Subject: Request for Barry Finn stories
From:
DFP
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 04:17 PM
Hi all,
My real name is Emily Force. I live near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and love to attend song and tune sessions around here. To amuse myself, some time ago I started making a collection of the songs I heard here. Two years on, I'm up to around 450 songs in total, with author names and/or Roud numbers for almost all, local singer attributions for most, and marginal notations on history and context for many. Among other sources, I've plundered Mudcat repeatedly for this -- especially the Origins threads. I pretty quickly noticed that if Barry had anything so say about a song, it was going to be interesting, accurate, and complete.
Once I've found a lyric, usually online, I edit it while listening to its local singer to reflect his or her particular version. I "publish" a new PDF version of the books every few months with new additions I've captured, emailing it to anyone who's expressed an interest.
I'm working on another update of my songbooks now, and this time, I'd like to add a tribute section for Barry Finn. To that end, I'd like to ask for your stories about Barry and his music. In keeping with the nature of the songbooks, I'd like to focus on stories that take place *in* Portsmouth or nearby, or that involve other Portsmouth music community members as major characters, and that have something to do with music, at least tangentially. If you've already written up something for Mudcat or something similar, please feel free to forward me a copy if you'd like to let me consider using it (I've already read some great ones in the thread on Barry's passing, though I won't plunder these without your permission).
I'd also love to hear about any songs of his that I don't already have in the books -- again, preferably songs he did for us in or near Portsmouth (at the Press Room Friday nights or shanty sessions, the Maritime Festival, etc.) rather than his rare gems heard elsewhere.
Finally, I'd like to collect YouTube links to his performances.
My goals: First, to honor Barry. Second, to memorialize him for us -- we miss him so fiercely. Third: I think of the songbooks as partially a resource for local musicians, but also a sort of welcoming/evangelizing tool for new listeners. Anyone new to Portsmouth sessions is quickly going to wonder who Barry was, as we continue to sing his songs (and create new ones) in his honor, and to talk about him. When I was new around here in fall of 2007, for instance, I quickly wanted to learn who David Behm was, as he was so clearly important to so many people. I was lucky to be able to find out about him using Internet searches. (I'd be happy to send my compendium of what I found to anyone who's interested, by the way.) I'd like to create something even better in Barry's honor, with your help.
If you'd like to send anything, you can respond to this thread or using my normal email: emilyforce (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you'd like PDFs of the songbooks, please email me -- if you're not familiar with Portsmouth sessions, the songs are mostly maritme music and traditional Irish/Scottish/English/eastern American folk.
Please feel free to share this with musical folks who aren't regularly on Mudcat, too.
Thank you!
Emily
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sj
