Northern Appalachian Songs of Charles Brink, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, from the Samuel Bayard Collection

Experience a performance of the Northern Appalachian music of Charles Brink, 1862-1950, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, from the unpublished Samuel Bayard Folk Song Collection. With his wide-ranging repertoire, Brink bridges the years between his forbears’ world and our own. Experience a performance of the songs and ballads of rural western Pennsylvania as Penn State folklorist Samuel P. Bayard recorded them from Charles Scott Brink, 1862-1950, a farmer who lived near Smicksburg, Indiana County, an area noted for its oil, gas, and forest resources, and its scenic beauty. Brink’s northern Appalachian repertoire embodied song and ballad traditions from American regions north and south of Pennsylvania, as well as American versions of English, Scottish and Irish folk songs. Although he was in his eighties when Bayard and his assistant, Phil Jack, recorded him, and Brink could no longer play his fiddle, he sang fine examples of Child, broadside, love, and crime ballads, along with comic songs, play party songs, and other pieces, with roots reaching from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Margaret and Beth Folkemer will play and sing selections from Brink’s varied repertoire, and session attendees will be invited to join in singing Brink’s refrains

Old Westmoreland: Northern Appalachian ballads, songs, and spirituals from the unpublished Bayard Folk Song Collection

Experience, sing, and/or play traditional Northern Appalachian music from the unpublished Samuel Bayard Folk Song Collection and consider how its source-singers communicate to a new century. Penn State folklorist Samuel P. Bayard collected traditional English-language songs, ballads and spirituals during the early twentieth century, concentrating on rich but largely unrecorded sources in the Appalachian counties of Pennsylvania, as well as West Virginia. Focusing on material from Pennsylvania and Marshall County, northwestern West Virginia, workshop attendees will experience selections from Bayard’s northern Appalachian ballads, songs, and spirituals. They will note the source singers’ backgrounds, and explore the songs’ context, relationship to the larger tradition, and meaning for contemporary hearers. Emphasis will be placed on encountering as many songs and source singers as possible. Music and lyrics will be provided so that all may follow, sing or play along. Those who would like to play should bring a musical instrument. A few extra instruments will be available. There will be a brief presentation about Bayard\u27s large and substantially unpublished collection and a very brief update on Dearest Home\u27s Bayard project, which is bringing these songs to life in a twenty-first century context

Mountain Born: Jean Ritchie\u27s Musical Voice

Experience and participate in Jean Ritchie\u27s songs, and explore their context in Appalachian music and culture. Join the “Forks of Troublesome Band” (an ad hoc group of ASA musicians, scholars and writers including Dana Wildsmith, Deborah Thompson, Ron Pen, Rich Kirby, and Margaret and Beth Folkemer) to experience, sing, and play varied selections from Jean Ritchie’s song repertoire, and to explore their context in Appalachian music and culture. “Song-ballets” with the texts will be provided so that everyone participates! Jean Ritchie, born 1922, Viper, Kentucky, has collected and performed traditional mountain songs, as well as being a songwriter, author, leading figure in the mountain dulcimer revival, recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, and activist for Appalachian environmental and human causes. Song selections will represent the following categories: songs from her family and community traditions; songs addressing Appalachian and world social issues such as peace, economic and ecological sustainability, and human equality; original songs published under the pseudonym “Than Hall;” original songs expressing love for her Appalachian home and culture; songs remade from traditional material; and songs from her Fulbright travel or with roots in the British Isles and Ireland