Local Songs (w/Audio, etc)

For as long as Adirondackers have been learning songs from others, they too have been creating their own original songs out of everyday experiences in the woods and at home. Often these new creations become “old songs” as they are passed from generation to generation.  Many  have a known author, while the origins of others are more obscure.  Some seem to have been sung only by the author, or a few close friends; others were known throughout the whole Adirondack region, and beyond.  According to folklorist Herbert Halpert, all of this local song making is a good sign:

“I believe that the presence or absence of parodies or local songs is a test of the vitality of a folk song tradition.  If singers do not make up new songs, or manipulate the old materials, we have one indication that the singing tradition in that area has become fossilized.”

-- Herbert Halpert, Folklorist, 1951

While the region has no shortage of talented songwriters currently writing songs about aspects of Adirondack life (see Contemporary Singer/Songwriters page),  this section will focus on local, original songs from Adirondack tradition bearers; that is, songs of local origin in the repertoires of the traditional singers themselves. 

Murder, death, war, lumber bosses and other local characters tend to dominate the subject matter of these songs, with hardly a mention of romance, nature, the environment or any sense of home and hearth.

Songs:

Listen Aviators Hymn (1:20) Listen | Download
Yankee John Galusha

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Ballad of Big Moose Lake (1:55) Listen | Download
(Grace Brown and Chester Gillette)
Lawrence "Larry" Older

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Ballad of Blue Mountain Lake (3:15) Listen | Download
Yankee John Galusha

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Beaver River (3:08) Listen | Download
Theodore Ashlaw

FOR COMMENTARY ON THIS SONG, SEE BETHKE, Adirondack Voices, pages 127-131, 138

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Bert LeFountain's Packard (1:28) Listen | Download
Milt Okun

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen I'm Just A Common Lumberhick (0:45) Listen | Download
aka Bush LaPorte
Edward Ashlaw

FOR COMMENTARY ON THIS SONG, SEE BETHKE, Adirondack Voices, pages 91-96, 98

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Miner Hill (4:05) Listen | Download
Theodore Ashlaw

FOR COMMENTARY ON THIS SONG, SEE BETHKE, Adirondack Voices, pages 125-127, 138

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Not Far From Ballston (1:44) Listen | Download
Lawrence Older

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Roving Cunningham (1:46) Listen | Download
Theodore Ashlaw

FOR COMMENTARY ON THIS SONG, SEE BETHKE, Adirondack Voices, pages 134-135, 138

We have the text for another version of this same song from a singer named Albert LaBrake, who was superintendent of Fish Rock Camp on Upper Saranac Lake when he sang his version.
(date unknown, prior to 1977)

LaBrake’s version is essentially the same except for some interesting changes in locale: Cunningham goes “down the Ausable (River)” rather than “back to Saranac” in the first verse, comes to Lake Placid rather than Tupper Lake in the second verse, and charms Jim Hennesee’s daughter instead of Tobin’s in the third. Interestingly, he goes “back to Saranac” in the last verse, just as does Ted Ashlaw’s Cunningham.

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen The Boy Who Lived Here (4:00) Listen | Download
Sara Cleveland

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen The Roving Ashlaw Man (0:43) Listen | Download
Edward Ashlaw

FOR COMMENTARY ON THIS SONG, SEE BETHKE, Adirondack Voices, pages 96-98, 134

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Them Mulleyville Boys (0:31) Listen | Download
Lawrence "Larry" Older

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

  • Irishtown Crew
Yankee John Galusha
aka Lard Clemens Job

“The following relates to my logging operations in 1926 beyond the Jackson place on Mill Stream (Tug Hill area).  The number of men in the small logging camps generally averaged from ten to twenty.  At the present time this once beautiful timber land is grown up to brush”

-- “Old Lard” [John E. Clemens,  circa 1950]

  • Tebo
 Bill Smith


Songs by Lee Knight:

Listen Banks of Champlain (4:00) Listen | Download
Lee Knight

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Lily of the Lake (2:54) Listen | Download
Lee Knight

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen The Cold River Line (4:18) Listen | Download
Lee Knight
Lee Knight
See "Adirondacks Had Its Own Folk Songs; 'Cold River Line' Recalls Loggers Who Kept Timber Moving a Half-Century Ago," from the Tupper Lake Free Press & Herald, Thursday, December 30, 1965 edition.

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)

Listen Young Brennan (3:05) Listen | Download
Lee Knight

• Sheet Music (pdf)
• Scorched (sib)