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  Albert “Hap” Collins

  Albert Hap Collins

  Albert “Hap” Collins was, except for a few years in the 1940s, a lifelong resident of the Blue Hill, ME area. He worked most of his adult life lobstering and operating a sawmill in the summer, and supplementing his income with masonry, blacksmithing, scalloping, logging, or a variety of other jobs in the Winter. But he was also much more: a painter, poet, story teller, fiddler, and boat builder. All of these arts were largely self-taught, and he was popular among local residents and tourists for his skill in all of them.

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  Allan Kelly

  Allan Kelly

  Allan Kelly was for many years one of the more popular singers at the Miramichi Folksong Festival, and in several cases he would sing multiple songs each night. By his own accounting, he learned several hundred songs in French and English from his father. Unlike some other traditional singers who specialized in certain types of songs, Kelly (besides being bilingual) featured a variety of songs in his repertoire, ranging from a diverse array of Acadian songs to Child ballads. Allan Kelly’s singing has been featured in multiple collections of Canadian folksongs, both in print and audio recordings.

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  Art Cahill

  Art Cahill

  Art Cahill, more than 80 years old at the time of this recording, was a lifelong resident of Prince Edward Island. He remembered many songs by Lawrence Doyle, a local poet, satirist, and singer-songwriter – including “The Picnic at Groshaut”. But Cahill (pronounced “Cahl”) did not only remember the songs and the songwriter, he recalled the events themselves as he was present for this infamous picnic. Though he was only a child at the time of the picnic, he described the day’s events as if they had happened only yesterday.

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  Bill Cramp

  Bill Cramp

  Bill Cramp, lived in Oakland but was born in Monticello, Maine, and lived there until he was three; then he moved to Patten. At nineteen he moved to Medway and married there the following spring (1901). Cramp spent most of his life working in the woods and learned most of his songs there. After retiring from the woods, he worked as a baker in his daughter’s restaurant in Oakland.

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  Billy Price

  Billy Price

  Billy Price, was a guide and lumbermen from New Brunswick. Billy, along with his cousin Everett Price, sang and recited many songs for Sandy Ives and other folklorists working in the Maritimes. Though some people thought this song was written by Everett, it was actually the work of Billy’s grandfather, Abraham Munn (pronounced “Moon”). Billy performed the song at the 5th annual Miramichi Folksong Festival in 1962.

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  Charles Sibley

  Charles Sibley

  Charles Sibley worked in the woods north of Moosehead Lake for many years, both in logging camps and on the river drives. He began this work around the year 1900 at the age of nine and kept at it for over thirty years. While in the woods he learned many songs and stories.

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  Chester Price

  Chester Price

  Not much is known about Chester Price, but he was cousin to Billy and Everett Price who were important sources for Sandy Ives as well as Louise Manny’s work in the Miramichi area. The Price cousins descended from a musical family, including their grandfather Abraham Munn, a singer and song-writer in his own right. Chester sang only one song for Sandy Ives, “Benjamin Deane,” and it was almost by accident that he was even at Billy’s house to begin with. He had stopped by while hitch-hiking to the dentist!

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  Chester Ringdahl

  Chester Ringdahl

  Except for a brief time living in Worcester, Massachusetts, Chester Ringdahl was a lifelong resident of New Sweden, ME. His grandmother was one of the original Swedish settlers in the town. Ringdahl, as one of the few remaining Swedish speaking members of the community, helped pass along the area’s cultural heritage that would otherwise have been lost. The performance heard here was recorded by Ringdahl some time before the interview with Jeff McKeen.

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  Clarence Berry

  Clarence Ulmer Berry

  Clarence Ulmer Berry was born June 8, 1900, in Jacksonville, Maine, the youngest of twelve children. Before 1942 Berry worked in the woods, on drives and in the mills (with the exception of a short time in Portland and Detroit, Michigan, where he worked as a machinist). After 1942 he worked for the St. Regis Paper Co. Berry was married with seven children and seven grand­children, and lived in his family home in the town where he was born.

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  Dale Potter

  Dale Potter

  Dale Potter of Mattawamkeag, Maine came from a singing Irish background and learned his songs from his parents as well as from the men who worked at his father’s lumber camp. Mr. Potter was the star informant for Horace Beck and also featured prominently in the collection of Sister Poulin.

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  Eddie Rollins

  Eddie Rollins

  Eddie Rollins, 82 at time of this interview, worked in the woods and on pulp drives along Kennebec River as a young man. He learned some songs from his father, who also worked in woods, and more from his co-workers in the woods. He had a particularly extensive knowledge of “blackguard” or “blaggard” songs (a comic and vulgar song style).

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  Edna Juliana Bradeen

  Edna Juliana Bradeen

  Edna Juliana Bradeen, born c. 1900, lived in Brownville Maine. She learned many of her songs from her mother, Maud Merrill Fredin, who was one of the oldest children in a family of twelve. According to Mrs. Bradeen, her aunt, Susan Merrill Lewis, brought Fanny Hardy Eckstorm up to Brownville to collect songs and tales from Bradeen’s mother.

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  Elsie Diamond Smith

  Elsie Diamond Smith

  Elsie Diamond Smith, born in New Brunswick around 1900, was one of the informants for Margaret Small’s folklore project. An African-American, she had moved to Bangor over fifty years before the interview with Small. She had extensive knowledge of herbal remedies for many ailments.

