Songcatching

I've been fascinated by songs and ballads for a very long time now. I grew up in a singing household and we sang songs that we heard on Peter, Paul & Mary albums, Joan Baez albums, Pete Seeger and the Weavers albums and other music of the so-called "folk revival" of the 1960s. So I was lucky to have a lot of exposure to music and singing growing up, and as I have grown older, my fascination for songs has grown considerably. I have had the privilege, for nearly 20 years now, to study at the Augusta Heritage Center in at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, WV every summer during their "Irish Week" and have studied under some amazing instructors, masters in their fields. Perhaps the one who has most influence me over the years is the late, great Frank Harte, who died a few years ago, sadly, but left behind a rich legacy of songs passed on and a love of collecting songs that I seem to have captured. In recent years I've made more and more of an effort to look for good - and obscure - songs to sing. A great many of the songs I know I learned from Frank or from those who learned them from Frank, but I have also listened to singers over the years and learned their songs as well as doing on line research on various web sites. One of the best I stumbled on not long ago was the John Quincy Wolf Collection of Ozark Folk songs : http://www.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/songs.html. There are some well known and lesser known songs to be had there and old recordings of folks singing them, some of their voices sounding a bit raw, but that's what's appealing about it, the fact that they are live field recordings made in the 1950's and not gussied up studio recordings. Those are often the best kind of recordings because they are, as my brother would probably say, "the real thing". I've listened to a number of old field recordings made by musicologist Alan Lomax and they are really great, too. I have a terrific CD of the 1947 Alabama Sacred Harp Convention of a bunch of folks singing old shape note hymns, a very raw and real sound punctuated also by people offering praise to God in their unmistakable southern way. A friend made me a cassette tape of Lomax's Irish songs collection and I wish I could find the CD of it, which I am sure is out there somewhere. This is the best way to do some good old fashioned "song catching" without having to leave home and go out and do field research - find old field recordings of just folks singing songs they've known since they were children. There seem to be plenty of resources on line for doing this and I plan to do a lot more looking for good songs to learn and share. After all, Frank Harte always said that all songs are living ghosts longing for a living voice. I couldn't have said it better.