 02:09 PM

In response to a query on another thread for recordings of lumbering shanties by Emerson and Fred Woodcock made by Edith Fowke and a Dr Pollack [? Newbell Niles Puckett] I've noted some more references to collections in addition to the ones already given.

There are some sound recordings made by Edith Fowke which are stored at The Canadian Museum of Civilisation Archives ; their Catalogue is online, but without any details of singers.
(Search in the CMC section under "Folklore" and under "Sound Recordings" using the keyword Fowke.)

The University of Calgary also has a large collection of material from Edith Fowke's estate including sound recordings, but again individual singers are not indexed. See the Special Collections Catalogue for a list of the accessions (not all of which have been fully indexed yet).

York University, Toronto, where she was Professor of English, also holds some tapes of recordings by Edith Fowke in its Library. Again using the keyword search term Fowke should lead you to: Ref. F0368 The Edith Fowke Collection and Ref.ML157.32.F6 Edith Fowke Tapes 1-94 amongst other materials.

The American folklorist Newbell Niles Puckett made a lot of recordings from Ontario in the Fifties and Sixties which are now stored at The Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive but with no index. An article about "The Puckett Collection of Ontario Folklore" appeared in the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music, 1975.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: semi-submersible
Date: 28 May 04 - 02:11 PM

Click The Young Man from Canada for a fine album of BC folk songs recorded by Jon Bartlett & Rika Ruebsaat, originally collected by Phil J. Thomas.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From:
Date: 25 May 04 - 05:40 PM

That's wonderful, Peter. Thanks. Will try and find links to the York and UoT Collections.

Yes, I had forgotten that the Smithsonian had some of Helen's work. I know about the LoC stuff.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 May 04 - 08:36 AM

York University in Toronto has an extensive folk music library, based on Edith's work, and others. The University of Toronto music library has many, many albums, books, etc.

The Smithsonian Folkways albums are easily available (check out their website) -- Alan Mills did a number of Canadian folk albums in the 50's, as did a number of French Canadian, and Newfoundland singers and field recorders. The notes to the albums are particularly useful. Anyone who wants any of the sheet music from the various books that were put out from Marius Barbeau or Edith Fowke or Helen Creighton has but to ask -- I am in these libraries all the time.

yours,

Peter Timmerman

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 May 04 - 09:03 PM

Wonderful site! Link to the Index (I hope)
Songs of Atlantic Canada

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: RangerSteve
Date: 24 May 04 - 08:24 PM

I already found two songs worth learning on that site. Thanks, George.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From:
Date: 24 May 04 - 06:37 PM

They have MP3s there as well as Transcriptions of songs.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From:
Date: 24 May 04 - 06:36 PM

Just found a wonderful resource online from Memorial University. Have a look at

MacEdward Leach's Songs of CB & Newfoundland

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: simon-pierre
Date: 14 Feb 04 - 12:27 PM

You may have a look there for Québec folk music :
Thirty below

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Cluin
Date: 14 Feb 04 - 12:18 PM

Willie-O, not to be contrary, but Hemsworth is as relevant as Mills, Kines, Baillargeon, etc. that you mentioned above because he was also on that collection if it's the one I remember. Besides, Wade's songs were self-penned for the most part.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Willie-O
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 09:08 AM

I've never really thought about this...it's interesting to see how quickly the recording of folk music was professionalized in Canada...like the songs were "collected" and quickly absorbed by the professional singers who then became the "definitive source version", as far as released recordings went.   


And yet, as Frankie suggests, there must be lots of the actual original source material out there, in archives such as Dr Creighton's and Edith Fowkes'. We just didn't have an Alan Lomax-type whose mission was to record the singers and release the best of their material for public consumption.   

Good job the fiddle players didn't get the same treatment, or we'd have "Ashley MacIsaac plays the tunes of Jean Carignan" instead of the real deal.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 11:35 PM

That Canadian Society in Calgary has been doing some interesting work. Though my Dad is from the Pacific Northwest in Washington, they are one of several groups that expressed an interest in discussing what is in his papers, and they do sound like a good place to consider donating them.

He had in his collection of LPs one that is from the Canadian east, a folkloric, almost ethnographic collection of some elderly individuals who sang for the collector. When I was copying all of Dad's LPs (I at one time thought I was going to have to break up the collection more than I ended up having to) I came across this one. The kids were home when I played and recorded it, and they were not amused. But that's another story. . .

I'll see if I can find it.

SRS

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Frankie Lee
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 10:51 PM

Thanks everyone for all your help. There are some good links here to keep me busy throughout upcoming evenings.


Willie-O, thanks for the kind offer, but I do not have a reliable turntable at the moment. It would be a treat to have a listen to this collection, and read the booklet though, were it somehow possible. (btw I'm in Burlington, Ont.)

What I'm really interested in though are early, pre-revival recordings, the "real deal". I'll check out the Smithsonian Folkways catalogue.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Willie-O
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 02:45 PM

Who's forgetting him? I'm a big fan, but he doesn't seem relevant to the question. Unless you know something about his material I don't know?

