Help: Arkansas Traveler??

Subject: Arkansas Traveler??
From: Clifton53
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 01:11 AM

I read an obituary today in the N.Y. Times, about a man who had chronicled and recorded songs from Arkansas. Of course, being a major victim of C.R.S., I have already forgotten his name and I left the paper at work.

Anyway, it was a great summation of his life(if anything can sum up a person's life in seven or eight paragraphs), but the thing that impressed me most was a quote from this man, in short, " no one can WRITE a folk song". I just thought it was so compelling, I've never heard folk music described so simply, yet so tellingly. Does anyone know this mans name? And what do you think of that quote, as we have had so many discussions of what FOLK is!

Clifton

Subject: RE: Help: Arkansas Traveler??
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 02:07 AM

I'm sure you are talking about Max Hunter, superb collector of traditional Ozark songs and ballads, who died of emphysema about a week ago. I recorded an album of Max back in 1963 which is now available as one of our "custom cassettes." Max lived in Springfield, Missouri, but gathered songs throughout the mountain regions of Missouri and Arkansas. He was a friend of Vance Randolph and Mary Celestia Parler, two highly regarded collectors who encouraged Max in his endeavors. Max had a wonderfully deep and resonant voice, played a very simple guitar accompaniment for his songs, and was absolutely dedicated to the tradition, determined to present the songs exactly as he found them. For instance, in one of his songs, his informant had sung about a mule the "pulls the bucket so well." Max knew this was meant to be "buggy," but when he recorded it for me, he sang it as he had collected it.

Max's entire collection, his many tapes and his carefully transcribed texts, has now been donated to the Archive of Folk Culture at the Folklife Center in Washington, DC. When I knew him, it was simply filed in a long shelf in the rec room of his suburban home. He found some great versions of our traditional ballads, and we are indebted to him for his years of dedicated work.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Arkansas Traveler??
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 07:14 AM

Well Sandy, that was a pretty good and sincere summation right there. And Clifton, personally I kinda' like the quote. It gives answer to all that business of style, background, region, or the big one...is this a folk song?....by simply saying, "Who knows?...Too early to tell." Or at least I think that's a part of what can be gleaned from one simple sentence.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Arkansas Traveler??
From: Dale Rose
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 10:28 AM

Some while back I discovered a site of such scope and importance that I have delayed even trying to describe it until I can do it in proper fashion, but this seems like the best time to at least point you toward a part of it, The Max Hunter Folk Song Collection which is a joint project of the Southwest Missouri State University Department of Music and the Springfield-Greene County Library in Springfield, Missouri where the collection is housed.

Here is the introductory statement from the site:

Editor: Dr. Michael F. Murray, Southwest Missouri State University

Please note: This site is currently under development. We have only a fraction of the entire Collection available at this time. If you don't find what you're looking for, there's a chance that it's in the Collection, but not yet on the site. Please come back and check again later.

The Max Hunter Collection is an archive of almost 1600 Ozark Mountain folk songs, recorded between 1956 and 1976. A traveling salesman from Springfield, Missouri, Hunter took his reel-to-reel tape recorder into the hills and backwoods of the Ozarks, preserving the heritage of the region by recording the songs and stories of many generations of Ozark history. As important as the songs themselves are the voices of the Missouri and Arkansas folks who shared their talents and recollections with Hunter. Designed to give increased public access to this unique and invaluable resource, this site is a joint project of the Southwest Missouri State University Department of Music and the Springfield-Greene County Library in Springfield, Missouri, where the permanent collection is housed.

Following this statement are links to the collection which you may browse or search by Song Title, Singer, or Catalogue Number.

Subject: RE: Help: Arkansas Traveler??
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 10:48 AM

No one can write a folk song...run away now, here comes more philosophical "what is folk BS" from someone with just enough knowledge to have opinions.

No matter what a songwriter's intention, a folk song only becomes folk if folk sing it. I'm not looking for another debate, so I'll just state at the start I'm using the dictionary definition of "folk" that uses "traditional" as a criterion. On a list of things that are insignificant to which songs become traditional, right up there with opinions about what is acceptable within a tradition expressed by those outside that tradition, is what a songwriter intended.

What a good quote! (I wonder if the obit is somewhere on line...)

Subject: RE: Help: Arkansas Traveler??
From: Dale Rose
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 11:11 AM

Actually, I was just about to do that. Here is the Obituary from the St. Louis Post Dispatch and here is the Article from the New York Times News Service, via the Post Dispatch.

Subject: RE: Help: Arkansas Traveler??
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 05:18 PM

Thank you, Dale. I hadn't seen the Times obit, nor had I explored the Missouri web site.

Let me offer a story Max told me when we went with him to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to record his songs. He was selling refrigeration equipment and supplies throughout the Ozarks, visiting restaurants and bars, staying in hotels at night. A friendly fellow, he would log a bit of time in the evenings at some local watering hole, chatting with the folks he met. They'd swap yarns and jokes, of course, and he probably even heard a song or two along the way. He enjoyed the songs and began to learn them

At that time, he was building a collection of handguns. Someone told him about a set of matched .44s for sale in Oklahoma somewhere, so he drove over there and paid $400 for them (a lot of money then, but probably an incredible bargain in today's market). On the way home, he said to himself, "Jeez! I can't afford this hobby!" So he sold the guns and bought a tape recorder and some tapes. At the time, he was just learning the songs for his own pleasure. He would record them, learn them, then record over them on the tape, to save money. When he met Mary Parler and Vance Randolph, they hollered at him, "For God's sake, don't do that! Save everything you collect!" That was when he began to build his great collection of field recordings. With each tape on his shelf was a small composition book of the transcribed texts, all written out by hand, and under each text a note: "Sang for me on (such and such a date) by (name of singer)." As his collection grew, so did his knowledge of the material he was gathering.

Beats the heck out of collecting guns, doesn't it?

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Arkansas Traveler??
From: JimmyDriftwoodMan
Date: 25 Jul 04 - 05:29 PM

we're doing what we can and would like to hear from any Jimmy Driftwood people. www.JimmyDriftwoodLegacyProject.com