Help: Need some songs!!!! - Adirondacks

Subject: Need some songs!!!!
From: MollyLee
Date: 08 May 02 - 11:03 PM

Hey, I'm doing a project for my Adirondack Literature class, which is to compile a collection of tradition Adirondack music. Now, of course I need to take things one step further and actually have my father and I learn some of the songs to present to my class. But of course I'm having a real difficult time finding any Adirondack songs anywhere, and I know there's some out there!!!! So, if anyone can tell me some sites where I can find lyrics, music and tab to Adirondack songs, or if you know any songs specific to this region, PLEASE let me know!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Help: Need some songs!!!!
From: DonMeixner
Date: 08 May 02 - 11:40 PM

You need to go to WWW.ChrisandBridget.com and connect with Chris Shaw and Bridget Ball. Chris has several CDs available all with songs about the Adirondacks and the history of the region.

Don

Subject: RE: Help: Need some songs!!!! - Adirondacks
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 May 02 - 01:15 AM

You may be able to find some Adirondack folk songs by clicking on this Google Search (click). There's a book by Norman Cazden called Folk Songs of the Catskills. I suppose it's not exactly the right mountain range, but it should work. Where do the Catskills end and the Adirondacks begin, anyhow?
Here's another, at a great price: Tales from the Feather Bed: Adirondack Stories & Songs.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: Need some songs!!!! - Adirondacks
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 09 May 02 - 01:28 AM

Folk-Legacy has cassettes of Lawrence Older (Adirondack logger, fiddler and singer of Adirondack songs and ballads, including some with specific place names like Saranac Lake and Ballston) and Sara Cleveland (Irish-American grandmother from Brant Lake and Hudson Falls with a huge repertoire of traditional songs and ballads). These come with booklets containing all of the words to the songs, but no written music or tabs. Have a look at the "custom" listings on our web site at www.folklegacy.com. I've forgotten how to do the blue clickie thing. Maybe a clever JoeClone will provide one.

I would also suggest that you look at Frank and Anne Warner's Traditional American Folk Songs, published by Syracuse University Press (if memory serves - my copy is at the other end of the house!). They recorded a number of songs in New York State, although the book includes material they gathered from North Carolina to New Hampshire. It's a fine book.

Sandy

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Clickified. -- Alert (but not that clever) JoeClone

Subject: RE: Help: Need some songs!!!! - Adirondacks
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 10 May 02 - 12:53 AM

Generally speaking, Joe, the Adirondacks lie north of the Mohawk River and the Catskills to the south of it. The Catskills are fairly gentle, the Adirondacks a bit more robust. These are old mountains, gentled by time, not as vigorous and rugged as your Sierras, but pretty nice in their own comfortable way.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Need some songs!!!! - Adirondacks
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 10 May 02 - 01:06 AM

John Kirk and Trish Miller (click that) also do Adirondack material. I have a video that's all Adirondack stuff with them and others, but I seem to have lent it to someone and I don't see it listed on their site...

~ Becky in Tucson
(originally an Easterner)

Subject: RE: Help: Need some songs!!!! - Adirondacks
From: Bennet Zurofsky
Date: 10 May 02 - 03:48 PM

I often vacation in the Adirondacks, and I always keep my eyes and ears open for the local traditions. For my taste, the best performer of folk material from and about the Adirondacks presently working is Bill Smith.

Bill Smith has several excellent albums of traditional songs and stories from the Adirondacks. I have seen him perform several times and, as far as I can tell, he is the genuine article: a traditional singer and storyteller from the region. I believe he is the author of the Tales From the Featherbed volume mentioned by Joe Offer above.

Sandy Paton is correct that the Warner's include many songs from the Adirondacks in their fine collection. At least one of their principal informants was from the region. Lawrence Older's Folk Legacy record is also very worthwhile. He is another traditional singer. A revivalist named George Ward has also recorded a cassette of songs from the region.

Most of the other singers mentioned above are contemporary singer-songwriters of varying quality. All of them have written songs about the region. I expect that for this project you would want the more traditional material.

You won't go wrong with Bill Smith!

Subject: RE: Help: Need some songs!!!! - Adirondacks
From: Lynn
Date: 10 May 02 - 07:36 PM

Try Bob Bethke's 'Adirondack Voices'. Also, Harold Thompson's ground-breaking book, 'Body, Boots and Britches' has many texts from songs (some from the Adirondacks), though no tunes. In my locally produced collection, Folk Songs of UPstate New York, I included things I learned from both Chris Shaw and Bill SMith (GREAT sources, both of 'em), as well as other stuff drawn from NY Folklore (the earlier incarnation of that journal tended to include a great deal more music than the current NYF Quarterly does). Good luck. Sounds like fun!

Subject: RE: Help: Need some songs!!!! - Adirondacks
From: raredance
Date: 10 May 02 - 10:50 PM

You might also check out "Songs of a New York Lumberjack" sung by Ellen Stekert on Folkways FA 2354 (1958). I think Smithsonian Folkways has cassettes (or custom CDs)available of the older Folkways catelog. NOte this is not a collection of lumberjack songs, but rather a collection of songs obtained from one person who happened to have been a lumberjack and lived in New York.

rich r

Subject: RE: Help: Need some songs!!!! - Adirondacks
From: DonMeixner
Date: 11 May 02 - 12:31 AM

I have performed a time or two with Bill Smith. At Beaver Lake Nature Center and at The Discovery Center in Syracuse NY. I can tell you he is without a doubt the real deal.

Don