Vermont & surrounding folk music

Subject: Old folk music of Vermont
From: GUEST,M Siirdewaye
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 03:00 PM

Hello!

I am a singer and musician from Vermont looking to uncover more about the traditional music of my region. It appears to me as if there is very little surviving music from the region from former times--most of what I've heard is "American folk music", various sorts of popular & classical music, and some new music from artists in the region. That said, I don't come from an old, established family in the region that might have had things it remembered from times of yore. I am especially interested in the way that the old songs can convey culture, advice and warnings for future generations, things that sustain culture and society that have been thrown away or forgotten.

My two sources of old folk music I've found are Margaret MacArthur and Helen Harkness Flanders. I could find two albums from Margaret MacArthur online (The Old Songs, Folksongs of Vermont), and the book Vermont Folksongs & Ballads by Flanders from the library. So far I've begun to learn some songs from the latter--and am finding them to have unique and interesting melodic motifs such as I've heard elsewhere but put together in unexpected ways, and it makes me want to learn more...

Subject: RE: Vermont & surrounding folk music
From: GUEST,M Siirdewaye
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 03:04 PM

It seems like also, many of the lyrics to the Flanders book are up here on Mudcat... this was such a fun little song to run into while flipping through the book, an admonishment that if you don't hoe your corn it will not ripen before the frost!

The Young Man that Wouldn't Hoe Corn

https://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=7207

Subject: RE: Vermont & surrounding folk music
From: Reinhard
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 04:13 PM

If you'll search the Roud Index for Place: Vermont, you'll get 2243 matches.

Have fun!

Subject: RE: Vermont & surrounding folk music
From: GUEST,M Siirdewaye
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 04:41 PM

Thank you! I am looking through and seeing some more books to look for...

Ooh! There is another book available online, Songs from the Hills of Vermont. Exciting... https://archive.org/details/songsfromhillsv00sturgoog

Almost an overwhelm of information. Thank you for giving advice to a newcomer to this sort of thing!

Subject: RE: Vermont & surrounding folk music
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 06:19 PM

One other Flanders book you haven't listed: Vermont Chap Book, Being A Garland of Ten Folk Ballads. Hard to find, but there are four songs in it that aren't in the other sources you've listed.

Subject: RE: Vermont & surrounding folk music
From: Julia
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 08:53 PM

Glad you are interested in this!
Flanders and her colleague Marguerite Olney also traveled throughout Maine, NH and upstate NY. She collected over 3000 recordings.Many singers traveled around the region particularly in the lumberwoods and brought songs with them.

These recordings are available online at archive.org, but the index is unreliable and the recordings are hard to listen to. My partner Fred and I are in the process of transcribing as many of the Maine recordings as we can. We have published the first book in a series called "Bygon Ballads of Maine

There are many more to be done. This link includes the index
https://archive.org/details/helenhartnessflanders?sort=-week

You can also visit the archive at Middlebury College

In addition, there are collections made by Fanny Hardy Eckstorm and her colleagues Mary Smyth and Phillips Barry from between 1920-1939. They published Minstrelsy of Maine, British Ballads from Maine and the Maine Woods Songster.   Flanders consulted with them and collaborated with Eckstorm on a newspaper column seeking old songs.

Eloise Linscott (Folksongs of Old new England) recorded throughout the region as well though she was warned out of Vermont by Flanders.

Horace Beck also did a fair amount of collecting here

I'm happy to help you navigate this stuff- [e-mail]

Another helpful person is Brian Miller at Evergreen Trad who makes the links between the woods traditions of the Northeast and the upper mid-west

Subject: RE: Vermont & surrounding folk music
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Feb 26 - 10:39 AM

Thank you so much!

I also am noticing a lot of variation between different versions of the song, whether in melody, lyrics, etc., even though the same song is found in so many different diverse locations... so interesting to hear.

When searching for the Young Man who Wouldn't Hoe Corn, I found a version by a band, the Georgia Mudcats--I can't help but wondering if there is any connection to this site? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdkZlysuYTw


Another question or maybe not a question... it's very hard to make out words in the old recordings, though the melody and rhythm can more or less be heard... turn the volume way up and put my ear to the speaker? Or look elsewhere for people who've written them down?

Subject: RE: Vermont & surrounding folk music
From: Julia
Date: 25 Feb 26 - 12:11 PM

Yes, they are difficult to hear. We have a way of reducing the noise and slowing down the recording on the computer so are working our way through the Maine related songs as that is our focus. We have completed transcriptions for about half of the 900 we have identified in the Flanders collection. We will make them available soon

Two websites that include songs from Northeast collections are

The Carrie Grover Project- incredible biographical work done by Julie Mainstone Savas with downloadable PDF files of over 100 songs
https://carriegroverproject.com/

Evergreen Trad- Brian Miller compares Northeast songs with those in the Upper Midwest. Downloadable files
https://www.evergreentrad.com/

Have fun - contact me if you want [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Vermont & surrounding folk music
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Feb 26 - 01:40 PM

Bartok wasn't there for very long but he put the call of the Towhee into the slow movement of his third piano concerto.

Andras Schiff