Lyr Req: Lake George, 1922 (Teresina M. Huxtable)

Subject: RE: Great Lakes
From:
Date: 09 Jan 00 - 04:31 PM

Great lakes songs and Canal songs are what my bamd does! Dr. Bill Hullfish, the originator of the band did his doctoral thesus on Erie (and other) Canal songs. We've gathered quite a collection of inland waterway songs as well. Let me know if you want some of them

Skip

Subject: RE: Great Lakes
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 09 Jan 00 - 04:44 PM

Skip: I'd love to see the collection! Just finished reading several books about the Erie and other canals, and have been deeply into river songs (deliberate choice of words) for a number of years. Caroline and I have wandered up and down many a forsaken waterway, just so we could visualize what we were often singing about.

What might you have that's available?

Sandy

Subject: RE: Great Lakes
From:
Date: 09 Jan 00 - 05:02 PM

Sources of Great Lakes songs

"Songs of American sailormen," by Joanna C. Colcord, New York, W.W. Norton, 1938. This is an enlarged and revised edition of "Roll and go, songs of American sailormen" which was published in 1924. Most of the songs are salt water, but there are some excellent versions of Great Lakes songs included as well.

The best collection of Great Lakes songs that I know of is Ivan H. Walton Collection : Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (2200 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor 48109). Walton taught English at the University of Michigan School of Engineering, and his collection includes recordings as well as text. The collection does not circulate, and you need to write of call the library to find out the conditions under which you would be allowed to listen to the recordings. Barry O'Neill did extensive work on the collection sometime in the late 1960's or early 1970's.

I perform some songs from the Walton collection, including a copper-loading work song and a Great Lakes Sailors' Alphabet.

Dick Swain [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Great Lakes
From:
Date: 09 Jan 00 - 05:21 PM

Hullfish published "The Canaller's songbook : words, music, and chords to over thirty canal songs" York, Pa. : American Canal and Transportation Center, c1984.

The Songbook includes many songs from Pearl Nye, d. 1957, who sang and wrote many songs about the Ohio and Erie Canal. He was recorded by Cloea Thomas in the early 1950's and she published a collection of his songs "Scenes and Songs from the Ohio-Erie Canal. I knew Cloea Thomas, and, when she died, I was given her collection of Nye photos and manuscripts. I've donated copies to the Library of Congress. Many of the songs I know are not included in Hullfish or Thomas's collection. I'd be glad to share. I'd also be interested in the collection that Skip mentioned.

Dick Swain, [e-mail]

Subject: Lee Murdock - new Great Lakes CD
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 04:39 PM

Time for another link to Lee Murdock who just came out with his tenth CD of Great Lakes songs. I ordered mine just now.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Great Lakes
From: Crowhugger
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 11:16 PM

Opinion on Great Slave Lake:

Slightly warmer than Lake Matapedia. And greener in spring (that's late June up in GSL-land) I've heard; ice & snow runoff I gather.

Oh, you mean about its greatness. Well, it's Great, but who was the slave. Uh-oh... and I haven't even had a drop of green beer!

Subject: RE: Great Lakes
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 11:34 PM

Opinion on Great Slave Lake: It's a hellava long ways from almost everywhere!

Subject: RE: Great Lakes
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Mar 00 - 10:20 AM

I just ordered Lee's latest CD too. He's done a great job with the songs of the lakes.

Art

Subject: RE: Great Lakes
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Mar 00 - 06:03 PM

Well, my Lee Murdock CD arrived today. Yessir, it's good. I'd like to quote the dedication from the CD booklet:

This album is dedicated to two very special people - to Professor Ivan Walton, folk song collector extraordinaire; and to Art Thieme who helped show me the way!

