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It’s 1927, the Jazz Age, with poet Carl Sandburg toting a funny little guitar and strumming carelessly to the old tunes: “Whisky Johnny” and “Where O Where Is Old Elijah?” The Galesburger-Chicagoan published his wildly popular
class="text311">American Songbag with 280
songs from sailors, cowboy, railroad hands, pioneers, prisoners, and
preachers. Sandburg, motivated by The People, yes, finds democratic merit
in these common songs.
Next, in 1931, John Lomax, a musicologist at the
Library of Congress, begins lugging gear out into the field to document
“real” American music. Lomax and Charles Seeger, father of
young Pete, start a musical ethnography project that continues to affect
the music scene. It was the Depression, it was government make-work, it was
a nonsensical waste of the taxpayer’s buck. Lomax and Seeger went
a-mining for music across the American South, the West, the North and the
East.
In Illinois, a similar search for historic folk songs
took place in the 1950s at Southern Illinois University under the
leadership of Dr. David McIntosh. At the University of Illinois, librarian
Archie Green helped orient the university press toward publishing popular
music titles connecting with the folk boom. The Old Town School of Folk
Music began its first classes in Chicago in 1957.
Harry Smith, inveterate record collector, a guy who
scouted dusties across the continent, came after the Library of Congress
team. Smith’s collection of thousands of old 78s was sorted and
shaken to yield songs for his epochal Anthology
of American Folk Music in 1952. This
collection helped sparked the 1950s and 1960s folk boom. The impact of
Lomax, Seeger, and Smith is seen in the music of Joan Baez; Bob Dylan; Judy
Collins; Odetta; Peter, Paul and Mary; the Byrds; Joni Mitchell; Neil
Young; the Grateful Dead; Bruce Springsteen; and Tom Petty. Entering the
digital age, Roger McGuinn’s Folk Den project tosses out 24/7 folk
music by way of the Internet.
Just released this year is a three-disk collection,
the Folk Songs of Illinois, published by the Illinois Humanities Council and distributed by
the University of Illinois Press. (Interestingly enough, 2007 also saw the
publication of Dear Old Illinois, a book-and-CD set by Garry Harrison, with hundreds of old
songs from within the state’s borders.)
What comes to mind with this title? Sodbuster songs?
Coal-miner songs? Under the auspices of IHC program officer/musician Bucky
Halker, we find a far-reaching collection of songs. The collection veers
right and left, and up and down, holding to no firm notion of what
constitutes a folk song. We find home recordings, field recordings, and
commercial recordings, of all kinds and makes, of all types of music
(except rock & roll), some newly taped and some quite old, all thrown
together one after another. Just what is a folk song? Who writes them? Is Pete Seeger the only
guy who can tell you this?
Here, what counts is that the music is by an
Illinoisan or recorded in the state. In this sprawling collection are proud
fiddling Norwegians, husky-voiced gospel singers, Irish and their jigs,
Czechs going full-tilt, Chicago blues, and union songs. There is song for
everyone. If you merely listen to music, you’ll find more than a few
that you like, and a number you simply won’t want to hear again. If
you are a musician or a student of music, this set will be much more to
your taste: here are gobs of musical notions and ideas, specimens of
musical styles, and enough content worth weeks of study.
It’s 1927, the Jazz Age, with poet Carl Sandburg toting a funny little guitar and strumming carelessly to the old tunes: “Whisky Johnny” and “Where O Where Is Old Elijah?” The Galesburger-Chicagoan published his wildly popular
Illinois, says Halker, is one and everything, with people and their music coming and going. The story of Illinois music includes the Poles, the Mexicans, the Slavs, the Swedes, the Irish, the Southern bluegrassers and the German fiddlers, and the Old Town School. The popularity of commercial country music began with the old WLS National Barn Dance. Adding heft to the state’s musical clout was Chicago’s role as a music-publishing center. Folk Songs of Illinois holds this smorgasbord of sound. It’s worth noting some of the better-known performers and groups here: Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Big Bill Broonzy, Mahalia Jackson, Win Stracke, Art Thieme, and Janet Bean. Groups include Special Consensus, the Staples Singers, the Prairie Ramblers, and Alison Krauss and Union Station. Disk two of the collection is devoted to fiddle tunes, the popularity of which soared during the 1920s and 1930s. Frankly, some of the fiddle tunes are reminiscent of old Popeye-cartoon soundtracks, yet some help you recognize the utility of the fiddle in various kinds of folk music.
Folk Songs of Illinois makes an excellent surprise introduction to many kinds of music. This is rarely heard music, so much of it’s sure to be new to you. If you like to play music, you’ll find interesting stuff here. If you’re stuck in a rut in your listening, here are plenty of suggestions. The CD booklets are a nice bonus: You get a great little music history lesson in each one, along with extended program notes. Carl Sandburg’s American Songbag called itself “a ragbag of strips, stripes, and streaks of color from nearly all ends of the earth.” Give it a listen: The Folk Songs of Illinois collection has this same, ear-opening, sound-exploring appeal. You’ll find something you like and then some.
Folk Songs of Illinois is available at www.prairie.org/music.
Todd Volker, who lives in Ottawa, has been
picking at cheap guitars since age 17 and hasn’t gotten much better. A Knox College graduate with a penchant for history, he’s collecting old materials connected to the 1950s folk boom and playing bluegrass music at tiny venues in northern Illinois.
