Newfoundland Songs And Ballads In Print 1842 1974

In recent years, the assumption that traditional songs originated from a primarily oral tradition has been challenged by research into ’street literature’ - that is, the cheap printed broadsides and chapbooks that poured from the presses of jobbing printers from the late sixteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth. Not only are some traditional singers known to have learned songs from printed sources, but most of the songs were composed by professional writers and reached the populace in printed form. Street Ballads in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and North America engages with the long-running debate over the origin of traditional songs by examining street literature’s interaction with, and influence on, oral traditions.

In 1951, musician Kenneth Peacock (1922–2000) secured a contract from the National Museum of Canada (today the Canadian Museum of History) to collect folksongs in Newfoundland. As the province had recently joined Confederation, the project was deemed a goodwill gesture, while at the same time adding to the Museum’s meager Anglophone archival collections. Between 1951 and 1961, over the course of six field visits, Peacock collected 766 songs and melodies from 118 singers in 38 communities, later publishing two-thirds of this material in a three-volume collection, Songs of the Newfoundland Outports (1965). As the publication consists of over 1000 pages, Outports is considered to be a bible for Newfoundland singers and a valuable resource for researchers. However, Peacock’s treatment of the material by way of tune-text collations, use of lines and stanzas from unpublished songs has always been somewhat controversial. Additionally, comparison of the field collection with Outports indicates that although Peacock acquired a range of material, his personal preferences requently guided his publishing agenda. To ensure that the songs closely correspond to what the singers presented to Peacock, the collection has been prepared by drawing on Peacock’s original music and textual notes and his original field recordings. The collection is far-ranging and eclectic in that it includes British and American broadsides, musical hall and vaudeville material alongside country and western songs, and local compositions. It also highlights the influence of popular media on the Newfoundland song tradition and contextualizes a number of locally composed songs. In this sense, it provides a key link between what Peacock actually recorded and the material he eventually published. As several of the songs have not previously appeared in the standard Newfoundland collections, The Forgotten Songs sheds new light on the extent of Peacock’s collecting. The collection includes 125 songs arranged under 113 titles along with extensive notes on the songs, and brief biographies of the 58 singers. Thanks to the Research Centre for the Study of Music Media and Place, a video of the launch event, held in St.John's, Newfoundland, is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghj6E6-QiLI&t=21s.

Frederick Rennie Emerson (1895-1972) was a dynamic presence in the cultural and intellectual life of Newfoundland and Labrador for much of the twentieth century. A musician, lawyer, educator, and folklore enthusiast, Emerson was a central figure in the preservation and mediation of Newfoundland culture in the tumultuous decades prior to and following Confederation with Canada in 1949. Glenn Colton shows how Emerson fostered greater awareness and understanding of Newfoundland's cultural heritage in local, national, and international contexts. His collaboration with song collector Maud Karpeles in the late 1920s preserved some of the most cherished folk songs in the English language, and a decade later, his lectures at Memorial University College emphasized folk traditions and classical repertoire to inspire cultural discovery for an entire generation. As Newfoundland's representative on the first Canada Council and vice-president of the Canadian Folk Music Society, he played a crucial role in shaping Canadian cultural policy during the transformative years of the mid-twentieth century. Colton also reveals the meaningful creative works Emerson composed in response to the same cultural heritage he documented and preserved: his one-act drama Proud Kate Sullivan (1940) is a pioneering depiction of Newfoundland life, and the folk-inspired Newfoundland Rhapsody (1964) is one of few examples of symphonic music composed by a Newfoundlander of his generation. Newfoundland Rhapsody explores Newfoundland society, Canada's emerging arts scene, and the international folk music community to offer a new lens through which to view the cultural history of twentieth-century Newfoundland and Canada.

This collection of Newfoundland folk narratives, first published in 1996, grew out of extensive fieldwork in folk culture in the province. The intention was to collect as broad a spectrum of traditional material as possible, and Folktales of Newfoundland is notable not only for the number and quality of its narratives, but also for the format in which they are presented. A special transcription system conveys to the reader the accents and rhythms of each performance, and the endnote to each tale features an analysis of the narrator’s language. In addition, Newfoundland has preserved many aspects of English and Irish folk tradition, some of which are no longer active in the countries of their origin. Working from the premise that traditions virtually unknown in England might still survive in active form in Newfoundland, the researchers set out to discover if this was in fact the case.

This collection of Newfoundland folk narratives, first published in 1996, grew out of extensive fieldwork in folk culture in the province. The intention was to collect as broad a spectrum of traditional material as possible, and Folktales of Newfoundland is notable not only for the number and quality of its narratives, but also for the format in which they are presented. A special transcription system conveys to the reader the accents and rhythms of each performance, and the endnote to each tale features an analysis of the narrator’s language. In addition, Newfoundland has preserved many aspects of English and Irish folk tradition, some of which are no longer active in the countries of their origin. Working from the premise that traditions virtually unknown in England might still survive in active form in Newfoundland, the researchers set out to discover if this was in fact the case.

Twentieth Century Newfoundland: Explorations brings together ten papers by eight well-known historians of Newfoundland and Labrador. The papers address a wide variety of subject matter and open many avenues for further research. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography on the Newfoundland and Labrador in the Twentieth century. This bibliography is organized by topic and will serve the needs of the general reader and specialists alike. Twentieth Century Newfoundland: Explorations highlight the scope and complexity of present day writing about the history of Newfoundland and Labrador. James Hiller, Professor of History at Memorial University and author of a number of articles on Newfoundland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Peter Neary, Professor of History at the University of Weste Ontario and the author of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929-1949(1998).

Newfoundlanders have long and lustily sung their folksongs, and the tradition remains strong today. Despite modern influences, the old songs persist, mixed with new songs that are composed to record the events of our time. This is the first major collection of Newfoundland folksongs compiled and edited by native Newfoundlanders. It concentrates on songs of local composition largely ignored by earlier collectors and presents a significant number of songs never before published. For most of the last decade Lehr and Best have been travelling around the island recording the voices and favourite songs of anyone, young and old, who would perform. Recordings took place in family kitchens, on stage heads, and in trap stores while the singer knitted twine or repaired lobster pots, aboard ships at anchor or en route to some small deserted harbour. Humming engines, blowing oilstoves, or clattering supper dishes provided accompaniment. The 120 songs collected here by Lehr and Best have been transcribed by Pamela Morgan and illustrated by Elly Cohen. Some recall the distant past of a long and rich seafaring tradition; others tell of such recent tragedies as the displacement of outport people and the sinking of the Ocean Ranger. The selection represents the state of the folk-song in Newfoundland today; in some part it documents what is lost and forgotten, but it also celebrates what has survived, and thrives.