Need I say more?
Well I will. In his introduction to SHANTY BOY ON THE BIG EAU CLAIRE, which is a bit different from the version in our database, Murdock says this:

I first heard Art Thieme, Illinois' quintessential folksinger, perform this song many years ago at the North Country Folk Festival in Ironwood, Michigan. He recorded it on Songs from the Heartland, a record no longer in print, where he mentions that he learned the song from Paul Clayton in 1959 at the Gate of Horn in Chicago. He also recorded a version of the song on his cassette, On the River.
Just a quick background note: often lumberjacks in the wintertime became sailors in the summertime, because many of the lumber barons owned their own fleet of schooners to haul the lumber from the mill ponds to the lake-town markets. So a fellow could fell the timber in the snow, boom it down river in the spring, and mill and haul it in the summer and fall, all for the same employer. Just like now, folks in those days liked to work the year 'round if they could.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Great Lakes
From: GUEST,Erik
Date: 20 Sep 09 - 12:15 AM

The Album is "Walflowers" by Huxtable, Christensen, and Hood, Philo Records, 1980. The song to which you refer is "Lake George 1922."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lake George, 1922 (Teresina M. Huxtable)
From: GUEST,R.D. Eno
Date: 16 Nov 16 - 02:51 PM

A few corrections to Charlie Baum's 1998 transcription of "Lake George 1922" -- the second steamship was named Horicon (probably Horicon II), not Oregon; "Mothers, cats and children (carrying all that they can take)" should be "mothers, aunts and children," since cats carry very little beside fur; "churning" is probably better than "journeying"; and "rattle (through the dining room)" should be "paddle," since the Sagamore was only half submerged in 18 feet of water and would have been accessible by canoe. It's now 18 years since that transcription of this surpassingly beautiful song was submitted, and I've just discovered it!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lake George, 1922 (Teresina M. Huxtable)
From: NOMADMan
Date: 16 Nov 16 - 06:12 PM

A point of incidental information - the Lake George Steamboat Company, which operated the Sagamore and Horicon, is still in business and still plying the waters of Lake George as they have since 1817. Their website contains photographs of all their previous and current vessels including the Sagamore, Horicon and Horicon II. There's a lot of other history on the site.

Lake George Steamboat Company

One other thing not mentioned here or in the liner notes to the "Wallflowers" LP - "Lake George 1922" is also the title of a painting by Georgia O'Keeffe, a sometime resident of the area.

John Mazza (NOMADMan)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lake George, 1922 (Teresina M. Huxtable)
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 18 Nov 16 - 02:01 AM

Thanks for the corrections, RD Eno! It was a long time ago that I transcribed what I thought I heard, and now that I've seen the history link provided by my friend John Mazza (for which many thanks) I can see that's it's definitely Horicon rather than Oregon. Not having read James Fenimore Cooper (where the name Horicon comes from) nor having ridden the boats, I transformed the sounds into a familiar word. I remember Lake George from the few days I spent there back when I was about 8 or 9 years old, and I still remember "driving" one of the antique motorcars at the ride at Gaslight VIllage. We never cruised on the lake, although we did drive up Route 9N on the shores of the lake to Ticonderoga with its historic fort and pungent paper mill smells. I suppose next time I see Teresina Huxtable, I'll have to ask her to set the record straight--I bumped into her at the Old Songs Festival a year or two ago, and Huxtable Christensen & Hood has a new CD out and is setting up concerts reuniting the group.

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lake George, 1922 (Teresina M. Huxtable)
From: GUEST,William
Date: 29 Jul 19 - 07:38 PM

Ha, This may be one of the oldest threads I've ever commented on. I couldn't resist, however, as I grew up in Northern Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie, spent many, many summers at Lake George paddling canoe trips with 10 to 12 year old boys, and am currently listening to the Wallflowers album by Huxtable, Christensen, and Hood, which was a lucky find at my local thrift store. Great album, and I was pleasantly shocked to find such a lovely song about such a beautiful body of water. You should listen to it! OP ([e-mail]) was quite right to get it stuck in his head. Link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS2zcZKQszk

My two cents on wannabe lakes: Lake George is a clear, magnificently clean rock bottom lake with the best jumping rocks and, yes, shores well defined by pine. It is not Great though, nor is Champlain. Fine lakes, no doubt, but sorry Champ - no dice.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lake George, 1922 (Teresina M. Huxtable)
From: GUEST,Kristoffer Ross
Date: 29 Jul 19 - 11:26 PM

Whilst I'm not going to chime in of the lakes conversation, I will concur that the song is wonderful. In fact, the whole album is lovely.
    My band was privileged to be fellow guest performers with Huxtable, Christensen, and Hood at their most recent show, in early 2018, and they still had copies of the Wallflowers LP available, as well as a number of more recent recordings on CD. One could contact them via their website to arrange an order:
https://www.hchmusic.com/
    Best,
~Kristoffer