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  Eric Dow

  Eric Dow

  Eric Dow is a boatbuilder in the small coastal town of Brooklin, ME. He has built many boats in various styles since he began while in high school in the early 1970s. He currently owns one of several boat shops in Brooklin where he still makes wooden and fiberglass peapods and other small boats. Brooklin is a small community (population about 800) on the coast of Maine, south of Blue Hill and west of Mount Desert Island. The town advertises itself, despite its small size, as “The boat building capital of the world” as nearly everyone in town has built, is building, or plans to build a boat. Several families build boats and have passed on the traditional knowledge of boat building for several generations. In short, the idea of boat building has created an identity for the community.

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  Ernest Lord

  Ernest Lord

  Ernest Lord was a native of New Brunswick who came to Maine to work in the woods. He did that for many years, and during this time he learned a large number of old songs. When he was interviewed by Sandy Ives, Lord had typed out almost 100 pages of songs and poems (though he seldom needed to use it for reference during the interview).

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  Frank Y. “Pete” McFarland, Jr.

  Pete McFarland

  Frank Y. “Pete” McFarland, Jr. was a boat builder from a family of boat builders. Starting at the age of nine, he worked on just about every phase of boat building, drafting and design, caulking, and more. He first worked in Damariscotta, but later moved to South Bristol where he worked for most of his adult life. He also managed a boatyard for many years and worked from time to time dragging for scallops. Everyone called him “Pete” because he hated the nickname “Junior.”

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  Gaylon “Jeep” Wilcox

  Gaylon Jeep Wilcox

  Traditional storyteller Gaylon “Jeep” Wilcox of Rangeley, Maine, weaves stories and poems together in his own unique style. He tells tales about his experiences: some that are true, some that are not quite true, and some that are not true at all. Most of his stories relate to the people and the beauty of the Rangeley Lakes Region in the western mountains of Maine. Born and raised in Rangeley, Jeep has spent most of his life in the woods of the region, working as a woodsman, river driver, and more. His fascination with the woods was so strong that by the time he was five, his parents dared not leave him alone outside for fear that he would wander off into the woods. His nickname came from his father’s observation, “He’s like one of those Jeeps, traveling down some old trail or logging tote-road off the beaten path.” He started writing story-poems on birch trees when he was ten using a pen, pencil, or jack-knife as he wandered these trails and roads, and over time visitors and locals alike noticed these poems on trees. They quickly became the talk of the town and Jeep has been sharing his stories with people ever since.

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  George MacArthur

  George MacArthur

  George MacArthur holds a place among the legendary guides of Grand Lake Stream. As with all great guides, he was known for his story-telling, singing, and poetry as well as his skills in the woods and on the water. Grand Lake Stream is a small town surrounded by the wilderness of Washington County. Nestled among many beautiful hills and lakes, including West Grand Lake and Big Lake, the town is known for its excellent hunting and fishing. The town is also home to the most highly concentrated population of Registered Maine Guides in the state.

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  Georgie Orcutt

  Georgie Orcutt

  Georgie Orcutt worked for many years as a telephone operator in Ashland. She started working in 1906 for Independent Telephone Co. from 7am to 9pm for $5/week, then continued with Aroostook Telephone Co. after it bought Independent. She worked for Aroostook until 1915 when her first son was born, but returned to the job in later years.

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  Harvey Gurney

  Harvey Gurney

  Harvey Gurney first became a member of the Grange in 1934, and was still an active member nearly six decades later when he was interviewed as part of the Traditional Music of Maine Series. He was a professional auctioneer, trained at Granger’s Auction School (no relation to the Patrons of Husbandry, also known as the Grange) in Thompson, CT in 1952. Mr. Gurney, along with many long-time Grange members around Maine, provided a wealth of historical information about the Grange in Maine. He also sang several songs that he performed at Grange meetings.

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  James Brown

  James Brown

  James Brown was an important resource for Sandy Ives’ work on both Larry Gorman and Joe Scott, as he knew many songs by each of the great woods poets. Brown worked in woods of Maine for many years and learned this song in Lily Bay, ME (on Moosehead Lake) around 1900. He was also a popular singer at the Miramichi Folksong Festival for many of its early years. Ives described his singing style as traditional, but individual, “a sort of pulsating staccato that made a line sometimes sound as though there were rests between each syllable.”

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  Jennie E. Gray

  Jennie E. Gray

  Jennie E. Gray was born April 14, 1888 in Mariaville, ME. Her grandparents were early settlers of Springfield, ME, having come from Oxford County when the only road was a woods trail for a horse. Many of her songs were passed down to her through four generations of women in her mother’s family.

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  Jim Cahill and Dot Ruppell

  Jim Cahill and Dot Ruppell

  Jim Cahill and Dot Ruppell were both long time members of the Grange in Bingham, ME. Cahill, who worked in the lumberwoods as a younger man, was a member since the early 1960s. He sang in Bingham and at other Grange halls in Maine, though he never considered himself a singer. Ruppell, who joined the grange in the early 1950s, was the official pianist, or “official musician,” for the Bingham Grange.

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  Jim Connors

  Jim Connors

  Jim Connors was a guide, woodsman, mechanic, storyteller, and poet (known to some as “the poet laureate of northern Maine”). He lived in the St. John Valley all his life after his ancestors had made their way from Great Britain to Campellton, New Brunswick, then founded Connors, NB, a small town not far from St. Francis, ME.

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  John Supruniuk

  John Supruniuk

  John Supruniuk, a Russian, was a long time resident of Richmond, ME and a popular musician and performer at public dances and other events. He played the harmonica and piano accordion instead of the more traditional bayan, a type of chromatic button accordion (with buttons instead of a keyboard) developed in Russia.