A Case For A Contemporary Collection Of Canadian Folk Music

Jen Delos Reyes

“The first function of music, especially folk music, is to produce a feeling of security for the listener by voicing the particular quality of a land and life of its people…Folk songs call the native back to his roots and prepares him emotionally to dance, worship, work, fight or make love in ways normal to his place.”

“If there was ever a time in the history of our country that our people should know themselves and renew faith in the purposes and traditions that are part of us, that time is now. This faith and these accretions of national experience are expressed in the most characteristic of our songs.”

Music is how we know ourselves and one another. That is what I learned during my formative years growing up in Winnipeg, Manitoba involved in the independent music scene. That same understanding was affirmed for me again when I learned about the work of Alan Lomax, the “Song Hunter,” folklorist, and ethnomusicologist. Before the age of 16, Alan Lomax (from hereon referred to as Lomax) began his foray into music and folklore by driving across America with his father, folklorist and ethnomusicologist, John Lomax in the 1930s collecting people’s songs as they traversed the landscape. Together they made the case for vernacular music, documenting the music emerging from the people and creating a portrait of national identity, not by preserving a history or tradition of music, but by acknowledging new forms. This approach changed their field and ultimately the entire world. The impact Lomax had on culture was profound. He popularized contemporary folk music through his connection to radio and media, and created a shift in the way people looked at and valued the production of culture – he made it clear through folk music that what was produced by people (that did not necessarily identify as musicians or artists) in their daily lives could be of significant cultural value, changing how America valued its own music, and its people. Brian Eno has said that without Lomax there would be no blues revival, no R&B explosion, no Beatles, no Rolling Stones and no Velvet Underground. Lomax had a pioneering approach throughout his entire career. Through the field of study he developed called Cantometrics, he set out not only to measure and assess songs, but ultimately to look at music and song as a measures of society and culture.

During his lifetime Lomax recorded the music of many countries, pressing to vinyl the music of the people of the world. Of the collections that Lomax acquired, Canada was not one that was focused on. Now, that is not to say that there have been no collections of the folk music of Canada, but that it is safe to say there has been no one that had the same methods that Lomax did. As Lomax wrote of the approach that both he and his father had, “they did not burst into a town like college professors in search of quaintness. They made friends. They lived in neighborhoods. They learned about the place. And only then would they go and ask for songs.” They knew the people, they heard the songs and then in turn knew those people better. This way of knowing, listening and learning about a place through music and specifically the music of the people of that place is of great interest to me. What it would be like if someone was to to take on Lomax’s project in Canada today in the same spirit? What would we hear? What would a portrait of this nation be?This record is a first attempt at what that might look like. Manitoba was the perfect place for me to begin, my province of birth. Together with my invited collaborator Kerri-Lynn Reeves, herself a native of Manitoba with an understanding of rural and agricultural life in the province, we took on the challenge of collecting a selection of contemporary folk songs of Manitoba. Having both been born and raised here, gave us a strong sense and intimate knowledge of the province and was significant to the project, as Lomax noted, a folk song expert without field experience is like a Marine botanist who never observed life under the surface of the sea. Over the course of two summers, Reeves and I reached out across the province in a variety of ways including driving to small towns, connecting with local people and cultural centers, and of course, scouring the world wide web to help us reach the areas of the province we were not able to visit. What emerged through these recordings were songs with a clear emphasis on place and prairie experience.

In an essay by Lomax titled “Our Singing Country” he wrote of his hope to make the Archive of American Folk Song publicly accessible by making the records available to the public at cost. To take that spirit of accessibility even further this record you are holding is free, and is also available as a free digital download. It was Lomax’s hope that American people would get to know themselves better from these records he released, and learn to sing their own folk songs. In this same spirit, it is my hope that through the music of the people of this country we can get to know it and each other better. I hope that in the coming years I will be able to add more volumes to this collection to represent every province and territory in Canada. In the future, if this projects continues I would hope to spend time living in every corner of this land and to collaborate with others in each place I visit who have an investment in that area who could help me collect the songs for that region.

This is a project about listening. Listening to ourselves and to one another, taking note, and starting in our own communities. As Lomax wrote, “These are the places to look, among the back roads in your own home town…Ask around home, do a little detective work, and then go out looking for songs. There’s music in your own back yard.”