Dear Lovers
of Traditional Music,
This has been a musical year for me with much of the year spent doing research
on the wonderful old tunes we love and are trying toprotect and preserve for
future generations. Researching and discovering new songs and the sources of
the old ones fascinates me, especially songs that I heard growing up. The
research was started as a part of my work on the new CD, Sentimental Journey. I
knew my parents and grandparents loved the old songs from WWI and WWII, but I
didn’t really know much of the history. In the process of finding the
songwriters and the year the songs were popular to include in the liner notes,
I ran across an older and deeper level of traditional music that is wonderful
and very personal to me.
As I have mentioned many, many times, my Grandmother sang to me from the moment
I was born. I never really wondered where these tunes came from or how
she learned them as a poor sharecropper from the Red River. I realized as
I grew up that these tunes were for the most part not played on the radio nor
did she even have access to a radio until she was a young adult. I made
two wonderful discoveries this year thanks to people who love and protect
traditional music for which I will be eternally grateful. I would like to
share this story with you and to reach out to friends and folks in the
dulcimerworld to identify more of these songs.
I began my research back in March of this year at theLibrary of Congress,
Washington, DC. I had the opportunity to spend a day with the director of
the Folk Music Center on a Saturday when that center is closed. Since I had
come all the way from Texas, the director (thinking she would get work done by
coming in to the office when no phones were ringing or no one there) unlocked
the door for me and let me come in if I promised to be quiet and not bother
her. I had full access to wonderful old songbooks and histories of
traditional music as well as a copy machine. I then went to the listening
rooms and was able to hear the original field recordings of some of the old
time songs. I brought home over 100 songs transcribed from the
Appalachian area and other parts of the country and Europe.
One funny experience that happened that day in Washington involved Don Pedi.
He is always coming up with these tunes with crazy names, which he swears
are the real deal, true traditional music. I started teasing him two
years ago about making that stuff up. I decided he was tricking us…how would us
Texas folks know if there were really tunes with those names in the hollers of
North Carolina, right? I found the sources of almost every one of the
fiddle tunes that Don has taught or played for us that day in DC. So my
apologies and my hat is off toPedi. I’m not sure what all he makes up ...
but it’s NOT the names of obscure fiddle tunes.
My next great discovery was made possible by the director ofthe East Texas
Museum of Culture in Palestine who introduced me to a man who had inherited the
sheet music of the pianist from the silent movie house in Palestine, Texas.
These 5 boxes of music and scripts went back to the late 1800’s. This
find was of extremely delicate and crumbling music with rusting straight pins
holding it together and in some cases hand stitching by the pianist. Many
of these songs of course I had never heard of but near the bottom of the box I
spied a cover that said,“Tomorrow, I’ll be in my Dixie home again!” This was a
song that my Grandmother sang to me that my infant ears only remembered a verse
or two. Here was the entire song in print for me! Again, I came
home with copies of old time music that was played in East Texas and the South
and was part of my personal musical heritage.
The year ended with a discovery that was virtually in my backyard all along.
The Ozark Cultural Resources Center in Mt. View, Arkansas is a
simple one-room library begun in 1977 by Dr. W.K. Bill McNeil, Folklife
Director at the FolkCenter. This Center now houses over 3,000 volumes of
regional books on history and folklore, recordings dealing with music of the
1840 to 1940 period (including the live recordings made onthe Center's theater
stage nightly since 1973), genealogy materials from theregion, and rare sheet
music from early in the century.
As many of you may know, Dr. McNeil, has been extremely ill and is currently in
the hospital. Two months ago when I went to the Center he was feeling
well enough to be there and I am so grateful for that experience. I was
researching the ukulele in old time music and specifically in performances at
the Folk Center. Sure enough when the concerts started in the 70’s there
was a woman named Faye McClure who played only the ukulele and made recordings
of the old music. I was able to listen to these and record some of them.
As Dr. McNeil and I talked, I sang a few bars of a song that I had looked
for in Washington DC and in the archives of the silent movie pianist from
Palestine. “Somebody’s Waiting for You” was my favorite of the songs my
grandmother sang to me. Through the years as I would try to sing it for family
members, they would say, “Deb, you don’t have the tune just right.” Since
I lost my Grandmother on my 16th birthday, she was not around to teach me the
song again. Dr. McNeil thought the song was from 1906 and that maybe he had it
somewhere in the archives. My Grandmother would have learned that tune
when she lived in Hot Springs, Arkansas, before her family came by wagon to
Northeast Texas. I heard that Dr. McNeil was back in the hospital and not doing
well and I really gave up on finding that song. Last week a copy of the sheet
music came in the mail. It was the best present I could have received.
I tell you this for several reasons. One, I think the old tunes that mean
something to us as descendents of a family is important. Darling Nellie
Grey is great to find in a modern songbook, but to know that your Great
Grandfather played that song to his children and neighbors adds a level of
meaning and importance to me. I want to play the music my grandmother and
her grandmother enjoyed in the parlor or actually performed at dances and
churches. My quest to seek out the sources and the actual tunes and
original words of these songs began this year with the help of people like Dr.
McNeil.
I am also interested in finding music for friends and members of my community
that was important to them. I found a great story from a woman whose
family donated the Farmstead Museum to the City of Pittsburg. “Where the
Silvery Colorado Wends its Way” was a favorite of her Father who passed away
many years ago. As a little girl she got to walk every weekday to the
corner to meet her Father coming home for lunch. He would put her on his
shoulders and sing this song. I learned the song on dulcimer for her and
she was thrilled to get to hear it again and shared more stories about music
sung on her front porch and the history of our town.
I welcome any titles that you may remember or even lines of songs from that
pre-radio era that may have been sung by family or friends. I have made a
commitment to myself to spend time at least every other month in the archives
at Mt. View finding and then recording these songs.
I hope you had a great and musical 2001. It isn’t necessary to know the
history of this music to love it and to play it with friends. Much of these
traditional songs have been passed along through jams and teaching friends and
family. I think my love of the search is to feel connected to my
wonderful Grandmotherand to find more of her songs to pass on to my grandson
and his children and grandchildren. I don’t want the stories and the
songs to be lost. In genealogy research you get to find out where you
came from in a technical way, what part of the country and the world, dates and
sometimes photos or portraits. The songs are much harder to find because
once we sing a song it is ether and is lost in the mist of time and memory.
Here is wishing you a great 2002. Pray for peace in the world, more music
for our children and less bad news. Send a special healing prayer to Dr.
McNeil and to others who are ill or suffering. Please contact me if you,
too, have special songs you hope to find and I will add them to my search.
My best to you,
Debbie Porter
Lyric’s Mama Music
lyricsmama@aol.com
www.accessgrants.com/lyricsmama.htm