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Cluin
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 11:09 AM

Hey Willie-O, don't forget old Wade Hemsworth, writer of the Logdriver's Waltz and the Blackfly Song.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Willie-O
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 09:21 AM

I happen to have the nine-album set Canadian Folk Songs which Barry T mentioned. It includes a 30-page booklet of liner notes (by Alan Mills), which detail what is known about each song, but does not have lyrics. (But hey, it's fully bilingual! ;)= )

It is not, as such, a collection of field recordings, but rather a collection of songs by professional Canadian folk-revival singers of the 50's/60's, of songs which were collected in Canada. Some of the singers are Mills, Tom Kines, Jacques LaBrecque, Diane Oxner, and Helene Baillargeon (that's Chez Helene from TV for those who were 60's kids in Canada!) There's also a guy named Rauoul Roy who oddly resembles the young Stan Rogers in the cover photo.

All the recording was done specifically for this project, they are not reissues from other records.

The nine records are organized by song category, not region--Riddle Songs and Trad Ballads, Love's Labours Lost, Songs and Ballads of the Lumber Camps, etc.

I haven't listened to it too much because I don't have a turntable with a good needle and it's too good to wreck.

Frankie, PM me if you're interested in a specific song or would like to know more about this very interesting and comprehensive recording. Where are you? I might lend it if you have a decent turntable to spin it on.

Bill Cameron

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Cluin
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 12:56 AM

Try your local library. Ours used to have several of that ilk in LP format. A few came out in `67, the year of Canada's Centennial whoopteedo.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 04 - 06:11 PM

Singers and Songs of Canada, a 3 CD set on the Mercury label, compiled by Smithsonian-Folkways in 1996.

That collection was compiled for Mercury by Samuel Gesser, who had been Folkways' Canadian producer in the 1950s and 1960s. It was one of three sets that Sam compiled from the Canadian Folkways material. The others were "A Folksong Portrait of Canada," another 3-CD set for Mercury, and "Montreal Folklore," a 2-CD set for Ananlekta.

All three of those sets have gone out-of-print. However, all of the original LPs from which they were compiled are anow available as custom CD-Rs from Smithsonian Folkways.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From:
Date: 08 Feb 04 - 12:39 PM

Helen Creighton's original source material can be found in several repositories. One is the Library of Congress, for whom she did some of her earliest work. Another would be the Canadian Museum of Man/Civilisation? (whomever took up the reins after the original department was consumed in one or more consolidations). The third location is the PANS, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, now called the Nova Scotia Archives and Record Management.

In addition, the Helen Creighton Folklore Society. We currently have a double CD set of field recordings out of her collection. It's theme is the Sea Songs. Information can be found at Sea Songs Project. If interested in obtaining the set, please let me know by E-mail or PM.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: delphinium
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 10:45 PM

I think most of Edith Fowke's papers and sound recordings, etc. went to the Canadian Society for Traditional Music and are now at the University of Calgary - see here. The description says there are also other field recordings at York U and the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Bo Vandenberg
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 09:50 PM

I took a class from Edith at York University. At the time anyway York library had a number of recordings, partially reflecting her work. I do not know what happened to her personal collection when she passed away.

S

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: delphinium
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 09:27 PM

The Canadian Journal for Traditional Music Vol 1 (1973) includes a "Reference List on Canadian Folk Music" compiled by Edith Fowke - one of the sections is on recordings from traditional sources. You can see the list online here - look for Section III-1 (more than 3/4 down the page).

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Anglo
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 02:59 PM

There are a number of Folkways recordings, now available on CD from the Smithsonian, of field recordings. A couple from the collection of Edith Fowke as I recall, and some from Helen Creighton also. You should be able to find them in a catalog search.

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 02:24 PM

There's a book I'd recommend, Drive Dull Care Away: Folksongs from Prince Edward Island, as gathered by Edward D. "Sandy" Ives, $25 US at Amazon. It's a nice collection, very interestingly presented; and the enclosed CD has 14 songs.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Barry T
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 02:21 PM

There are two collections that I would recommend.

Singers and Songs of Canada, a 3 CD set on the Mercury label, compiled by Smithsonian-Folkways in 1996.

Canadian Folk Songs, A Centennial Collection. This is a nine-album long play record collection produced by the CBC in collaboration with RCA Victor.

I'm not sure if either of these collections meets your definition of 'field recordings', but they are the definitive collections at the moment.

Also explore the growing collection of sound recordings available on the Virtual Gramophone site at the National Library... http://www2.nlc-bnc.ca/gramophone/.

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Subject: Help! Canadian field recordings??
From: Frankie Lee
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 01:42 PM

Can anyone here can direct me to collections of early field recordings of Canadian folk music? I am interested in music from any region, coast to coast, but particularly that of Ontario. I once heard such a collection several years ago, I think it was 3 CDs or so, but unfortunately I don't remember the title or label. Thanks.