As the Tri-Town libraries of Marion, Mattapoisett, and Rochester continue their “One Book, Tri-Town” program, no aspect of the selected book’s theme – the Great Depression era – is left out, and that includes the music of the times.
On March 17, the Friends of the Rochester Library hosted an afternoon of music, an old fashioned sing-along, featuring songs from the 1930s. Members of the New Bedford Sea Chanty Chorus and Chuck Smiler provided the vocals, and accompanying the singers were Rochester Library Director Gail Roberts on piano, Woody Underwood on his fiddle and guitar, Pauli Gardner on her double base she calls “Virginia”, Jack Dean on the ukulele, Robert Constantine on guitar, Louise Anthony on violin, and Gary Johnson who sat in playing his autoharp.
The group sang and played, filling the Mattapoisett Public Library conference room with harmonious sounds and encouraging words for the audience to sing along and not be shy.
The selected pieces spanned familiar tunes such as On Top Of Old Smokey, Skip To My Lou, and Home On The Range, but other songs spoke to the pain experienced during the difficult years of the Great Depression. Chief among them were the lyrics of Woody Guthrie’s Brother Can You Spare A Dime, and what Roberts called “that socialist song” – This Land Is Your Land – also written by Guthrie.
And then there was the song Keep On The Sunny Side. Written in 1899 and popularized by the famous musical family The Carters in 1928, the song most assuredly helped the struggling throngs during mass migrations from the Dust Bowl to the land of plenty, California.
Roberts briefly noted that the father and son team Charles and Alan Lomax was singularly responsible for ensuring that many of the songs of the American folk music genre weren’t lost forever.
Charles Lomax was a talented man for all seasons. He studied anthropology and blended that with his deep understanding and appreciation for music. He was at different times in his heydays a disc jockey, singer, talent scout, filmmaker, and producer for all media outlets, including TV. He inspired a deep musical appreciation in his son. It’s fitting that the senior Lomax has been called an “ethnomusicologist.”
The Lomaxes traveled the back roads and byways of the U.S. carrying with them a 500-pound recording device, which was used to capture all types of indigenous music from Appalachian scores to the soulful sounds of the Delta. The Lomaxes believed it was critical to record these sounds so unique to the country; music that spoke to the masses because they were the experiences of the people told through words and music.
Charles Lomax, through his education and in-field pursuits, believed that folk music and dance were used as survival strategies that evolved as humans progressed through experimentation and adaption; that these forms of expression exposed and strengthened the human spirit. Thanks to his efforts, thousands of songs, artists, dances, and other cultural endeavors are permanently recorded, not lost to the dust of time.
As the folks in the library worked their way through nearly two-dozen songs, it didn’t matter if one misspoke a word or hit the wrong note or merely sat back and took in the event. It was the coming together of people to share and explore the richness of lyrics and musical scores as a reminder: we are all the same, no matter where we come from or what our belief systems may be. As humans, our music unites us, lifts us up in times of need, speaks for us when we may not be able to utter a single sound on our own, or simply allows us to be joyful and at peace.
The next event planned for the “One Book, Tri-Town” program is scheduled for 6:00 pm on Wednesday, March 20, with the screening of “Pollock”, a movie about the abstract artist Jackson Pollack, in the Mattapoisett Public Library. That event will be followed by textile conservator Kate Tartleton on Tuesday, April 9, at 6:30 pm at the Plumb Library in Rochester to discuss work recently completed on the Purrington Panorama.
The “One Book, Tri-Town” program is a collaborative effort supported in part by grants from the Marion, Mattapoisett, and Rochester Cultural Councils.
By Marilou Newell